BlackBerry® World™ Development

[opti-knights]

I posted several comments on this forum and I think this is very important to all of us to solve this european vat issue we are all facing.

This is a global issue as the european laws and regulation ask all merchant that sales to european customer to pay european VAT.

If you do not want to bet your company future you (and RIM) have to address this important issue.

This is why i create a new thread to focus on this important and urgent subject...

We are a UK based company, we already have a registered european VAT number,  but this apply to all companies worldwide that may want to sell their mobile and tablet apps to european customers on any e-store...

What we know from our discussion with the (UK) tax authorities :

- if the buyer is a non european individual or a non european company the rate has to be zero percent.

- if the buyer is an european customer the full rate has to be paid (20% as we are a UK company).

- If the buyer is an european company the rate is zero percent but we need to know the European VAT number of this company.

We know that blackberry keep 30% of the sale.

For the 70% they pay to us, we understood we still have to repay the amount of VAT paid on the total sales, that mean that for european customer our profit is now 50% from the list price.

In order to manage and report our sales to the VAT authorities we need to know for each sale if we are facing an european individual, a non european individual, an european company (and we also need their VAT number), a non european company.

This kind of problem can not be solved without the e-store owner help.

How do other softare editors managed this situation ?

What is RIM strategy to  manage this big open issue ?

Could we focus on this issue and not adress any other non european VAT issue ?

[QuiteSimple]

As I have already commented on the other threads - I don't think we have to do something with the VAT, since we don't sell the software by ourself. It is done by RIM. And RIM collects the VAT.

So if you set a 0.99$ price for your app, customers will purchase it for 1.19$ (assuming VAT 20%) however you receive only 70% of 0.99$, i.e. 0.69$. RIM takes the other 30% and the VAT.

[drdevil44]

Yes I'm a UK company and I don't pay VAT.

The way I see it is:

I have licensed the software to RIM and they pay me a licensing fee.  My customer is RIM - not the person that purchases from RIM.  This means it's VAT exempt as all my sales are to a non-EU company.

[laurentC]

Sorry to dig up this old topic but I think it's the most relevant about VAT taxes for european developers.

I took part in the new Blackberry Commerce Pilot and I need to provide tax informations on the Vendor portal : Manage Account Details \ Payment Info.

I'm a french developer so I need to provide a VAT reg number. But I'm an independant developer not a company.
I can see the fields are not mandatory but what if I leave these fields blank ?
I think the answer is in the TAX_AREA_FAQ pdf (Tax Area, question mark).

"8. Will I still be paid if I do not provide sales tax account numbers and tax forms?
Yes. If US withholding tax is applicable on your sales into the US, it will be withheld at the highest rate (30%). If Canadian withholding tax is applicable on your sales into Canada, it will be withheld at the highest rate (25%)."

Any european developers here I could talk with ? My pin is 27D1387C.

Laurent

[QuiteSimple]

I think that you mismatch two different things here: VAT and income tax. About income tax: if your country has signed agreement with US you usually pay part of the income tax in US and part in your own country. If your country does not have such agreement you will pay the full 30% in US.

I had this issue once with Mobihand, so contacted the US IRS (International Revenue Service) as foreigner and I got EIN number, and from that point Mobihand charged me only 5% income tax. Receiving an EIN number from IRS is not hard - you have to fill-in a simple form and make a phone call at midnight (given the timezone difference).

I'll check my files a bit later and will add here more info about IRS and EIN.

[laurentC]

If you look at the vendor account details - payment info page on app world vendor portal, as european vendors you can see we have to provide a VAT registration number only.
So, to make it short, is BBCommerce going to change anything about our revenues ?