Pan-European tax system already with us?

I’ve always billed using my national fiscal number, but now I’ve got some loon telling me that I can’t do that anymore cross-border and that I need a European fiscal number. It would be nice if someone had told us. It doesn’t sound like the kind of thing we’ll get to vote on anyway.

Trevor @ 30 May 2006 12:10 PM

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Comments

1. MM
   10:08 PM on 30 May 2006

   Is that not just VAT?

2. Trevor ap Patnarthur
   11:20 AM on 31 May 2006

   Hell, what do I know? If it carries on like this I may have to go back to drug smuggling.

3. Javier
   4:03 PM on 31 May 2006

   I think they are asking for your VAT number, but in the “European” format, that is, beggining with two characters as national code (ES for Spain). So if your fiscal number is X1231231J, your VAT number turns into ESX1231231J.

   You can even check your number here:
   ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/en/vieshome.htm

4. Trevor ap Patnarthur
   6:08 PM on 31 May 2006

   Ah, now I understand! My problem–or their problem, as I already explained to them–is that in small-business-friendly parts of the EU (eg the UK), you don’t need to register for VAT until you hit a certain level of turnover (I think it’s around €90K in the UK). It is very difficult to explain to other parts of the EU (eg Spain) that being in the single market means having to accept legitimate arrangements like this. Thankyou, I thought I was going madder.

5. MM
   12:04 AM on 1 June 2006

   That applies everywhere, but the UK threshold is higher than the German.
   VAT may be an advantage. Depends how many customers you have who can’t set the VAT off, and how many business expenses you can set off the VAT on.
   But some people don’t understand that not everyone in business isn’t registered for VAT.
   On top of that, if a British translator does something for me (I once had a chunk of technical stuff translated in Scotland), and she isn’t registered, I have to both claim and charge the VAT. It’s a bit confusing.

6. Javier
   5:27 PM on 1 June 2006

   Even they think it is a mess:
   http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1785476,00.html
   But proposals look like just perfect to make mess grow messier.

7. Trevor ap Patnarthur
   10:20 AM on 2 June 2006

   The mess is, of course, part of a secret plot to make us all long for European tax integration.

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