Upcoming VAT Changes

Effective from the 1st January 2015 there are updated European Union regulations relating to VAT on “digital services” (for example: domains, hosting, virtual/dedicated/cloud servers, voice-over-ip and internet-connectivity) for individuals and business – European Directive 2002/38/EC relating to VAT.

As of the 1st January 2015 you will be charged the VAT rate in force in your local country (country of residence) for all products and services provided by Astutium Ltd under any of our online brands.

This means that, depending on your country-of-residence, prices including VAT that you will be charged may differ from prices you have been charged previously.

• If you are a UK individual, UK business or UK registered company – there will be no changes, UK VAT applies as usual.
• If you are an EU based business and have a verifiable VAT number, please contact the Accounts Team to have your account updated to reflect this, and VAT will not be charged by us on your future invoices.
• If you are based in the EU and do not have a VAT number, from 1/Jan/2015 you will be charged the VAT Rate as set by your local country. This will mean …
  • If you have a PayPal subscription – you will need to increase the amount to the new invoice totals for the higher VAT rates
  • In most cases, we will need to issue you a new invoice with a higher VAT Rate/Amount for any invoices already sent (for all invoices unpaid by 31st December 2014) – you can avoid the accounting issues and increased cost by paying the invoices now 🙂
  • Future invoices will reflect the VAT rate of your location instead of the UK VAT Rate
• If you are based outside of the EU but in a Country/Principality controlled by an EU country (for example Gibraltar) you will be charged at the EU VAT Rate applicable to the ‘parent’ country.
• If you are completely outside of the EU Region, you may from 1/Jan/2015 be VAT-Exempt and no longer charged VAT.

Examples of the Changes:

A client with a verified address in Greece with a Domain Name Registration will now be charged the Greek VAT (23%) instead of the UK VAT (20%)

A VAT Registered Business based in Spain with a verified VAT number will be charged 0% VAT and report locally (as now)

A client with a verified address in Australia with a Hosted Minecraft Server will no longer be charged VAT

To ensure that your VAT details on invoices are correct, please check and update your billing details by logging into the Client Portal.

Resources

Current VAT Rates

European Commission Blog Post on VAT

VIES – EU VAT Number Checker