Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

>It's only $29 inc worldwide shipping

Oh yeah, thanks for pointing that out. The one time I'm not in a shilly mood (Christmas and all) and the post actually gets interaction. Murphy's Law!

>Any plans to add an EU or UK distribution point?

Sorta kinda maybe. I did have one, but a whole lot of VAT compliance bullshit caught up with me. In most countries, GST/VAT is handled automatically by large eCommerce platforms (if you sell something on eBay to an Aussie, for example, we'll pay 10% GST regardless of the item's physical location and the seller won't even necessarily know).

However, the EU requires every single individual business with any stock located on EU soil to register and file individually in every single country where the stock is distributed regardless of revenue. I can only assume this is to create jobs for bureaucrats.

Now that Brexit has happened and the UK's laws have changed to something sane, I'll probably get something set up over there. This will be months, though. Trying to set up a (different) startup while raising a small child means a lot of Espotek stuff gets pushed to the side!



Have you had a look at the EU One Stop Shop scheme for VAT? (It's only been introduced with the VAT overhaul this summer)

https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/business/vat/vat-e-com...


I have not! Thank you so much!


> Now that Brexit has happened and the UK's laws have changed to something sane

Interesting perspective - in the main everything around international trade got a whole lot more complicated for us here in the UK since leaving the EU.


Oh, I'm not commenting on the overall effect. From what I understand, international trade absolutely did get more complicated.

On the other hand, though, it gives the UK a bit more freedom to set its own laws and make its own agreements.

VAT laws that are actually designed to collect VAT, for example, plus we finally have a UK-AU FTA!


VAT is just as complicated as it used to be, especially if you sell into Northern Ireland. The only thing that improved is we don't have to do those bloody EU sales lists.


> However, the EU requires every single individual business with any stock located on EU soil to register and file individually in every single country where the stock is distributed regardless of revenue. I can only assume this is to create jobs for bureaucrats.

You've just misunderstood what EU was it's not a . You have to file individually in every country because they are individual countries: you wouldn't expect to file for VAT also once for all Asia, would you?


Well, if there was a standard VAT across all of Asia because of an economic alliance... Yeah.


The EU does not have a standard VAT rate, each country sets their own rates.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: