Why are people from the EU complaining about VAT to LL?

I think you might be misunderstanding. (Easy in a thread this bloated with nonsense)

1) VAT requirements have not changed legally since SL began to pay VAT several months ago. There are no government changes to keep track of for the Europeans in regards to this.

2) SL began to pay VAT when they realized it was a legal necessity. That's very okay and very reasonable. They did not make this change in *company* policy and structure clear to it's customers. It's still not very clear that everyone is paying the billing system housed in England until I (american) get my credit card statement indicating international charges. =/ Initially they paid VAT out of the then-current cost of services.

3) It is a legal requirement in Europe to include a note when the price on an item is NOT inclusive of VAT. (This is pretty much opposite how Americans handle the issue, Americans assume tax is NOT included in the stated price. Europeans assume VAT *IS* included.) Since no notice was given when LL began paying VAT out of the stated prices, Europeans could legally and responsibly assume that the price stated was VAT inclusive.

4) Without any advance notice, LL changed ~~~their~~~ VAT policy. This was not a government change or a consumer change. This was a LL policy change.

Previously the price listed was inclusive of VAT- indicated by NOT stating otherwise and by paying the VAT.

Now the price is NOT inclusive of VAT shifting the responsibility of the cost to the consumer.

It's a simple switch and has nothing to do with the consumer or the government. Previously, LL covered VAT from thier profits as they were legally obligated to pay VAT. Now they do NOT cover VAT out of thier profits.

Even that change isn't what most Europeans are worked up about, however. The dominant issue that most Euros are complaining about is that the price for this months services- were quoted at the time of initial agreement (with the purchase of land etc) without a notice of VAT being excluded (again- this notice is required by law)- but at the time to pay for the service, they are now being charged VAT.

The only possible way to make a comparison to a more American way of thinking is if you went to a store that advertised a service for 300$ with a note: TAX INCLUDED! Seeing 300$ as a good price ~and noting that tax is included as advertised~ you choose to sign up for the service. A month of the service goes by and, at the end of the service you are expected to pay for it the ~prior months~ worth of service but, instead of charging you the initially agreed upon 300$, they charge you 300$ +tax. You agreed on a set price with all applicable taxes included. You cannot give them back the service they gave you. They have broken the initial agreement and changed the end price of the item.

That's the objection. The payment required was changed without notice or the ability to simply choose not to obtain the service or to return the service.

Fuck you. And to be honest this is the last interchange we will have. You are nothing more than a horse's ass.

/me clicks ignore button.

Cheers victoriously

Do you really expect a random Linden to know if VAT was included? Unless you were in contact with Zee and Ginsu, I wouldn't trust ANY Linden to know what the hell they were talking about regarding this issue. If LL is not charging you the back tax and they have paid the bill, SO WHAT? That is LL's business, and if the EU is going to accept that, then so be it. That's over. Going forward is a different matter - and we all agree that they handled this badly.


We do see that the problem is LL - and we also see that LL is moving to rectify it. But if you are not being charged the back tax, that is not your problem, and your world view has nothing to do with it.

You should take your own advice.

Nice to see the 503 isuue has been fixed while I was gone, as evidenced by the lively bit of Pie Throwing going on here.

Yes I expect billing to know this. Do you really think I talk about VAT to a linden when I pass them? Do you really think that I would use live chat or a hotline for such information? If you can't ask billing about this who can you ask? If replies to emails take weeks you would come to think that the one replying the emails informs himself before sending a reply. If people on that department can't answer these questions they shouldn't be reading or replying these mails. And you just point out the big problem being "If" Who says they did? They didn't say it so why should I assume it? If they paid the bill all is ok but if they didn't I or the lindens owe the gov still money. Who''s door will be the easiest to collect?

So why are you even interfering in something that doesn't even affect you? It has nothing to do with you so I can understand you are not well informed about the issue. We need closure about the matter, I'm from europe, it's my money!

I feel that way about general LL customer service - it is a crapshoot, depending on which Linden you get. If you get someone new, who should be somewhere in the back coding, and has no clue about the issue you have, you will likely feel the same way. A friend of mine was having technical issues with the earliest iteration of the voice viewer and the first Linden he got was someone new, who should have been in the back, coding. Not pretty.

If you had read the posts closely, Kitty pointed out two places where Robin said that LL absorbed the cost. I'm not going to dig for it, but Robin has said twice that LL paid the tax. If they didn't it's LL that owes the money, since the tax is levied at the merchant level. That's how the VAT works, right?

It affects all of us - European or not. [edited] It very well could crash the land market some more, and is likely to do so. That makes the cost of owning land by non-Europeans more attractive, which hurts my rental business. Indirectly, it's my money too.

What fee imposed on the Lindex? L$ transactions are exempt.

My bad - somewhere in this crazy spiral I thought they were taxing LindeX purchases/sales. Just re-checked the faq and they are not. thankfully... But the land market concern is still there.

dont know why everyone is claiming usa pays lower taxes.
i am taxed far less in oz than i ever was in the usa.
bombs dont grow on trees you know.

Actually Nina what you don't know is that Canberra doesn't exist. It's actually a holographic projection from a basement in Langley, Virginia ....

Can't we have Johnny Depp? Or maybe they could take turns?

Doesn't he live in France most of the time? Better ask them.

believe me, i am full aware that the usa pulls john howards puppet strings. thats why he's GONE in a couple of months.

Nah, he's in LA a lot. He just goes outside California to smoke.

It appears this way, but it is not in fact true. What emergency rooms are required to do is stabilize you. They then send you home, and the diabetes/cancer/dislocated joint that led you to the emergency room is STILL THERE and not treated.

Because of this, the American Cancer Society is now leading a drive to make sure that health care - *real* care and not just putting a patch on someone - is accessible to all. There's not much point in having fancy medical technology if the death rate from cancer is substantially higher for the uninsured and underinsured.

The uninsured will include YOU if you ever get a disease severe enough to force you off your job.

One of the best essays against using "insurance" to pay for healthcare was done by Friedman. Please read it.

We don't necessarily need to have a socialistic solution; we could also change the regulatory structure in such a way that buying pools could arrange for their own clinics, in much the same way as a credit union is a pool of users who have made their own bank. Fat chance of changing the system that much - so the next likely step will be gradually increasing the existing programs for the poor, young and old until everyone is covered.

We can't afford the waste and costs and mortality that the current system is putting on us. Consider how much offshoring is driven by benefits costs in the U.S. Is this not equally as bad as a tax?

All in all a very nice summary of the VAT position - just wonder why an American seems to understand it better than many of my fellow Europeans, many of whom were initially complaining about being charged VAT at all.

I suspect that the real issue is not LL's new UK office, but the transfer of billing to a UK company. A UK company would probably do the VAT without thinking about it, I wouldn't be surprised to find that LL got a shock when their income from the EU suddenly dropped because VAT was being deducted. Given that the EU is one of, if not the, biggest market for LL, can't really blame them for passing the VAT on to us as quickly as possible, probably after a period spent trying to work out if it was applicable and if so to what. EU law is notoriously difficult to get your head round (I am an RL lawyer and deal with EU legislation virtually every day), and the whole concept is so alien to Americans that it probably took them a while.

It will hurt the SL economy because we will have less to spend, and some Europeans will probably leave, but ultimately it is not LL's fault, and even the short, or non-existant, notice is understandable, if not excuseable, given the big hit their income must have taken.

Whee! Now we're onto medical care and cancer research!

So, the explanation you give is that because they outsourced their billing department in UK, they now have to face that situation. If it's only that , then the solution should be really simple.
How much we earn from moving or outsourcing our billing to another country.
How much we will loose from such a move.


In any case, i am really surprised because i see such a huge difference in the way of thinking between europeans and americans. Europeans blame the no notice charge, americans just give the blame to brussels and EU and all the rest.

And also majority of americans writers here , give an excuse to ll that what happened is not their fault.

No offence to anyone. It is just amazing to see so clearly the different minds and also the stereotypes we have all in our minds about some situations.

I'm not American, I'm British, I just think that LL could probably not have done very much other than give us a little more notice. I don't think any company providing internet services from outside the EU would expect to have to pay EU taxes.

As for moving the billing back outside the EU, that wouldn't affect LL's liability to charge VAT, only its enforceability (and it might be possible to go to the US courts to try and get the money), and they would probably have to pay substantial compensation to the company they've outsourced to.

Ah thankyou, an American who has actually read and understood what we are really complaining about.

For those that have come on here to flame Europeans and tell us tough luck, it's out own fault for having taxes, the domino effect could effect you more than you think. While our gripe at the moment is no warning and prices not indicating the true costs, what will happen to the SL economy when half the population tier down, go out of business as can't make the profit margins required and not having as much spending money. The non-european business owners are going to suffer with sales going down even further which is already a problem. Age verification is just round the corner, yet another knock to the economy, who will have to pay in the end for the loss of revenue to LL?

a) the last time I bought from an AMERICAN company i didn't have to pay EU taxes at all. Or maybe you are saying that LL get to be american in america and european in europe?

b) when I recieve a VAT-rated item from another EU country, I can claim it back, provided I have the EU VAT number of the company issuing the charge (because I am a VAT registered sole trader). Where have LL published their VAT number?

c) The last time I did a cross-border VAT transaction, it took a 2 hour conference call with SIX customs people for them to give me a clear view of how I could avoid fraud charges, stay profitable, and present rational bills to the client. Don't sit in Dipstik, Arkinsaw and lecture us on our financial system: it makes you look like a tit.

Have you ever dealt with HMC&E?

They are a peculiar lot. Each inspector has the right to make an individual determination - so the promise made by Inspector A can be blithely overruled by inspector B at any later date. It's entirely possible that LL have had a taste of this, or have been told that they MAY NOT pre-announce the change in billing, or some other baroque and idiotic notion from the charmers at Her Majesty's Customs. Certainly, the HMCE people have been deep inside LL for a while on the subject of money laundering and undeclared income - and they really take no prisoners.

or rather, they do: a friend of mine has a lovely RL tale of being banged up for selling LSD, and getting out some fifteen years in advance of his conspirators, because he - get this - delcared his drug-dealing income on his tax returns...

Yeah but in practice over the same time window, the US/£ exchange rate has tanked; tier increase is swallowed up by rate differences, at least over the duration of my membership.

Monitoring the three-way rate movement between L$, $ and the Euro would probably be a good idea.

The $/£ exchange rate only helps Europeans if they are only using SL to pay the premium fee and have a home on a modest piece of land. A large number of people in SL run some sort of business where they make their inworld money via sales/rentals etc and then use the profits to pay their tier overheads.

I have a modest sized business on 1/4 sim of land, I now have to make an extra 4.5k in sales to cover the extra costs of running it. Hopefully I will survive, but there are many out there who wont. If you are in the land/prim rental/sales business the extra income required will be a massive burden and I don't see how they will make the extra profit required when in competition with many with less overheads. I only purchased my land less than two weeks before the changes after renting previously. It is now going to take a lot longer to claw back the 160,000L the land cost in an economy that is likely to struggle even more in light of it. I doubt very much I would have taken that business decision to buy if I had known what was to come.