"Official" Forum discussion with the Lindens!

Its really simple.

X number of dollars will have to be paid as VAT.

they either get the X dollars from those who live in VAT countries.

or they get the X dollars from everybody in some way.

If anyone thinks Linden Lab will just take it out of their profit margin and not pass it along, I have some swampland in Florida to sell you.

The problem with VAT, and it's not LL's fault, is that it's an end user tax, and yet in Second Life, the person paying the VAT is often not the end user, as I said that's not Linden Lab's fault, that's the fault of the greedy good for nothing toerags in Brussels who have got their noses so deep in the trough that they rarely have time to come up for air.

Do you get your parents to pay for you?

Pep (I get my company to pay for me - but they can reclaim the VAT)

What are you talking about? Value added tax, the clue is in the title.

If you're illegally claiming VAT for your SL transacations though, I hope you get busted.

LL could create a system where EU residents pay VAT (in L$) on in-world purchases/payments which should be subject to VAT while non-EU residents don't which levels everything again.

And it's also the fact that few pretending to be a business in SL actually are a business in RL that's a significant contributor to the "problem", or they'd be exempt from paying LL any VAT.

The UK doesn't consider inworld purchases to be services subject to VAT.

People aren't exempt from paying VAT, it's a value added tax, you pass it on.

"If you are a business and are reselling, or adding value to our product before providing it to a consumer, you are eligible to provide your EU-issued VAT ID number to be excluded from this assessment. "

You're right, it's "excluded" and not "exempt". Please.

Kitty, if your supplies are zero rated you can't claim VAT back. If your entire business resides within Second Life and you live in the UK, you are going to be in for one hell of a shock if HMRC look at your tax returns.

I never suggested registering a RL business just to get out of paying VAT on a handful of sims . Which I think is what you're referring to?

I just meant that the problem just doesn't present itself for actual, real companies, but only for residents who are - for lack of a better word - "playing being a business".

What I'm saying is that VAT is supposed to end with the last person in the chain. However because inworld transactions are not considered as supplies for VAT purposes, I can't pass my VAT on, hence the buck stops with me even though I'm not the last person in the chain.

Even if I was a VAT registered business (you need to be doing around $130,000 a year to fall into this category), I still can't pass VAT on when the supplies are zero rated.

And so it starts........

Keep those wagons rollin'

Respectfully, Ciaran, if VAT was truly meant to end with the last person in the chain, you wouldn't have the crazy practice of hiding how much it is in the price of the item/service. It would be charged at the register like the sales tax it truly is.

Cristalle with all due respect we find the crazy practice having the exact money in your hand and then having the tax added on at the till. We find that weird.

We're not stupid, we know we pay a shit load in tax.

Seems to me you can pass it on, simply raise your prices.

Now I know what comes next, "aww, well then I'm charging more than my American competitors." And that would be correct. You are being gouged by your government, and that is who you should be yelling at. Linden Lab can't change the law, but you can, as a citizen of your country with voting rights (I hope). I don't pretend to know much about European Politics, or understand why countries went for the EU thing, which all around seems a horrible deal. But I know if I was over there, I would be fighting to get my country out of such a predicament.

I don't complain to Linden Lab about VAT, other than the way it was introduced which was truly shocking.

I have been complaining to my government, my MP, my MEP's (I have 7 for some reason) and via the Europa website and I have received plenty of letters and emails back, maybe if more people actually complained to the right channels people would actually listen, but when the bureaucrats have their heads buried this deep in a tough it's unlikely.

There are advantages to the European Union, this isn't one of them.

I don't object to paying VAT on my SL fees. I am used to VAT in UK. Dont like it much but I accept its part of our law. I DID object to the clumsy way we were introduced to it without notice, but that is water under the bridge now. As I recall, the majority of people cited that as their objection.

I will pop along to the forum though, simply to show that I know the Lindens are in the Forums and I like it. Thanks Lindal

imogen

Why did you let yourselves be saddled like that? Are you all sheep? We had a revolution a while back to kick out the folks who were taxing us onerously. Maybe you should consider holding one. Or a lynching party in Brussels, at least.

(By the way, after looking at my last tax return, I'm thinking maybe of taking my own advice. Why the hell do we let our governments get away with this crap?)

You need to get better advisers. The figure you quote is for mandatory registration. Any business that can make a reasonable claim to BE a business can register for VAT whatever its turnover.

Pep (If you can get THIS wrong I distrust anything else you may have said)

Correct, you can voluntarily register, you'll also need to do a shed load of paperwork if you do that, or pay someone else to do it for you which isn't always cost effective.

Of course *I* am correct.

So were you trying to deliberately mislead or were you just incompetent?

Pep (Your credibility is bust sorry)

I just stopped by that thread, and as usual, the idiots are coming out with the "Sucks to be you, ha ha crap".

You're not a very good troll, you took my quote out of context. You might get better at it.

Sorry Brenda, I just get upset when people deliberately or through ignorance make erroneous arguments because real life doesn't match their view of how it should be.

I will stop now. I have made my point.

Pep (It makes me feel like I do when my son complains "It's not fair . . . "

Huh?