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PayPal determine VAT exempt / location?

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Michael van Rooijen

06 Aug, 2011 12:28 PM

Hi CG,

I've been looking around various threads, including this one: http://support.cheddargetter.com/discussions/suggestions/28-taxvat/...

I am going to use PayPal to charge my initial customers, but I was wondering how I could determine their location. My business / company is based in Europe (The Netherlands) so as far as I know only customers from the UK / Europe need to pay VAT. Customers from other locations are VAT exempts (Or those that provide a VAT number).

Is there a way to (auto-)determine whether the customer is outside of the UK / Europe to appropriately flag a client as "VAT exempt or not"? Otherwise, a person living in the UK / Europe can simply click the "VAT exempt" check box and avoid paying VAT. How do you go about doing this?

Thanks!

1. Support Staff 1 Posted by Marc Guyer on 08 Aug, 2011 09:03 PM

   

   Hi Michael -- We're not VAT experts which is why we simply provide the functionality to charge VAT and to specify exemption and VAT id if applicable. It's up to you to determine who pays VAT. PayPal does have some auto VAT functionality but it only works with their standard point of sale interface. In other words, their VAT handling was a short-sighted implementation. We'll put this on the list of things to suggest when we talk to the PayPal product folks.

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2. 2 Posted by Michael van Roo... on 09 Aug, 2011 09:59 PM

   

   Marc,

   Gotcha. I'll have to see how to go about it. I doubt there is a 100% solid way to "check" whether the has access to VAT. I personally don't care too much as long as it doesn't get me in trouble of course.

   I think a good thing to do is simply locking it down in the terms and condition of my services that people must fill in the proper information in the forms fields and such.

   Thanks the info!

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3. Marc Guyer closed this discussion on 12 Aug, 2011 12:46 PM.