EC Sales list conflicting info, help needed

[YD]

Hi,

I have received so much conflicting information from the HMRC that I'm not sure what to do about our ECSL I am hoping someone will be able to point me in the right direction.

Basically we do distance sales to the EU. We have crossed the threshold in several countries and are registered for VAT in those countries and charging their respective VAT rates and submitting VAT returns to the relevant authorities. A while back we received a letter saying that because we had completed box 8 of the VAT return, we needed to complete the ECSL. My understanding of it was only sales to VAT registered customers were included (our customers are not). I was however informed that because we were VAT registered in some countries, we needed to include our sales to those countries and use our VAT registration numbers for those countries to complete the ECSL.

I have two questions:

1. Box 8 of the VAT return on which basis we are required to complete the ECSL, does not mention sales to only VAT registered customers, it asks for all sales to EU countries. Are we correct in included all our sales to the EU in box 8
2. Should we be completing the ECSL?

Many thanks

[Generix]

I can help on this Finally a question about goods/supply chain!
Was starting to think maybe I should respecialise to property or the flat rate scheme or margin scheme

Ok so you are making distance sales:

For box 8, rather confusingly, you have to seperate your net values of distance sales between those supplies made where you have breached the distance selling threshold in the respective country and those you haven't.

So where you have breached the distance selling threshold (and presumably registered for VAT), you would include the values of these sales in box 8.

For those where you have not breached the distance selling threshold, you do not include them in box 8.

As for the ECSL, this should only include sales to VAT registered businesses and internal movements etc. Therefore the box 8 figure should in most cases match the ECSL (and intrastat) declarations; on the ECSL you should report the value of distance sales to your foreign VAT number (and on your foreign VAT return, account for this amount as acquisition VAT, and then the domestic sales VAT on the actual sale to customer).

In summary (I'm only talking about distance sales here, if you make other types of EC sales then they need to be considered seperately):

(1) No, only distance sales to countries where you have breached the distance selling threshold should be included; (refer here) [ http://tinyurl.com/33venjh ].

(2) Yes, again only for distance sales where you breach the threshold - you should account for it as you would an internal branch transfer of goods.

Hope this is of help.

[YD]

@ Generix,

Many thanks for your reply. I'm glad you said that as that has been the way we have completed both the ECSL and box 8 of the VAT return I stated incorrectly that we were including all sales to the EU, we only include sales to the countries we are VAT registered. The query came about because the VAT number provided by the Austrian Authorities is not recognised on the VIES VAT number validation and their response was that we shouldn't be including sales to Austria in our ECSL??

It however raises another query regarding the intrastat as we are informed that this should include all sales to all EU countries and would therefore not match box 8?

Thanks again.

[Generix]

Sorry - my terrible wording as usual- for the intrastat, I meant that you should be able to reconcile the ECSL to it, i.e. everything on the ECSL should be on the intrastat declaration.

i.e. match off the ECSL to whats on the intrastat.

As you correctly state, not everything on the intrastat will be on the ECSL.

[YD]

Hi again,

your wording was fine and very helpful, I suspected that was what you meant I just needed to be sure. Thanks for resolving this for me, I will get back to the Austrian authorities and obtain the correct number.

[Generix]

Hi again,

your wording was fine and very helpful, I suspected that was what you meant I just needed to be sure. Thanks for resolving this for me, I will get back to the Austrian authorities and obtain the correct number.

Usually Austria issue a VAT number which is AT followed by 9 characters, in my experience these characters are typically in the format of 1 letter (nearly always U) followed by 8 numbers.

e.g. ATU12345678

Hope that helps

[chodgkins1]

Just read this post with interest. Generix you confirmed my understanding of both Box 8 v EC Sales List requirements and also my understanding of the treatment of the sales where Distance Selling threshold is exceeded on the VAT return in the EU countries where the company is also VAT registered.

However, I have one clarification question - what about UK VAT100 Box 6 ? VAT guidance notes suggest anything included in box 8 should be included in Box 6, however if those Distance Sales over threshold have been declared on my French VAT return should I be including the net value of these in Box 6 also ?

Thanks