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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

VAT on services provided to a US company

thebear
Posts:1
Joined:Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:17 pm
VAT on services provided to a US company

Postby thebear » Sat Dec 22, 2018 1:47 pm

Hello,

We are a UK based software development company who are VAT registered. We're building an intranet website for a US-based company and understand we do not need to charge VAT when we invoice our client (in dollars). After having read the article on this website: http://www.brighton-accountants.com/blog/vat-uk-usa/, we now have a question around what's said under the 'VAT on services' heading. I'll copy and paste the extract here and highlight (in red) the point we have a question on:
UK VAT may need to be charged on services performed in the USA or to clients based there, depending on the type of service supplied. This is a complex area, and there are specific rules for the following services:
  • Services relating to land or property
  • Services of short-term hire of means of transport
  • Services involving physical performance and events. For example artistic, cultural, education and training, sporting, entertainment services, exhibitions, conferences, meetings
  • Supplies of admission to artistic, cultural, education and training, sporting, entertainment events, exhibitions, conferences and meetings and services related to admissions
  • Ancillary transport, valuation of/work on goods
  • Restaurant and catering services
  • Passenger transport
  • Freight transport
  • Intermediary services (generally agencies or brokers working for a commission)
  • Training services supplied to overseas governments
Everything else is covered by a general rule. This includes copyright, royalties, licences, other intellectual rights, advertising, consultants, engineers, lawyers, accountants, data processing, written translation, computer programming, software maintenance, web design, sound engineers and technicians, the supply of staff, banking and insurance.

Referencing the third bullet point in red - we fly over to the US a couple times a year to attend meetings with our client and sometimes provide training for the software we've built in the UK. Do we need to be charging VAT for time spent in the US attending meetings and providing training for the software we've built?

My understanding of this is we're not selling a course or training programme, we're visiting our client to attend meetings and providing support for a tool we've built whilst in the UK and therefore shouldn't need to charge VAT much like we don't when we're attending Skype conferences with them and / or providing support via Skype (whilst in the UK); but we're not sure. Any clarification on this would be great.

Thanks for your time.

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