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Where Taxpayers and Advisers Meet

Can we assume our customers are businesses?

Dave12335
Posts:46
Joined:Sat Feb 09, 2019 10:09 am
Can we assume our customers are businesses?

Postby Dave12335 » Fri Dec 24, 2021 5:53 pm

Hi there

Our company sells software licenses. Itis registered for UK VAT and also VAT MOSS for any EU B2C sales under digital services rules.

Thr software is quite technical so you would expect our customers to be businesses. Doubt anyone would buy it for a hobby or fun!

A few EU customers don't provide VAT numbers when ordering - so we're not 100% sure they're businesses and put it through VAT MOSS.

The question is can we assume they ARE businesses due to the nature of our supplies being quite technical?

We wouldn't have to bother with VAT Moss on B2c sales if so!

Any thoughts or experience welcome

Thanks

Trevor S
Posts:108
Joined:Tue Jan 01, 2019 12:37 am

Re: Can we assume our customers are businesses?

Postby Trevor S » Sat Dec 25, 2021 6:58 pm

See HMRC guidance here:
https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-vat-rules-if-you-supply-digital-services-to-private-consumers#businessorconsumer

You must be certain that they are a business. You could have a process for asking for other evidence where customers aren't VAT registered. The risk is that if it then turns out that they aren't a business, it's you that will have made the VAT error.

Personally, I wouldn't assume that they're a business purely based on the nature of the software. Even if they're not VAT registered, presumably there would be some form of official documentation they could provide a copy of?


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