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Gathering the MOSS

4th Aug 2014
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We’ve been looking to see whether we will have to register under the Mini One Stop Shop scheme come January 2015.

Sales to businesses in the EU aren’t affected, so that’s one set of customers we don’t have to worry about.  But for the end consumers based in the EU who buy our software direct – we are going to need to think about how best to handle the VAT.

Clearly we don’t want to have to register for VAT in more than one country and file local VAT returns.  The administrative hassle of that just doesn’t bear thinking about.

That means we’ll have to go down the MOSS route.

There seems to be nothing at the moment to indicate what a MOSS return should look like and how we can submit it to HMRC, but there are some points of the scheme that sound complex to administer.

Firstly, there is no de minimis and all sales to EU consumers have to be accounted for under MOSS.

Secondly, the sales have to use the standard and reduced rates of VAT that operate in that member state – not the UK’s rates.  I suppose that’s what the MOSS scheme is for, as otherwise it wouldn’t be needed if we could continue to use the UK’s rates on these sales.  But still, tracking all those different rates…

Thirdly, corrections to MOSS returns won’t be made by correcting future returns, like the UK’s current system.  Instead, we’ll have to file amended versions of previous returns.

And fourthly, sales are declared on the MOSS return, but costs aren’t.  Any costs for reclaim of input VAT go on the domestic return.

I’m very much hoping that Xero will deal with MOSS VAT returns automatically, otherwise No 2 and I are going to have a mare every quarter.

As to why the thief who stole from our petty cash box only took £20 and didn’t steal all the computer equipment and/or empty the box – I can only say truth is stranger than fiction.  Perhaps he planned to come back again with a mate with a van.  Perhaps he just needed £20 more to buy his hit that night.  Perhaps he didn’t want to arouse suspicion so that he could come back again and keep pilfering.  Who knows.

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By ireallyshouldknowthisbut
04th Aug 2014 16:35

I am getting rather edgy about Moss.  I have a number of clients with international sales (all small value, high volume transactions, no physical goods) who will need to amend their software to gather the data - at the moment UK/EU/non EU is good enough - and yet we dont even have details of what we will need to be recording, so there seems little point in doing and development work.

It would seem to me the most likely outcome is a slow take up and lots of non-compliance until forced into it. 

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