alt Hacker News>>If dealing with VAT is a large problem for your business today
It's not a problem for me today. It was a big problem when I had no revenue, needed to do all the paperwork, meet ridiculous local accounting requirements connected to selling software in a different currency than my local one, write code, setup licensing, shipping the software to the clients etc.
It was a major source of stress and sleepless nights for me.
>>But even without those 3rd party solutions, I think the complexity is vastly oversold, it's relatively easy to get right compared to other regulations. Maybe I'm just EU-damaged already though, YMMV.
It's easy when you have done it once and know the process. It's not so easy when you need to understand if your product meets a definition of an electronic service or something else, when accountants you are meeting don't know how to setup VAT-MOSS thing because it's still rare or when you need to add your tax authority about something and their reply is that they don't know so you need to write an official inquire (that requires a lawyer) so you can get your answer in a few months.
When I was setting a new company in another country it was easier for me because I already knew how the process work and I could hire a competent accountant before the new company had any revenue. It wasn't so simple when I had 0 capital and just wanted to ship software to see if people want to buy it.
> It's not a problem for me today. It was a big problem when I had no revenue, needed to do all the paperwork, meet ridiculous local accounting requirements connected to selling software in a different currency than my local one, write code, setup licensing, shipping the software to the clients etc.
Since this depends mostly on what country you are in/you are setting up the country in, what specific country was this? Because it's not the same everywhere, and by the sounds of it, is a lot more complicated than most other EU countries. Germany is famously bureaucratic, as just one example, and differs wildly from the type of experience you'll have in Sweden.
> It wasn't so simple when I had 0 capital and just wanted to ship software to see if people want to buy it.
Most people, accountants or not, won't tell you this, but you're usually fine starting to charge people and running a business "unofficially" for a couple of months without having to pay any fines or anything when you finally "regularize" your situation. Many accountants have dealt with this sort of setup countless of times too. But again, people won't advice you to take this route, but it is one option if you just wanna ship software and see if people want to buy it. If no one buys it, just don't tell anyone :) Unless you're doing five figures or more in revenue, no one will mind.