Can't get an invoice for my purchase

[giancarlo]

sure but you know the price as soon as you contact us via email and provide your vat number (mandatory for getting a b2b invoice).
Anyway we are asking the same question to a lawyer.

About b2b: if you receive a b2b invoice with zero vat it means it is in reverse charge. In this case you cannot claim a vat refund because it is zero.

What I know: from the fiscal point of view the invoice is correct. About the different pricing used for b2b and b2c I don't know if it is "legal" (or it should be advertised in different ways, like expressly calculating in the email we send as reply to your vat mail), this is the reason why we are asking to a lawyer.

[kingslanemusic]

Ok, thanks for your responsiveness so far !

It would be great to get a final statement from a lawyer so we can
continue enjoying and purchasing your wonderful products.

You can of course PM me when you have news regarding this, although
I believe this is of public interest ( at least to some customers )

grazie !

[giancarlo]

still investigating.... tomorrow we'll have a speach with the lawyer (it was postponed)

[fuseburn]

I had the same problem of not being able to receive ANY invoice for my purchase, even after several mails down the road. I stopped worrying about it and decided to never ever buy anything from you guys again, but this puts it to a whole new level.

Your prices are higher for people with a VAT ID ? ARE YOU CRAZY ?

Reverse Charge for services within the EU means:
- Buyer doesn't pay VAT to the seller.
- Seller doesn't receive the VAT amount and therefore doesn't have to forward it back to the buyers country.
- Buyer pays VAT amount to his country's tax office, at the country's local VAT percentage.
- Buyer can reclaim that same VAT amount back from the tax office, so the effective VAT amount equals 0.

The word REVERSE CHARGE means: The buyer is charged with the VAT instead of the seller. And that OBVIOUSLY means: The seller doesn't collect any VAT from the buyer, hence the total amount is reduced.

I bought PINK in your shop for 149,- € and I expected it to be 122,13 € net + 26,87 € italian VAT (22%).

Now you claim it's 149,- € net + (in my case) 28,31 € german VAT (19%) - just because I'm a business ?

I can't believe that every shabby Amazon Warehouse dealer in any EU country gets this right and will supply me with a proper invoice with VAT (and they sell goods, not services !), while it seems to be rocket-science-hard to do for you.

I've never encountered any other company handling it like you seem to do - no matter if they make it clear upfront or not. It's not even depending on what your lawyer will tell you - it's straight up morally questionable !

Please fix this !

[giancarlo]

Ok but the accountant and the lawyer basically said the same.

Here final words from them:
- the only things we need to do on our side is to specify in our market that the price for b2b could be different. Basically there is no law which enforces the same price both for the b2b and the b2c shop. Anyway we need to say "it could be different". Basically we already did it in the forum, but from a transparency point of view it is better if we place the same disclaimer also in our webshope (we'll do it asap).
- it is not "illegal" (answer to the question): read below
- infact it is true that for the end consumer we are forced to comunicate the FINAL gross price, but all european rights used for the "consumer" don't apply to "companies". Basically the lawyer said that "companies" are a sort of "informed" subject, so it is enough to specify that the price will be different. When you ask for a b2b invoice you are not an end consumer any more, you are a company. A lot of rules change or don't apply.
- if you want to know the final price of a b2b transaction just send an email before buying

Anyway as soon as we'll set up the new system we'll evaluate a way for getting a b2b shop with prices expressed as gross amounts with vat0 (so a lower price), but the answer to the question is "today what we are doing is not illegal". The accountant basically told us the same, but we preferred to consult a lawyer because the "illegal question".

About amazon: still it is a different case, for example amazon here in italy is an italian company which is sending goods directly from italy. I don't know which is your case. When I ordered things from amazon coming from different countries I had a similar situation (no vat expressed, just a "gross" and I paid that exact gross).

[kingslanemusic]

Ok but the accountant and the lawyer basically said the same.
Here final words from them:
- the only things we need to do on our side is to specify in our market that the price for b2b could be different. Basically there is no law which enforces the same price both for the b2b and the b2c shop. Anyway we need to say "it could be different". Basically we already did it in the forum, but from a transparency point of view it is better if we place the same disclaimer also in our webshope (we'll do it asap).

Ok, so first of all, if you decide to go down that route:
you shouldn't say "it COULD be different", you need to state it IS different
for customers inside the EU.
In addition to that you either MUST remove the price tag completely or
advertise all final GROSS prices for EVERY single EU country.
This is EU law.
GROSS price means INCLUDING VAT, no matter if you're a B2b or B2C customer. ( the VAT rate is defined by the customers country )

The current situation IS ILLEGAL - as you said yourself, you MUST have a final GROSS prices in your webshop - a hint in a forum is not an excuse for NOT DOING THIS.

- if you want to know the final price of a b2b transaction just send an email before buying
.

This is a joke, right ?
You NEED to advertise final GROSS prices like your lawyer said.
You want professional customers from the EU to "send an email to get info on the final pricing" ?
That's ridiculous...

Basically there is no law which enforces the same price both for the b2b and the b2c shop.
.

Generally this is correct,
but atm there is only ONE AA shop - and no other company in the world has different shops ( or prices ) for B2B and B2C.

- infact it is true that for the end consumer we are forced to comunicate the FINAL gross price, but all european rights used for the "consumer" don't apply to "companies". Basically the lawyer said that "companies" are a sort of "informed" subject, so it is enough to specify that the price will be different.

I am a consumer - a professional consumer.
I am a self employed person, a freelancer, NOT a company, by definition of my country's laws ( in this case Germany ).

What you do is juridical hair splitting.

Honestly, if you want to sell your stuff only to amateurs, go on...
I will not buy anything ever again from a company with this kind of mindset.

Your plugins are good, but not the be all and end all of things.

And, last but not least, no matter how you quote your accountant - my accountant told me what you do IS ILLEGAL.

[giancarlo]

yes I know, and this was exactly my question (before leading this company I had for a while a "partita iva", in italy it is a sort of self employement). But a business user is still considered different from the consumer user (at least from the legal point of view), infact you don't have a b2c invoice (we produce compulsory ones for several countries where they are mandatory) but a b2b one. The fact you receive a b2b one means you are a professional, so you can understand which is the gross amount of the product (this is the point of the whole discussion).
The lawyer told me also other interesting things, for example refunds and other rights are severely affected in the business case. I even didn't know that.

By the way, our accountant did NOT know about the legal aspect for this question. We consulted a lawyer (very expert about this matter) because we were not sure about it.

[kingslanemusic]

we're going round in circles...

In fact you have sold me 6 plugins in the last 2 years and refused to supply
me with a proper invoice.
Your company now subsequently tries to tell me I HAVE TO PAY MORE in order to get one... hilarious.
It does not matter if I am a professional customer or not - according to EU tax rules I don't have to ask, because ALL PRICES IN WEBSHOPS MUST BE GROSS.

So what happens to the VAT included in the prices shown in your webshop, do you keep it as an additional profit ?

[giancarlo]

???? We provide invoices when they are requested within 10 days. We do but this is not exactly correct. Since our shop is a b2c we ask to contact us and communicate your vat number.

All our prices in our b2c shop are expressed as gross
But you are requesting a b2b. The rule is simple: if you need a b2b send an email and discuss with them the price. Our shop is NOT a b2b one. If you need to buy as b2b accordingly with eu rules you should declare your vat before and ask the price. At this point you could decide what to do.

This happens also with apple. If I ask a b2b later I don't receive one. Also supermarkets ask to declare it. In our case you should speak with us. You should send your vat. You could ask the price or even a preview for your invoice.

A lawyer and an accountant are basically saying the same: it is not illegal.
If you think it is not good don't buy, but I'll repeat what I said: it is not illegal.
The b2b invoice is technically correct. The accountant repeated it to me a lot of times: it is correct. I would never discuss it on a pubic forum if I was not sure about it.

If you still are not sure send an email and speak with them.

[kingslanemusic]

This happens also with apple. If I ask a b2b later I don't receive one. Also supermarkets ask to declare it.
If you still are not sure send an email and speak with them.

This is completely BS.
As stated before, I have bought tons of Apple equipment and I've ALWAYS been supplied with a proper invoice including tax for VAT purposes.
I've never had to ask for it.
Neither Apple nor supermarkets make a difference between B2b and B2c.

Your webshop is not declared a "B2C" shop, you do this AFTER a purchase.
That is completely misleading.
There is no sign, hint or whatever that there are different prices for amateurs and professionals.

If you think it is not good don't buy

That's what I'll do and as you can see in this thread I am not the only one.
It is pity because I like your products.

A lawyer and an accountant are basically saying the same: it is not illegal.

You are trying to outsmart EU rules on the expense of your customers.
The italian tax investigation might be interested...

[giancarlo]

Listen.
Fiscal point of view -> it is correct. We simply pay all taxes and we cannot do it in other way since we never see cash. It moves from a bank to a bank and we cannot even steal or hide a single eur, or hide a single eur to our fiscal system. Everything is completely transparent.

Legal point of view -> it is legal, repeated many many times. A lawyer said that

The only reason why we'll change it on our new website is just because I think it is not fair. I would prefer the same price applied to b2b and b2c, and the thing today is not arranged that way. The shop is CLEARLY a b2c since there is not a single field where you could declare your vat number, and there is a disclaimer which basically says to contact us and communicate it. The rule on every EU website is simple: if you cannot communicate your vat number you are doing a b2c. This is how EU works. As consumer you could not be informed about that, but as an entity using a VAT number you should be informed about that.


About apple: when we paid for the annual developer account we entered a very complex procedure. We had even a phone call with ireland. We had it exactly because the things I explained: there was not a field where I should place the vat number. So we were forced to look for the procedure and the procedure was based on calling support and being contacted by phone. They even accounted it wrongly. They explained to place the vat in one of those fields (the address). A nightmare. And this is Apple, one of biggest companies in the world.


If you bought many products like you said you received many discount coupons already, way bigger than the vat amount you are speaking about so 1) we are not doing it for charging more money 2) we are not doing it for paying less taxes (by the way, the number of b2b invoices is very very low, they are something like 1% of ALL our transactions).
So in your opinion why we are doing things this way?
If you want to continue the discussion send an email.

[giancarlo]

by the way I've sent an email to you. Last thing I want to say is an unhappy customer with so many products bought.

Umberto confirmed to me: b2b transactions are way less than 1%, we are in the range of 0.5% or even less.

[kingslanemusic]

PM confirmed,
For those interested in the subject, Giancarlo promised to revise the current situation with the webshop asap.

Despite having different point of views he was very generous and responsive
to me. Great CEO.

[giancarlo]

Thank you!

[Hannes_F]

I certainly is legal for an enterprise to use reverse charge for VAT but the way AA does it leads to a situation where a professional pays more than an amateur, and AA pockets the difference. With all sympathy I stopped buying any AA products after I learned that. I am just being honest here. (To be fair I already have plenty of AA products and might bite the apple if I did not).

I can see all this accounting stuff and writing invoices is not easy. However I need to do this too for my clients, and it is not such a big deal either and can pretty much be automated.