Computerworld: U.S. firms scramble to comply with EU tax

Did you know that businesses outside of the European Union are now supposed to collect value-added tax (VAT) on digital sales to EU residents? Here's the list of EU countries for you, as well as the EU directive if you're not faint-hearted. Yes, you as an American or Asian business have to support the cost of collecting taxes for a foreign entity! In this article about Non-EU Businesses & the EU VAT Directive, the European Commissioner for Taxation (sounds Sovietic, doesn't it?) makes the very revealing statement that since European firms are handicapped by high taxes, said high taxes should be exported as well. Talk about getting it backwards.

If you're American and don't really know what the EU is or how it works, don't worry, we Europeans don't either! In a nutshell, it's a supranational body that took sovereignty away from nations while citizens weren't looking. Hopefully there's a small but organized resistance.

I'll refrain from suggesting what to do with this specific law, as we're not providing legal advice here at Up2speed (IANAL.) Let me just say that I'd advise to see this issue in the light of a cost/benefit analysis. Do you really need that Euro business? Though actual enforcement is of course easy to doubt if you don't have offices anywhere in the EU, but again, I don't want to get you in trouble, so do your own due diligences and draw your own conclusions.

I for one as an EU-based consumer report that I live in Argentina or Pakistan when I make digital purchases from US sites, because I'm fed up with feeding near bankrupt ineffective nanny states (VAT here in Portugal has recently been raised to 19%.) There are fair taxes, and then there's institutionalized theft.