Friday 2 January 2015

Happy New year and quilt patterns

Happy (belated) New Year everybody.

We had a great Christmas and New Year.  Today the family left, spare bedding has all been washed, leftovers eaten for lunch and now I'm enjoying the Sound of Music on TV.

Now, due to the clever-clogs at the EU, new laws have come into being which state that anyone who sells digital things such as quilt patterns in pdf format to a customer living in the EU must charge VAT at the rate of the country they are selling to.  This means that if I sell one of my patterns through Craftsy to someone living in an EU country, I must collect the taxes and then pay them to the appropriate country.  There are something like twenty-eight countries and therefore twenty-eight different tax levels, all requiring different tax reports, etc.  Really, dear EU clever-clogs? Who has time for that? Craftsy do not have a system in place to identify where a customer lives, so I am therefore having to withdraw my patterns from them, and I will now be selling them through a company who will deal with all the horrid paperwork, calculations, collections and tax payments for me.  As from tomorrow, you can find my patterns for sale over here at Payhip. I apologise to those people who have listed any of my patterns on their wishlists on Craftsy, but there is no way I can get in touch with you to let you know what I have been forced to do. I hope that's a bit clearer than mud, but you are welcome to email me if you don't understand.

7 comments:

  1. Happy New Year Sue, to you and your family. I can't believe that. Sounds like US with all their different taxes in each state. Maybe this internet selling isn't going to be so good after all. I'll have a look at that sight and see what I think. Thanks for the info and I'll talk to you at some time soon. Take care.

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  2. The VAT sounds just a wee bit daunting and it is much like the US with each state having a different type of tax and if you buy something and they don't collect your state's tax you are supposed to keep track and pay them at the end of the year. Hey some of the online stores do not even list what state they are in, so nigh on impossible.

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  3. That sounds like such a mess! Hope they get it figured out quickly. Good luck with the new venue. And Happy New Year to you.

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  4. Happy New Year, m'lovely. At least you are still selling your patterns - over the last month I have come across a lot of UK teachers who have pulled all their electronic sales until this mess is sorted out, and even seen a few USA quilters who will no longer sell to any customer in Europe because they too are affected by this stupid legislation (which was supposedly brought in to stop companies like Amazon 'basing themselves' in places like Luxembourg and only charge 3% sales tax) but as per usual, hasn't been thought through properly.

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  5. Happy New year - sorry to hear about the tax problems!

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  6. Everyone wants a piece of the tax pie. It'll soon be here in the US I'm afraid. Glad that you found a place for selling! Happy New Year.

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