On July 1, 2021, the EU tax reform was finalized, the European tax towards more compliance, Chinese sellers in the third-party platform to sell by the platform directly deducted on behalf of the sales of VAT, at the same time, sellers began to consider compliance customs clearance (different from the double clearing package tax mode), thinking about the issue of tax rebates.
As we all know, Amazon Europe station at the same time do five countries (Britain, Germany, France, Italy and Spain) sellers are very common. Green circle in the previous article has been introduced in detail in the United Kingdom tax rebate strategy (poke me), then the EU self-tax clearance, import VAT how to refund? Can you get a tax refund?
The EU's tax rebate is in fact fraught with difficulties!
First of all, we understand the EU autonomous VAT customs clearance, we need to provide the forwarder with the VAT tax number of the destination country and the company's EU EORI number. If we use deferred customs clearance, we can choose to do deferred customs clearance through the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic or Hungary Customs, and then transferred to the warehouse of the destination country; if we do not deferred customs clearance, then it is recommended to choose the destination country Customs Direct Clearance, in order to apply for a tax refund.
If you do not defer customs clearance, pay the import VAT clearance, and then declare in the declaration section to apply for a tax refund. Then, we need to solve the problem of the euro payment account, according to understand the current third-party payment company's euro account some can receive the German tax refund, some can not. (If you need to know which third-party payment company's euro account has successfully received tax refunds, you can contact the editor to understand.)
Secondly, France, Italy and Spain are tax representatives, and taxes are generally paid through tax representatives, and tax refunds are likely to be requested through the tax representative's account number to apply for refunds. However, it is not possible for the tax representative to guarantee that all customers applying for tax refund have paid taxes in compliance with the law. If any of the refunded customers are audited for tax evasion and fraud, not only a single customer will be affected, but also the whole group of customers under the tax representative. Even if the client guarantees that the previous tax payments were in compliance, it will take a very long time for the French and Italian tax authorities to process the tax refund.
It is worth mentioning that Germany is not a tax representative. Provided that you have a bank account that can receive payments in euros, you can get a refund without any problems, but the timeframe for the refund to arrive in your account is not very stable.
Summarize the above, the green circle suggests that sellers: as far as possible through the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech Republic or Hungary to do deferred customs clearance to the European Union; import VAT is not paid or refunded, and then every month in a timely manner to provide C88 documents to the tax agent to do the EU internal B2B purchase declaration can be done, which is very important!
Below, I would like to highlight the German tax rebate that sellers are most concerned about.
Germany is located in the center of the European Union, as one of the EU's economically developed and more densely populated countries, with a favorable geographical location, port transportation, logistics and overseas warehousing resources, which is conducive to the EU-wide long-distance distribution of goods, coupled with DE VAT rate is slightly lower than that of other EU countries, so Germany will be the first choice of the sellers to enter the EU country.
In addition, the goods into the German warehouse, direct customs clearance in Germany, the first leg of the logistics costs and time will be more advantageous, I'm in the process of exchanging with the seller, there are many sellers will choose to pay the import VAT customs clearance in Germany, how to refund the tax in Germany at this time?
If the seller in the registration of German VAT, in the tax agent's registration application form has filled in the details of the company's euro receipts account, the tax agent also in the tax system records the seller's euro receipts account, after the completion of the monthly tax return, if the report shows the amount of pending refund, the tax office will be refunded directly to the seller's euro receipts account on file, the arrival time of this account is generally 1-2 months.
However, if the seller did not fill in the details of the euro collection account when registering for the German VAT, and the tax system does not record the seller's euro collection account, then the amount of tax to be refunded, we have to wait for the tax office to send a letter, and then to add the corresponding information on the euro collection account, and the time of this refund is not so good to determine.
For example, our German office received two letters from the German tax office in July this year, both belonging to a seller in Dongguan, who needs to claim a refund of €225.32 for 2019 and €4,921.98 for 2020 taxes. We will inform the seller to provide detailed bank account information (IBAN number, SWIFT number, bank name and account holder's name) for the refund application.
Provide bank account information
There are practical cases, I believe that sellers have a clear understanding of the EU tax rebate, if the article is helpful to you, please give the editor at the end of the article. Many sellers comply with customs clearance, tax refund encountered a lot of trouble, such as cooperation with the tax agency does not help tax refund, the reason for the explanation is not clear or charge a tax refund fee is too high, the back-end service can not be guaranteed. Therefore, I suggest sellers to choose VAT cooperation service providers, not only to look at the price, but also pay more attention to the qualifications of the other party, the ability to deal with the problem and the stability of the service. If you have more questions about tax refund, consult the Green Circle dedicated account manager.
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