Just wondering how VAT is treated on selling through platforms such as Afternic?
There seems to be a lot of conflicting advice out there on how this is treated and even my accountant is finding it difficult to know for certain one way or another.
The crux of this issue is whether the platform you are selling on (in this case Afternic) is treated as your customer or whether the end user is treated as your customer.
If it is Afternic then I understand it is outwith the scope of VAT as they are US based but if it's the buyer of the domain then that becomes really difficult becasue you never know anything of their identity, not even a contact email. Which in theory leans towards Afternic are considered your customer at that point as they take payment from the buyer and send it to you minus commission, they deal with the transfer and they set the terms to the buyer, so surely you can't charge VAT on a sale if you don't even know anything about the domain buyer (and vice versa).
Your thoughts are much appreciated!
There seems to be a lot of conflicting advice out there on how this is treated and even my accountant is finding it difficult to know for certain one way or another.
The crux of this issue is whether the platform you are selling on (in this case Afternic) is treated as your customer or whether the end user is treated as your customer.
If it is Afternic then I understand it is outwith the scope of VAT as they are US based but if it's the buyer of the domain then that becomes really difficult becasue you never know anything of their identity, not even a contact email. Which in theory leans towards Afternic are considered your customer at that point as they take payment from the buyer and send it to you minus commission, they deal with the transfer and they set the terms to the buyer, so surely you can't charge VAT on a sale if you don't even know anything about the domain buyer (and vice versa).
Your thoughts are much appreciated!
