The VAT MOSS issue continues to fill my inbox on a daily basis, with a cascade of nonsense occurring as we pass the first reporting deadline. However the voices of small businesses have been heard due to the amazing work from the EU VAT Action team. An exemption or threshold isn’t likely to help my business but will remove this horrible barrier to entry for new businesses. I’m fully behind that.

增值税 MOSS问题继续每天都填满我的收件箱，随着我们超过第一个报告截止日期， 一连串的胡说八道 。 但是，由于欧盟增值税行动小组的出色工作，已经听到了小型企业的声音。 豁免或门槛不太可能对我的企业有帮助，但会消除新企业进入这一可怕的壁垒。 我完全支持。

However, rather than supporting these efforts, Enterprise Nation continue to bang their drum about an easy tech solution. They appear to believe that all that is required is a few developers to sit down for an evening and VAT MOSS will be solved, by way of our mystical coding powers. I’d suggest that if it were so easy to fix the problem then we’d already have good solutions, and I’m concerned that this nonsense is being given credibility by people who have the ability to derail the campaign for an exemption or threshold.

但是，Enterprise Nation不再支持这些努力，而是继续赞扬简单的技术解决方案 。 他们似乎认为，所需要做的就是让几个开发人员坐下来休息一个晚上，并通过我们神秘的编码功能解决VAT MOSS 。 我建议，如果很容易解决问题，那么我们已经有了好的解决方案，并且我担心这种有胡言乱语的人会被那些有能力使竞选活动获得豁免或门槛的人信任。

创建任何解决方案的难度 (The difficulty of creating any solution)

Even creating a bespoke solution to the VAT MOSS issue is relatively hard.

即使为VAT MOSS问题创建定制解决方案也相对困难。

We were in a better situation than most, we’re web developers so could do the work ourselves, and I have a strong understanding of the issues involved. We were also already VAT registered and doing Reverse Charge EC Sales, so had part of the infrastructure in place. Doing the work and testing the systems took us most of December 2014. Even ignoring all the research I had done into the issue, had we been charging for that work, or had to pay a developer, a figure of around £10K would not have been unreasonable.

我们的状况比大多数人都好，我们是Web开发人员，因此可以自己完成工作，并且我对所涉及的问题有深刻的了解。 我们也已经进行了增值税注册并进行了反向收费EC销售，因此部分基础架构已经就绪。 做工作和测试系统花费了我们2014年12月的大部分时间。即使忽略了我对这个问题所做的所有研究，如果我们是为这项工作付费，还是不得不向开发人员付款，大约一万英镑的数字也不会太不合理了

创建通用解决方案的困难 (The difficulty of creating a universal solution)

If you build a bespoke solution for your business, as we did, then you can ignore any part of the requirements that don’t apply to you. For example we don’t need to worry about multiple VAT rates, we don’t sell anything that attracts a reduced VAT rate. We don’t have mixed physical and digital product sales. That meant we could cheerfully ignore writing the code to deal with multiple possible VAT rates and products at different VAT rates.

如果像我们一样为您的业务量身定制解决方案，那么您可以忽略不适用于您的任何部分需求。 例如，我们无需担心多种增值税率，我们不会出售任何会降低增值税率的商品。 我们没有物理和数字产品的混合销售。 这意味着我们可以欣然忽略编写代码来处理多种可能的增值税率和不同增值税率的产品。

If you try and create something that is for all possible types of business, you have to fully comply with the entire legislation. An incomplete list includes things like:

如果您尝试创建适用于所有可能业务类型的产品，则必须完全遵守整个法规。 不完整的列表包括以下内容：

• displaying product pricing with the correct VAT included, a requirement for B2C Sales
• coping with different digital products in one store having different VAT rates
• coping with a store having a mix of items, physical and digital. Some of which won’t attract VAT MOSS and some which will.
• be able to identify B2B sales to EU countries and deal with reverse charge VAT
• giving non-technical users a report they can use for VAT MOSS and also standard VAT reporting
• invoicing according to the VAT legislation of all member states
• dealing with currency conversions when creating those reports
• storing all the data for 10 years as proof the right amount of VAT was charged

• 显示包含正确增值税的产品价格，这是B2C销售的要求
• 在一家拥有不同增值税率的商店应对不同的数字产品
• 应对一家实体店和实体店混合使用的商品。 其中一些不会吸引增值税 MOSS ，而另一些会吸引。
• 能够识别对欧盟国家的B2B销售并处理增值税
• 向非技术用户提供可用于增值税 MOSS的报告以及标准增值税报告
• 根据所有成员国的增值税法规开具发票
• 在创建这些报告时处理货币换算
• 将所有数据存储10年，以证明已收取了正确的增值税额

In addition, a universal solution aimed at the small businesses struggling with this needs to:

另外，针对那些为此苦苦挣扎的小型企业的通用解决方案需要：

• be as simple as PayPal Buy Now buttons
• not require any specific language on the server
• be very, very inexpensive – we’re talking people selling stuff like a few knitting patterns here. Not software businesses.
• work with all the different payment methods people are using
• work with all the different website and store platforms people are using
• provide confidence to users that the stored data is safe, and that they are indeed fully compliant as ultimately the responsibility lies with the business owner.

• 就像“贝宝立即购买”按钮一样简单
• 不需要服务器上的任何特定语言
• 价格非常便宜–我们在这里谈论的是人们在出售类似针织图案的东西。 不是软件企业。
• 处理人们使用的所有不同付款方式
• 与人们正在使用的所有不同网站和商店平台合作
• 使用户确信所存储的数据是安全的，并且它们确实完全合规，因为最终的责任在于企业所有者。

This last point is I believe why we have few solutions at this point. How we are supposed to comply is unclear, and at times impossible. Building your own bespoke solution you essentially make and document decisions made for your business. If we get pulled up on any of it, we’ll argue we were doing the best we knew how with an unclear situation. If you provide a solution for others you need to know you are absolutely doing the correct thing. It would be completely unethical to do otherwise.

最后一点是我相信为什么我们目前没有解决方案。 我们应该如何遵守尚不清楚，有时甚至是不可能的 。 您可以构建自己的定制解决方案，并为您的业务制定决策。 如果我们对任何事情都抱有戒心，就会争辩说我们正在尽最大努力在不明情况下知道。 如果您为其他人提供解决方案，则需要知道您绝对在做正确的事情。 否则，这样做是完全不道德的。

提供解决方案的费用 (The expense of providing a solution)

Any solution operating on a wide scale is going to need to be SaaS – along the lines of what Taxamo offer. That’s going to involve a certain amount of infrastructure right from the get go. Customers are going to have to pay a transaction fee to cover the infrastructure, support staff plus the business will want to make a profit. That’s going to make a solution people are willing and able to pay for when they are charging tiny amounts, not really profitable as a business concern.

按照Taxamo提供的产品，任何大规模运行的解决方案都将需要SaaS。 从一开始，这将涉及一定数量的基础架构。 客户将必须支付交易费来支付基础设施，支持人员以及企业想要获利的费用。 这将为人们提供一种解决方案，使他们愿意且有能力在收取少量费用时就付钱，而这从业务上来讲并没有真正盈利。

这种解决方案将需要绝对的支持 (The sheer scale of support such a solution would need)

Even if it were possible to build a solution, I think the sticking point will be technical support for such a thing. Our products are aimed at technical users – our requirements page lists the skills needed. Yet we spend a huge amount of our time supporting users.

即使有可能建立一个解决方案，我认为问题的症结在于对这种事情的技术支持。 我们的产品面向技术用户-我们的要求页面列出了所需的技能。 但是，我们花费了大量时间来支持用户。

Any “simple” solution for VATMOSS is going to be aimed at non-technical users. The sort of people who set up a blog and add PayPal buttons to “Buy Now”. This product will need a support team. A support team who are reasonably technical, and who understand all of the different systems and payment services that users are running. They will also need to be able to explain VAT to people who have just been forced into registration. Many of these businesses have never dealt with VAT on any level before and will have little understanding of where their responsibilities end and the solution provider’s begin.

任何针对VATMOSS的 “简单”解决方案都将针对非技术用户。 设置博客并将PayPal按钮添加到“立即购买”的人。 该产品将需要一个支持团队。 一个技术上合理的支持团队，并且了解用户正在运行的所有不同系统和付款服务。 他们还需要能够向刚刚被迫注册的人解释增值税 。 这些企业中的许多企业以前从未处理过任何级别的增值税 ，并且对他们的职责在哪里结束以及解决方案提供商的起点几乎一无所知。

I wouldn’t advise anyone to go into that as a business.

我不建议任何人从事这项业务。

Sensible advice would be to target a very specific section of the market – as people already have done. For example creating a WordPress and Stripe implementation for people selling downloadable products only, at least then you have known issues and can become expert in supporting them.

明智的建议是针对特定市场领域-正如人们已经做过的那样。 例如，仅为销售可下载产品的人们创建WordPress和Stripe实施，至少您知道问题并且可以成为支持它们的专家。

Enterprise Nation and friends are naive at best if they think that a solo developer, attending a hackathon for a chance at a £1K prize, will be set up to develop and support a solution for all UK businesses. Given they have not published a specification for the work, or details of exactly how the winning solution will be judged I doubt they have the technical ability to assess which half-baked in 5 hours solution could have legs anyway. What is needed for true micro-businesses is a workable threshold or exemption, removing them from the issue altogether. For the rest of us we need clear legislation, in order that we can be sure the money we are putting into our implementations is not wasted. This sort of nonsense is just a distraction from that campaign, and potentially derails the campaign by making it appear that a quick and easy solution can be found.

如果Enterprise Nation和他们的朋友充其量也只是幼稚，如果他们认为将成立一个单独的开发人员参加hackathon，有机会获得1000英镑的奖金，以开发和支持所有英国企业的解决方案。 鉴于他们尚未发布有关工作的规范，也不知道将如何判断获胜解决方案的详细信息，我怀疑他们是否有能力评估5小时半熟的解决方案中是否有腿。 真正的微型企业所需的是一个可行的门槛或豁免，将它们完全排除在问题之外。 对于我们其他人，我们需要明确的立法，以确保我们投入到实现中的钱不会浪费。 这种胡说八道只是使该运动分散了注意力，并可能使人们发现可以找到一种快速简便的解决方案，从而使该运动脱轨。