Value Added Tax (VAT) Handling
We don't yet offer VAT collection or remittance of any kind on Blender Market.
However, as a marketplace that caters to a large European audience, we have decided that ultimately we need to handle VAT on behalf of our Creators. Currently, no precedent exists for enforcing that U.S.-based businesses collect VAT, but this is likely to change before long.
The purpose of this Help article is to reassure EU-based Creators of two things: that they can legally sell on Blender Market without getting into trouble with the EU, and that we are working out the details that will enable us to collect and remit VAT on behalf of Blender Market creators.
How We Plan to Handle VAT
As the Merchant of Record (i.e., the business collecting payment and handling transactions), it is our responsibility to both collect and remit VAT to the correct EU countries.
We plan to do this by detecting the purchasing customer's location and then looking up the VAT rate for that location at the time of purchase. This rate will be applied as a Tax on the order, similar to Sales Tax, such that the customer's total payment includes any and all applicable taxes.
The exact way to achieve this is not yet clear, but likely it will involve something like requesting the correct tax rate via an API from Taxrates or Vatlayer.
Blender Market will then remit VAT via a non-Union VAT MOSS (Mini One-Stop Shop) in a European country. This article from Quaderno goes over this process in more detail.
When is this happening?
We are determined to make this happen soon. Keep an eye out for more updates coming this year.