PureBasic Forums - English

I know that many of you are selling your software online.

Does any distributor really shine as far as price and
performance goes, for PureBasic Apps?

I only know of a couple myself:
BMT Micro and FastSpring.

Even though the response was underwhelming,
I am moving along with my decision process.

I started with a list I made about 10
years ago when I was launching another
product through CNet.

These are the one's still in business:
Avangate, BMTMicro, Digital River (Absorbed
esellerate and MyCommerce), DPD,E-junkie,
Nexway, PayLoadZ, PayPro(Absorbed EasyCommerce),
and WooCommerce.

I am leaning towards E-junkie, it seems to provide
everything I need for a fixed fee of 5 bucks a month.

'E-junkie' leave you to pay Tax Authorities Sales Tax/VAT. If you have customers from several countries, that is a huge burden.

Is there a VAT tax in Europe on software?
I haven't published anything in the US for
9 years and there was no tax here, then.

Unfortunately, there is VAT to be paid to all EU member countries for software sales, at the individual country's VAT Rate. So, for example, if someone in France buys your app, you have to charge them French VAT (20%) and pay the French Tax Authority that money. There are 28 EU member states! Since the EU started charging VAT ("Digital Sales Tax") in this way, other countries have jumped on the bandwagon, including Japan, China and many others of note - some even require that you have a representative in their country.
https://quaderno.io/blog/digital-taxes- ... -tax-rules
The bean counters behind these tax systems do not understand the long-term damage they will cause to innovation.

IdeasVacuum wrote:...if someone in France buys your app, you have to charge them French VAT (20%) and pay the French Tax Authority that money.

Without cross-border consensus, these are not globally enforceable laws. For example, French authorities have no jurisdiction to audit American companies, let alone tax them. It's currently working on the honour system, which we all know too well, doesn't work. Vendors are liable for the taxation policies only in their home countries.

I removed the [Resolved]. VAT is obviously a
hot topic.

Both IdeasVacuum and TI-994A made good points.
I am very interested in what other members think.

It seems to be a choice between what you are
supposed to do, which would be a disaster for a
tiny business like mine, and what people are
actually doing.

If you make the software available on a physical medium such as a CD, does this not remove the digital services VAT requirement and things just revert back to the VAT being levied at your own' country's rate (if you meet your country's VAT threshold)?

It does sRod - but guess what: In 2018+, the EU digital VAT rules are going to be applied to physical goods too (B2C).
TI-994A - there is, in fact, an accord between the USA and the EU (since 2015) and of course the many Global USA companies that have their toes in EU waters do get stung by the VAT jellyfish.

Whether there is an inclination for USA tax authorities to police the international transactions of small businesses is another thing, but the EU can (if they have the resources). Will the EU chase small businesses in the USA? I would say individual EU states might try - Germany's tax authority has already chased UK micro businesses for tiny sums - less than £1! The only potential relief for those within the EU is that a threshold is to be introduced - but that is only the EU of course, let's not forget the Sales Tax similarly applied by so many other countries....... The extraordinary thing is that when this Tax was first proposed, the idea was that it would help to stop the big globals like Amazon from pricing tiny companies out of business. In fact, the reverse result is true.

The EU believes there are less than 500,000 micro businesses across the whole of the EU but if that is true, it can only be because many have given up since the new VAT rules were introduced.
http://euvataction.org

BMT Micro:

Sales are processed through our merchant accounts so we handle the collection and remittance of the required taxes (including VAT)

This is probably the type of service that most Micro businesses need to use. It is of course down to ease of integration and costs. Currently one of the issues is that your competitors can price their apps well below yours if they can avoid charging Sales Tax. It is one of the greatest concerns in the UK with regard to the other EU members, never mind the rest of the world.

Are we having fun yet?

I appreciate the very informed comments supplied
by the forum members, especially IdeasVacuum.
He's like an encyclopedia on this stuff.

My conclusion is this. Why not have it both ways?
I can use E-junkie for US sales. They have a filtering
function.

I can use Avangate or BMTMicro for non-US sales and
let them take care of all this VAT garbage. Adding on their
cut plus the VAT would increase the price of my $5 software
by about 40%, so foreign sales would be seriously impacted,
anyway. Exclusivity clauses could also put a pin in this balloon.

I know, I'll lose a couple of dollars each, so I'll make it up
with volume.