Further to my article on the introduction of new place of supply rules and the MOSS for B2C supplies of telecoms, broadcasting and other e-services HMRC have now stated its position on smaller businesses.
Under the initial rules, businesses which have income below the UK VAT registration turnover limit of (currently £81,000 pa) would be forced to either register for VAT in each EC Member State in which they made a sale (where the customer belongs), or registering for VAT in the UK in order to use the simplified MOSS procedure.
This would, of course, mean that such a business would lose the benefit of not being UK VAT registered and consequently having to do business in the UK with the addition of UK VAT.
HMRC has now indicated that these smaller businesses will be permitted to separate their UK and EC trading and register for VAT in the UK (so they can use the MOSS) without accounting for UK VAT on their domestic trading as long as their UK turnover remains below the VAT registration threshold.
This is curious (but welcome) since HMRC have always been against disaggregation.
For further information please see my new 2015 rules flowchart