I just installed Planetside from Sony and it display this info:

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To comply with changes in the law in the European Union, PlanetSide subscribers who are residents of EU countries will be charged VAT equal to 17.5% of the subscription fees. These changes require that digital services be taxed at the point of consumption , i.e. in your country of residence. The countries currently covered by this policy are Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, and United Kingdom.
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So it appears that for EU the VAT is fixed at 17.5%? even if here in Italy VAT is usually 20% ?

Originally posted by Jack_Norton
So it appears that for EU the VAT is fixed at 17.5%? even if here in Italy VAT is usually 20% ?
I'm not sure of the exact rules and conditions, but yes you can do it. I know SWREG registered in the UK and so only has to charge the 17.5% rate for any EU country.

Originally posted by LordKronos
I'm not sure of the exact rules and conditions, but yes you can do it. I know SWREG registered in the UK and so only has to charge the 17.5% rate for any EU country.

I'm no expert in this but I beleive you can chose a rate from anywhere where you have an office. Sony has offices everywhere and as such will pick the rate from the lowest country.

I'm not sure what country that is but I suspect they'll be getting an influx of business soon.

There is also a special VAT program that companies can sign up for (where they are dealing with customers from amultitude of member states) and then they can apparently treat all member states using that countries VAT system regardless of the other rates. I'm not completely sure if it this is available to everyone though, or if it requires that you have offices in that particular country or whatever. However, I suspect that many will choose the UK even if it is not necessarily the lowest VAT rate, simply for because of language barriers, but that's just my guess.

I didnt enquire much about this program when I made my enquiries as I was more focused on discovering whether threshholds were applicable.

-Z-

According to a piece on BBC News at 4 am (so don't take my word for it, i was probably more asleep than awake) any company that isn't registered in any EU state and wants to sells e-goods (not material goods apparently) will have to charge VAT. They can chose whatever country in the EU and register there for VAT purposes, and then use that tax system (if it is 17.5% for that country, then its like that for every sale within the EU)

Using a register service makes so you don't have to take care of things since you are selling to a company that then sells to the customer and they have to deal with VAT.

Originally posted by Akura
They can chose whatever country in the EU and register there for VAT purposes, and then use that tax system (if it is 17.5% for that country, then its like that for every sale within the EU)

A non-EU company can register with one EU country of its choice.
However, if you don't have a physical presence there, you will have to add German VAT to German customers, Spanish VAT to Spanish customers etc (15 different member states).
You will only have to report these different VATs to the country you registered in, though.