Deliveries to EU countries are, meanwhile, standard procedure for many shop systems. However, only few shop operators are aware of the fact that there are very important tax laws and limit value regulations that have to be respected when delivering to private people within the EU. For every EU country turnover limits are in effect (so-called delivery limits) acc. to § 3c Value-Added Tax Act (German: UStG) When these limits are reached or exceeded, shop operators can no longer send deliveries to private people (only to companies with registration of their sales tax identification number) in the current financial year unless the shop operator has been registered in the respective country as company with regard to the value-added tax. When the delivery limit has been exceeded and more deliveries are made to private people in this country, the value-added tax is due in this EU country of destination and has to be paid directly to the fiscal authorities in this country. There are many EU countries where the value-added tax is considerably higher than in Germany. Certainly, the fiscal authorities can also change these regulations retroactively. An active implementation would currently mean the end of their business activities for many shop systems, since the back duty of the countries of destination can be huge and the delivery limits are quite low in many countries. Last year, our neighbour Austria, for example, cut the delivery value limit almost in half to an annual turnover of EUR 35,000. Many shop systems are also not able to provide the technical background to include such complex tax systems for the EU and third countries in their invoicing or even to implement the whole system of delivery limits to countries. We, too, have reached these delivery limits for some countries very early in the current financial year and, thus, can no longer deliver to private people in these countries They will be informed during the ordering process insofar as they have registered as private people, the goods leave Germany to be delivered to a destination in the EU (country of destination) and the delivery limit for the respective EU country has already been exceeded.

Our Shop system www.eibmarkt.com calculates fully-automatically the turnover generated with sales to private and corporate customers in the respective EU countries with regard to the turnover limit and cancels the order process if the registration form indicates that the customer is a private person, goods leave the German territory and the delivery limit has been reached or exceeded.

We would like to point out that people acting as entrepreneurs (USt-ID) are not affected by these regulations.

According to unofficial publication s of the EU Commission the applicable delivery limits in other EU member countries are as follows as per 1 September 2011:

– Belgium: EUR 35,000
– Bulgaria: BGN 70,000
– Denmark: DKK 280,000
– Estonia: EUR 35,151
– Finland: EUR 35,000
– France: EUR 10, 000
– Greece: EUR 35,000
– Ireland: EUR 35,000
– Italy: EUR 100 000
– Latvia: LVL 24,000
– Lithuania: LTL 125,000
– Luxemburg: EUR 100,000
– Malta: EUR 35,000
– Netherlands: EUR 100,000
– Austria: EUR 35,000
– Poland: PLN 160,000
– Portugal: EUR 35,000
– Romania: RON 118,000
– Sweden: SEK 320,000
– Slovakia: EUR 35,000
– Slovenia: EUR 35,000
– Spain: EUR 35,000
– Czech Republic: CZK 1,140,000
– Hungary: HUF 8,800,000
– United Kingdom: GBP 70,000