Firstly, it is important to note that we are software developers, not tax advisors or accountants. You should not treat our attempts to provide assistance as a replacement for formal advice. We have personal experience of the One-Stop Shop systems that began operation in January 2015 (via “MOSS”, the “mini one-stop shop”), and offer some assistance based on what we have learned since then. Our help is also not intended to replace reading the EU’s own guidance on IOSS and OSS.
The plugin cannot make an IOSS / OSS (henceforth just “OSS”) submissions directly, because we do not have any special relationship with any of the EU 27 tax authorities, and we are not aware of any of them that provide access to their OSS systems via automated interfaces. This means that you need to make those submissions yourself, from your web browser. What the plugin does is makes it easy to gather the figures necessary for the submission. (In our use of MOSS, we could generally complete this procedure in about 15 minutes, once every three months, by downloading data from the plugin and uploading it to the website).
If you, as a merchant, are using an OSS scheme, then you obliged to choose one of the EU’s 27 national tax authorities (N.B. this no longer includes the UK, of course), and register directly for the scheme (whether OSS or IOSS) with them. Having done so, each quarter you must then use whatever facility that particular authority is providing for IOSS submissions, which is likely to be a website. If you are not yourselves in the EU, then that is a “non-Union registration”. If you are in the EU, then that is a “Union registration” (and would be made with your own country’s authority).
If you prefer to operate in English, then it is possible you’ll find the Irish revenue’s facility to be convenient. We have not used it ourselves. It is here: https://www.ros.ie/vatoss-web/vatoss.html?execution=e1s1. Malta also has English as a national language, and it’s quite possible that some authorities provide their websites in multiple languages.
No doubt you can find an agent who will do this for you. Experience shows that these aren’t essential, though presumably you may then benefit from their experience. As stated at the beginning, the aim of this FAQ is to informally give you the benefit of our experience.
Posted in: WooCommerce European (EU/UK/Norway/Switzerland) VAT Compliance