Tax advice for e-commerce companies: much more than just accounting

Platforms with extensive reach such as Amazon, eBay, Etsy and Wayfair are making it increasingly easy to enter the online commerce market. This allows rapid scaling for e-commerce operations even across national borders. But the higher your sales figures, the more transactions you have to process and the better your accounting organisation needs to be. The situation can be especially complex if you pursue a multichannel strategy for your online retail business, i.e. if you sell your products in multiple online marketplaces, such as Amazon, eBay and others, and perhaps also run your own online shop. In these cases, interfaces to online marketplaces, shop systems and your inventory management system such as Shopify, plentymarkets or WooCommerce, as well as to payment systems such as PayPal, Amazon Pay or Mollie, must function reliably and supply accurate data. As an e-commerce company, you will also quickly be confronted with a large number of tax-related questions: in e-commerce there are a number of specific provisions that you must comply with, particularly as regards VAT for cross-border operations. Key topics here are one-stop shop (OSS) schemes and registration requirements in foreign countries.

Given all this, online merchants need to be aware of two key challenges: the need for an accounting system that can handle a large number of individual transactions, and the fact that a seller’s decisions can have much more extensive VAT implications than they would for a bricks-and-mortar shop. Merchants participating in Amazon’s FBA programmes – the Central Europe Programme (CEE), the pan-European programme (PAN-EU) and the European Fulfilment Network (EFN) – are required to register for VAT in the relevant countries.

Tax-wise, things can quickly become very confusing, and errors with preliminary VAT returns or supplementary statements can easily occur. In the worst-case scenario, this not only costs time, money and stress, but may also result in prosecution for tax evasion.

 

Specialists

Tax advice for e-commerce companies with Schultze & Braun

All this means that it is a good idea to seek the support of a tax advisor specialising in e-commerce. If you work with us, you can concentrate on your online business, while as your tax advisor we look after all the tax issues relating to every aspect of online commerce. We help you comply with all tax obligations in Germany and abroad. Our advisors support you in developing your e-commerce operation and help you understand the implications of your decisions. Together we build the foundation for scaling up your online business in a way that also takes account of tax requirements.

With tax advisors who are specially trained in e-commerce and related tax issues, Schultze & Braun is the perfect partner for your business who can not only structure and assess your accounting system, but also has a full understanding of any tax-related matters regarding e-commerce. We provide comprehensive advice when you establish your online business and at all the key decision points after that. We register you for tax, including for the OSS procedure, extract your data from the e-commerce platforms you use or from your own online shop using fully automated interfaces and submit your VAT declaration in Germany and the entire EU using the one-stop shop procedure (OSS).

In addition, we offer support in countries outside Germany. We can register you for tax in those countries and ensure that all required VAT declarations are submitted correctly and on time – particularly when you participate in Amazon’s CEE or PAN-EU FBA programmes with warehouses abroad (France, Italy, Spain, Poland, Czechia). If needed, we also have local partners available to help.

Click here for your e-commerce tax advisor!

Contact

Mario Schnurr
Steuerberater (Tax consultant), Dipl.-Betriebswirt (BA) (certified business accountant), MBA (International Taxation)

 

More contact persons

Call +497841 708-400 Direct message

Cookie and Plugin Settings

To operate this website, it is necessary for us to use cookies. Some cookies are necessary to ensure functionality, others are used for our statistics.

Necessary Cookies

These cookies enable basic functions and are necessary to ensure functionality of the website.

Status:
Always active

Matomo

This website uses the open source web analysis service Matomo.

Status:

Cookie information

Privacy Policy
Save settings