"VAT Recovery" Services: Worth It?
March 12, 2010 10:29 AM Subscribe
"VAT Recovery" Services: Worth It?
My US company is exhibiting at a trade show in Florence this year, and we've received a solicitation from a company offering to recover the VAT we've paid to European businesses to make our exhibit possible.
My Scam-O-Meter is twitching...
Assuming the VAT recovered would be net-positive (pretty likely as I think they want about 550 Euros to recover VAT on around $90k of expenditures), is it worth it to pay someone else to recover the VAT for us? Is it just a matter of us getting a VAT ID number and filling-out a simple form to recover it ourselves?
My US company is exhibiting at a trade show in Florence this year, and we've received a solicitation from a company offering to recover the VAT we've paid to European businesses to make our exhibit possible.
My Scam-O-Meter is twitching...
Assuming the VAT recovered would be net-positive (pretty likely as I think they want about 550 Euros to recover VAT on around $90k of expenditures), is it worth it to pay someone else to recover the VAT for us? Is it just a matter of us getting a VAT ID number and filling-out a simple form to recover it ourselves?
VAT recovery is a big issue for American companies that sell products or services in Europe. Whether it's an issue so complex that they retain outside firms to navigate the taxing authorities, I have no idea.
So: the concept of recovering VAT taxes for an American company is pretty much par for the course.
I don't know, however, any of the details of the process. Valkyryn's point about reputable financial services companies doing this type of thing for clients is at least a suggestion that it is a legitimate service. But this still doesn't answer the question of whether you need to pay for this service.
I'd contact some of the reputable financial services companies listed at Valkyryn's link, and ask them what the process is, and then determine whether it's something that you can undertake yourself.
posted by dfriedman at 12:12 PM on March 12, 2010
So: the concept of recovering VAT taxes for an American company is pretty much par for the course.
I don't know, however, any of the details of the process. Valkyryn's point about reputable financial services companies doing this type of thing for clients is at least a suggestion that it is a legitimate service. But this still doesn't answer the question of whether you need to pay for this service.
I'd contact some of the reputable financial services companies listed at Valkyryn's link, and ask them what the process is, and then determine whether it's something that you can undertake yourself.
posted by dfriedman at 12:12 PM on March 12, 2010
Response by poster: Any MeFites out there ever done it themselves?
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:45 PM on March 12, 2010
posted by ZenMasterThis at 1:45 PM on March 12, 2010
This thread is closed to new comments.
Apparently there are large numbers of businesses which think this sort of service is worth paying for. I'm guessing that it isn't terribly complicated, but it does sound like a decent amount of work. Might well cost you more than $550 to do it in house.
I'd definitely recommend shopping around, but I think this is legit.
posted by valkyryn at 10:52 AM on March 12, 2010