Austria, Amazon, Marketplace liability

Amazon has today transmitted the following information to numerous marketplace traders with turnover in Austria.

Letter from Amazon of 4 August 2020 to numerous dealers

• What do Amazontraders with deliveries to Austria have to consider?
• What is the deadline of 31.12.2020?

Digital Tax Act 2020 in Austria?

The so-called Digital Tax Act 2020, which is mentioned in Amazon the letter, is a bundle of measures which is intended to adapt various laws and regulations in Austria to the new conditions of the digital economy.

The core of these measures is the taxation of sales from online advertising with a digital tax of 5 percent.

But online trade is also affected by this law in certain areas – although essentially not (yet) by the Digital Tax Act 2020, as it Amazon writes in the circular, but already by the Tax Amendment Act 2020.

We present to you the most important changes as of January 1, 2021.

What do online merchants have to consider with regard to Austria?

Two aspects are important for online merchants.

Abolition of the Austrian delivery threshold from 2021?

An important change, about which the tax authorities in Austria are unfortunately still informing, is the abolition of the delivery threshold to Austria on January 1 (January) 2021.

On 4 August, the Austrian tax authorities had still not adjusted this outdated information.

This is (unfortunately) no longer correct.

As we already reported months ago, this change will be postponed EU-wide by at least 6 months – to July 1, 2021 – and will thus come into force in Austria from July 2021 at the earliest.

Many more interesting is the following new regulation as of January 1, 2021, which also forms the background for today’s circular of Amazon.

Marketplace liability for Value Added Tax from 2021

In Germany, the liability of the marketplaces for non-payment of Value Added Tax has been in effect since 2019. In addition, marketplaces in Germany are required to record extensive information on traders and transactions and make it available to the tax authorities on demand – see here.

Austria introduced a very similar system on 1 January 2021 – with some precursors in 2020.

Legal basis: § 27 in conjunction with § 18 Ö-UStG in connection with the VATOrdinance on the Duty of Care

The recording and liability regulation takes effect in two stages from 2020 to 2021, with the second stage on 1 January 2021 forming the background for the above-mentioned circular from Amazon.

From 2021 onwards, the following applies in Austria.

• If sales of more than one million euros per year are transacted via an electronic marketplace in Austria in its entirety – i.e. by all merchants – (this is intended to spare micro-marketplaces from high administrative costs), the marketplace is liable for the unpaid Austrian Value Added Tax if it has not complied with certain duties of care.
• The due diligence obligations include the recording of numerous master and transaction data – including the VAT ID number of the trader in Austria mentioned in the circular, insofar as he or she is taxable in Austria.
• However, this liability only applies to dealers who have made deliveries of at least 10,000 euros.

Attention: From a total turnover of one million euros, the marketplace is obliged to proactively transmit this information to the tax authorities – before this limit only on demand. This means that the big ones – Amazon, eBay & Co. – will automatically transmit transaction data to the tax authorities.

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