OSS Declaration: Foreign overdue reminders threaten exclusion from the OSS despite timely filings and payments

Despite numerous uncertainties, you have successfully completed the first OSS report for quarter 3/2021.

Neither the missing upload function nor the cryptic error messages from the BZSt have upset you. You also transferred the VAT on time so that it could be distributed to the individual member states by 31 October 2021.

Almost two months later, it seems that many of the money from the OSS declarations abroad has not arrived and foreign countries are now threatening to impose sanctions on individual traders.

How do you find out about this and what do you as a retailer or tax consultant have to pay attention to now?

Foreign countries contact you about OSS reports: no spam and tough sanctions!

How can you tell that this message is not spam or phishing? There are several indicators that you should check.

Below you will find one such message. In this case, it comes from France.

• Your German VAT identification number (UStID) should be in the blacked-out field.(Important: This alone is not sufficient, as you have also entered this number in your legal notice in the shop and/or on Amazon, for example, and it is therefore visible to everyone).
• The amount entered here in line 3 must correspond to your VAT liability in the corresponding country of destination – in this case France – for Q3/2021 up to the second decimal place.
• The second piece of information is not freely accessible and should therefore, in combination with your VAT ID, ensure that it is not spam or even phishing.

In this email, the French tax authorities wrote to a German online retailer on 25 December 2021 that he had not paid his VAT liability from his OSS declaration for Q3/2021 on time. This should have been received in France by 31 October 2021.

Exclusion from the OSS procedure is threatened as a sanction – … can lead to your exclusion from the special scheme. By special scheme is meant the OSS. This would mean that this retailer would have to register locally for tax purposes in all EU countries in which it generates even one cent of turnover, as it would no longer be allowed to use the OSS in its entirety – i.e. for all EU countries.

Mail from the French tax authorities to a German online retailer stating that the VAT payment for Q3/2021 has not been paid

What should you do as an affected trader or tax consultant if you receive such a message, but you are sure that you have transferred the money on time?

In this case, a statement from the BZSt will help you. This specifies three steps.

Statement of the BZSt

The Federal Central Tax Office has listened to our calls and is now proactively starting to inform companies and tax consultants about errors in the OSS system.

Source: www.bzst.de

To summarise, this means the following.

• Keep calm and do not hastily delete, reply to or ignore the e-mail from the foreign state.
• Check whether you have actually transferred the VAT to the Federal Treasury on time. For Q3/2021, the payment had to be received by the responsible federal treasury by 31 October 2021.
• If this is the case, reply to the e-mail address given in the message and confirm that you have made the payment in Germany by the due date.
• You can enclose a screenshot of the bank transfer as proof.

Conclusion: Still a lot of sand in the OSS gearbox

It turns out what seemed inevitable: 27 member states have to exchange and cross-check data at company level as part of the OSS. It was obvious that this would not work smoothly from day 1 – without any unhappiness.

It is to be hoped that all Member States are aware of this fact and that no one is unjustifiably excluded from the OSS procedure.

Do you want to know how you, as a retailer or tax consultant, can map OSS reports including corrections and all other relevant tax processes for EU trade securely, efficiently and automatically?

Then simply book a personal and free consultation with the VAT and financial accounting experts at Taxdoo via this link.