Changing the place of of supply for VAT

[yasockie]

I am looking at the recent VAT 'place of supply' changes.
This is generally considered to be a pain for micro and digital businesses.
Could the reverse also be true, can we somehow benefit from the new rules?
One obvious thing that comes to my mind is I relocate to Malta and supply services there.
Because of that I only charge Maltese VAT of 18%.
Not much but my UK clients pay 2% less in total, whilst still reclaiming their VAT expenses with UK VAT rate right?

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

Er...no.

Firstly the new rules are mostly concerning supplies of digital goods and broadcasting services and also only affect B2C transactions.

Assuming you supply normal consultancy services if you were based in Malta you would charge local businesses Maltese VAT. Supplies outside of Malta would be outside the scope of Malta VAT and other EU businesses would apply VAT locally using the reverse charge.

Basically, I don't have a clue what you are hoping to achieve.

[sal]

To my understanding the recent VAT changes in EU are introduced mainly to prevent what you are describing, with the place of supply being where the client is not your shoddy practice.

[TheCyclingProgrammer]

To my understanding the recent VAT changes in EU are introduced mainly to prevent what you are describing, with the place of supply being where the client is not your shoddy practice.

Sort of. The new rules are aimed at B2C transactions. Non EU companies are supposed to charge local VAT to EU customers and his rule has been in place since 2003. Retailers could register in one country instead of each one separately using the special VoES scheme (very similar to the new MOSS scheme).

Some complied with this. Many probably ignored it. The bigger companies - Apple, Amazon etc. - worked around it completely by setting up a subsidiary in an EU country with low VAT (LU) and selling from there, thus avoiding the rule and were able to charge LU VAT.

The new changes mean that all businesses selling to EU customers must now charge local VAT even if they are based in another EU country, thus nullifying this tactic.

For B2B stuff though, nothing has changed. The place of supply was already where the customer belonged and the customer would account for the VAT locally (by paying acquisition tax on import of goods, or using the reverse charge for services).

Hence my confusion about OP.