Ltd in UK, living in Belgium, first contract in Spain :)

[SueEllen]

Dear BlasterBates,

Are you really saying that a company which operates internationally has to set up another local company in every country where it sends its representatives on an assignment? I am sorry, but this sound absurd. It would be impossible to operate in this way. Do you have a reference / link to a legislation that demands this?

Thank you

It's not that straight forward.

It depends on the length of time the person is working there, the size of the company, where the company has had normal operations e.g. the location of previous contracts, and where the person(s) with control of the company currently reside whether temporarily or permanently.

In your case your company is Spanish.

[SueEllen]

Can take a month to obtain, that if you manage to find a handful of people who are allowed to do it.

Spain is using all sort of tricks to keep the money - for example they've got two different VAT numbers: internal for Spain, and those that are external and could be used for VAT free trade within EU, obviously it's done to make it harder for other EU members to sell stuff to Spain. EU should have dealt with this bulltulip long time ago.

I remember reading on another forum about the trick Belgium did a few years ago to ensure foreign companies paid VAT e.g. they charged you taxes when you moved goods into Belgium and until you paid the tax you couldn't sell the goods or pass them on.

In short if countries have issues with foreign companies not paying VAT they change the law to ensure they do so.