“One price for all” policy at Update 2011 (or “why VAT is a bitch”)
Introducing Update's "one price for all" policy. Our solution for dealing with the VAT issue.
vat
27 Jun 2011
Organizing a conference is hard enough without having to worry about how to handle VAT. All VAT-registered companies (like mine) are supposed to charge VAT on ticket sales and yet no online system I've encountered so far handles this use case. (The otherwise excellent EventBrite, which I use for Update conference, is no exception.) It's like all these online systems want to ignore the fact that the VAT problem exists and event organizers are left to use other systems – and the joys of copy and paste – to handle it.
Beyond the administrative headache, charging VAT creates two price tiers: one for VAT-registered individuals and companies and one for non-VAT-registered ones. Basically, if you're not VAT registered, you end up paying 20% more for things. What this means in practice is that individuals that can afford it the least (mostly freelancers, if you think about the audience for Update) get shafted with an additional 20%. That sucks.
Apple has just revealed the UK pricing for the iPad. The 16GB, 32GB, and 64GB WiFi models will be sold for £429, £499, and £599, respectively. The 3G models will set you back another £100 (so £529/£599/£699).
In the US, the WiFi models are going for $499, $599, and £699 and the 3G models are $629, $729, and $829.
iPad UK Pricing revealed: may actually be cheaper to buy one in the UK
For a VAT registered business or individual, it's actually cheaper – anywhere from £13 to £42 – to buy an iPad in the UK than it is to buy one in California.
This past week has seen yet another week of heavy development on the new Singularity web conference site.
A lot of what we're doing this year is building infrastructure. Singularity is a new breed of conference and we are doing a lot of work behind the scenes to ensure that we have the solid foundations we need not just to run it this year but to build upon for future years. My friends and fellow team members will probably tire of hearing the worlds "focus", "form follows function", and "solid foundations" over the course of the next few months if they haven't already. Our focus is on building a stable, functional platform to host global conferences on. There won't be any frivolous bells and whistles and whizz-bang eye-candy. Instead, we are building a minimalist, accessible social site and a stable and functional conference application. As I keep telling myself and everyone around me: focus, focus, focus!
EU-based businesses are required to obtain valid VAT numbers from VAT-registered entities.
Unfortunately, especially for e-commerce systems, there isn't a simple way to check the validity of a European VAT number. The European Commission provides a web site where you can validate VAT numbers by entering them in an HTML form. This is not practical, of course, for web applications.
Enter, the European VAT Number Validation API that I just hacked together on Google App Engine.