Etsy Stealth VAT ID

Hello guys,

I have a quick question.

My first shop got closed down, but I have a really great new shop now. My sales really jumped in the past few weeks. I would like to add a VAT ID to my account, so I will not be charged VAT on seller fees. I've already used my company's VAT ID for my first shop, so naturally I can't use it for the new one. However I have another VAT ID (a friend's company's, but the company is not operating anymore). My question is can I use my friend's VAT ID? Or they can check it whatever the company is still operating or closed down? I'm in th EU.

Thanks for the help guys!

So nobody has any info of this?

dxdiag said:

why will you use a stealth i.d if your company is legit?

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Because my first shop got closed and I already used my company info there.

You don't say which eu country as it is a little different in each. But you would be committing a criminal offense, so you have to ask yourself is it worth it? In my opinion just to save on sellers fees no. You can fuck with the authorities on almost anything, but not VAT. That you go to prison for. If your business is big enough to register for VAT then it is not that expensive to set up a new registered company and then you would be legit and if it is not legit and you cannot absorb the fees then your business will fail anyway.

EU takes VAT fraud VERY seriously - Etsy will invoice your friend's company and eventually the country's tax authorities will come down like bricks.

The best option is to register a new company - depending on where you live this is very cheap. In UK for example - it's $40-50 max.

Thanks guys! Etsy doesn't give an invoice anymore, it has a new financial system and takes it's fee from every transaction, so you pay right away as you make a sale. We put all the Etsy income into my company anyways and pay all the taxes here....so it's not like we are not paying the taxes. Being charged the extra transaction VAT just complicates accounting for us right now. I just simply don't want to get charged the unnecessary VAT, which would costs me around 10-15 K per year, since VAT is super high here and we tend to make a lot of sales. I'll put the income into my company anyways no matter what. I was just wondering if Etsy has a system where it checks all the submitted VAT ID before approving it. To be honest the last time I entered my VAT ID was 3 years ago and I have no idea what was the process...

If you're planning to run a real business, than you shouldn't use the fake VAT. Even if you were to get away with it initially, it will come back to bite you in the future.

You still have to include that vat they deduct on your vat return as a sale vat payment then deduct is as a purchase for your company.