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As of Jan 1st 2015, if a company sells and automatically supplies Download software to an EEC CONSUMER (not a VAT registered business) the total charge must include VAT at the consumers local rate, not as before, the UK rate (20%). I MUST then register and pay VAT to each country that I sell to. 
So if I sell into Germany, I must charge Price + 19% VAT, but if I sell into Hungary I must charge Price + 27% VAT (ouch!)

EEC law also states that I cannot refuse to sell to a consumer as a member of the EEC.
At a stroke the bureaucrats in Brussels have made such an automated electronic sales a complete nightmare. However by electing to send out emails and licences manually, this crazy law does not appear to apply.
What is even worse still, even if the selling company is not VAT registered in their own country (Visual Building is, so this bit does not affect us), the seller still has to charge and submit VAT to other member states.

What is worse is that many companies don’t know the law changed until they get fined. We were lucky as our accounting software was updated in advance which waved the red flags for us. This is again typical of the EEC imposing such restricting laws in member states.

The UK Government has tried to ease this multi VAT collection and reporting, (MOSS) but there are still many problems.
So, since January, Visual Building has introduced a manual element into the sales process, and so if your order is delayed, i.e. not instant, please blame Brussels.

The good news is that most of our customers try our trial software, which is identical in every way to the full version, so this manual delay will normally only affect the supply of license keys when purchased, so order those license keys (where applicable) BEFORE the trial expires.



Telegraph Article