VAT and online sales to Belgium: audits of earlier years and heavy fines
The Belgian tax authorities are still actively checking whether Dutch webshops exceeded the € 35,000 threshold in the past. Assessments with fines of up to 200% are not unusual.
Dutch webshops selling goods online to private individuals are liable for VAT. The rules for such sales are the distance selling rules, covering sales to private buyers resident in the EU.
The current rules have applied since 1 July 2021 and start from the position that, with limited exceptions, all such sales are taxed in the buyer's member state. The webshop therefore applies the rate of the country the parcel is sent to, and can use the One Stop Shop to declare and pay all foreign VAT through a Dutch return.
The old rules still matter
The rules that applied until 1 July 2021 are also still live. They too started from the position that a distance sale is taxed in the buyer's member state, but up to a threshold that each member state could set itself, VAT was due in the country of dispatch.
Belgium applied a threshold of € 35,000. Where a Dutch webshop sold less than that to Belgian consumers in a year, 21% Dutch VAT was due. Where the threshold was exceeded, 21% Belgian VAT was due from that sale onwards. The only way to account for it was to register in Belgium and file returns there, because the One Stop Shop did not yet exist.
Active enforcement
The Belgian authorities are still actively checking whether webshops not established in Belgium exceeded the threshold in earlier years. Among other things they have requested seller data from the marketplace Bol.com.
Dutch webshops continue to receive Belgian assessments with substantial fines, in some cases up to 200% of the VAT. Coming forward voluntarily can limit those fines. The Belgian VAT due must simply be paid, but at the same time the Dutch VAT wrongly accounted for can be reclaimed.
Note that Belgium can assess going back seven years, while the Dutch Tax Administration can only refund over five under the formal time limit.