Since a few months Pond5 pays me through an Ireland paypal address.
As I am from Holland and having a VAT number, I suspect I have to comply to european VAT rules and either way Pond5 or myself have to add VAT to the earnings, or am I wrong?

Problem is that Pond5 issues no receipt whatsoever, I can only see the amount of dollars that has been credited to me.
Dutch (and other EU) taxes - as far as I know - probably would like to see a receipt with some VAT explanation.

Any advise on this from other EU contributors? How do you book these earnings?

As far as our accountant said is, it's only important where their primary company is registered.

I received this answer:

Please know that Pond5 does not withhold any of your royalties for tax purposes. It is your responsibility to report all your earnings yourself. You are welcome to view a Summary of your income for the year, by hovering over your Account avatar > Dashboard >> Financials > 2015: All months > OK

If you are a US resident who makes over $600 in a fiscal year, you will need to upload a current W-9. Doing this will ensure that you receive a copy of your 1099 report that is sent to the IRS. Please note, that these 1099 forms are usually mailed out at the end of January of every year. How quickly recipients will receive, will depend on the postal service.

I asked again about European laws and obligations. I'll let you know if they will answer me

I'm from the Netherlands as well, and I never bother with VAT for microstock income. Of course you still need to pay income tax.
As far as I know, VAT cannot be applied here because we can't send invoices for our sales and we can't control the way the agencies are paying their contributors. Also, we have no way of knowing from which country the sale originated.

So what I do is this: I basically collect all earnings (in an Excel sheet) and at the end of the year, I add the income as one lump sum to my total revenue.

The only VAT I'm dealing with is when I send a client an invoice directly, or when I receive an invoice.

And for your information (could be you already know this): the 'missing' VAT from Adobe CC membership should be registered as 'reverse charged VAT' in your tax return ('Prestaties uit het buitenland aan u verricht').

VAT in NL is simple. If you are required to charge VAT to a customer, you do that and complete the required VAT reporting every quarter or month. When you don't receive VAT payments from stock agencies because they're registered in USA or Canada etc, you can't report it because no VAT was involved in your payment. How the stock agencies work the VAT that they have to charge customers licensing images in the EU, I haven't a clue.....that's their problem.
Adobe appears to do all their 'transactions' in NL via Ireland. FT/Adobe payments come through Ireland as does my subscription to Photoshop CC. As I'm VAT registered here in NL, I don't have to pay VAT on my PS CC subscription after I've provided Adobe with my NL VAT registration number. (Falls under intra-community transactions, I believe).

VAT Questions should go directly to Irish Tax and Customs:

9/15 Upper O'Connell Street,
Dublin 1
D01 F9C1   

LoCall No.:
1890 236 336

Monday to Friday:
09.30 - 16.00
(excluding Public Holidays)   

email:
[email protected]

web:
http://www.revenue.ie/en/index.html

Just get the answer from Pond5 Inc. 

VAT ID Pond5 Ireland: IE3384130NH

If we add VAT we are going to loose 22% they will never pay even if they should.
I address my invoice to the main office of the company in NY-USA

VAT is added to the price, so you'd still get the same amount per sale. Sure, you might lose some buyers due to the increased price, but that may or may not be around the 22% mark.

If you mean that Pond5 will never pay... well if they're charging VAT then they have to pay. There;s no guarantee they will, but as they'd get massive fines and blacklisted by the Irish government, I'd say it's more likely they'll pay then not. If you mean customers won't pay, then see above.

Even if you're based in a country where you have to charge VAT on every sale, the general consensus when it comes to charging VAT for stock media... is that if the site in question hosts your images and handles downloads and payments, then they're the one that should be charging and remitting VAT. 

Quote from: lucagavagna on March 15, 2017, 13:11

If we add VAT we are going to loose 22% they will never pay even if they should.
I address my invoice to the main office of the company in NY-USA

VAT is added to the price, so you'd still get the same amount per sale. Sure, you might lose some buyers due to the increased price, but that may or may not be around the 22% mark.

If you mean that Pond5 will never pay... well if they're charging VAT then they have to pay. There;s no guarantee they will, but as they'd get massive fines and blacklisted by the Irish government, I'd say it's more likely they'll pay then not. If you mean customers won't pay, then see above.

Even if you're based in a country where you have to charge VAT on every sale, the general consensus when it comes to charging VAT for stock media... is that if the site in question hosts your images and handles downloads and payments, then they're the one that should be charging and remitting VAT.

Some info here - http://www.solocheck.ie/Irish-Company/Pond5-Media-Ireland-Limited-568019#report-4

I'm also having the same questions about Pond5.

In France, according to the tax law, "royalties" are considered in the category of "services" for VAT.

In the EU, when a company (here Pond5) buys a service from another company located in another EU country (here the contributor), it's the buyer (Pond5) which should pay VAT according to the relevant tax rate in its country. The seller (contributor) should write the gross price (without tax) on the invoice, and mention that the other company is responsible for paying VAT.

In France (but I imagine in other EU country as well), the seller (contributor) is nevertheless responsible for declaring the service provided to another country to the customs. This declaration is called DES (D�claration Europ�enne de Service) in France and is filled on the website https://pro.douane.gouv.fr.

For example, when I receive a payment from Alamy (VAT number GB718294123, which is still in EU at the time...), I write an invoice (which I don't send, but keep in case of control) with the gross price in EUR, and then I fill a DES form to the French customs. It's mandatory, and I can get a fine of 750 � per missing declaration if I don't do it.

Now, It's still not clear for me if I need to do the same for Pond5 because they pay me through their Irish office, but their headquarters are in the US. I'll call the customs to clarify.

(It's a bit complicated, but at the end, it's not me who pays VAT, so my income is unchanged, and it's all what matters )

Does anybody know if Pond5 is still paying European contributors from Ireland? It is Shutterstock sub-brand now and Bigstock seems to be paid through Shutterstock, so I would assume Pond5 will be paid through Shutterstock now as well but I want to be sure. Thanks.