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Contabo VAT for Non-EU, and they suck at math
Hey
So I just noticed today, Contabo is actually full of shit they lie and they suck at math.
- In their last "price increase" email, they said by 9.1% but in reality it is 15% or more.
- They have Double Storage. Same Price, but the fact is, it is not for normal SSD, only for NVMe. Example the one with 400GB SSD, the free upgrade is 600GB SSD, not 800!
- Finally, when you pick a country in the EU they show 20% vat included. Good. Now when you change country to outside EU, prices remain the same! So Original price -20%vat = Original price
yeah I know they are good price for what you get, etc, but lying has nothing to do with that and does not justify it.
It seems someone at Contabo really needs to be fired.
If they used a slogan like "More Storage. Same Price" it would work too, and I won't call them liars, and full of marketing BS instead I will be cheering for them and calling them generous.
Comments
Cross-border VAT is a nightmare. Many of the German providers seem to charge VAT for any non-EU sales, the ones that don't are in the minority.
Interesting
I don't use many German hosts, but I have Netcup too and they do the same pricing for everyone. Thing is Netcup has always been like this. No surprises.
But iirc, Contabo used to do multiple pricing per country properly... I am not gonna say I am 100% sure, but I think I did switch countries before and the price changed (maybe a year ago).
Maybe someone else can confirm?
BTW here are the UK VAT rules for digital services (which are basically opposite to the normal rules about place of supply, which is relating to which country VAT is charged): https://www.gov.uk/guidance/the-vat-rules-if-you-supply-digital-services-to-private-consumers
My understanding though is that each EU country has different rules about VAT. Certainly, if you want to sell into different countries you have to register for VAT in each country you can sell to. And "in theory" this also applies to US companies selling to EU, but I doubt anyone can easily enforce that.
I've found it pretty confusing as a business owner, and as all my company's income comes from the US and so as I don't have to register for VAT, I'm just taking the easy way out when it comes to hosting, and buying the services personally and letting the company have them for free. It's more hassle than it's worth to register for VAT if you can avoid it! (Even though I'd actually be due about £1200 VAT rebate if I did register, I'm postponing it for as long as possible, as you have 7 years to reclaim over-paid VAT).