Is it illegal to pay somebody who does not (yet) have a VAT-number

On 2002-03-15 22:54, williamson wrote:



If you \"play the game by the book\" she is 50% right. Normally, you export a service to a E.U.-Member-State and you do not have to charge the V.A.T to your customer if it is an agency. However, your customer(agency) has to charge it to its end-customer and pay the V.A.T. to the Spanish fiscal authorities. Normally, the agency does not need your V.A.T.-number to pay your bill, but if it has no V.A.T.-number it cannot deduce your invoice as costs.

However, if you deal with a direct client, then, yes, the company you are doing business with needs your V.A.T.number in order to be able to justify payment of V.A.T. to the Spanish tax-authorities.





Well, doesn\'t it all say one and the same thing? Namely that for them it\'s all about making or not making money on the VAT. Well, they should have considered that (and informed you about it!) BEFORE they gave you the job. If they didn\'t, then you say \"Sorry, there was no such arrangement about VAT and as a foreign resident you\'re not required to know Spanish laws. So you have to pay me.\"



But again, here comes the risk involved when working with foreign companies at all. How do you enforce payment, if you feel cheated? Do you have legal protection in Spain? Well, of course not! And that\'s why they\'re doing it to you, because they know it all too well that you don\'t (have any). That\'s why I\'m working only for companies/agencies in my country of residence.



Well, to give you at least some tips how to deal with crooks like these, you should at least threaten them:



1. to report them to Spanish and international credit reporting agencies (in order to ruin their credit, if they don\'t pay up)

2. to report them to the Department of Consumer Affairs in their city in Spain (you\'ll have to find out the name & address of such a gov\'t office in Spain where they get their business licenses from)

3. to report them to the Spanish tax authorities (again, do a search on the Internet to find out what they\'re called in Spanish and what their address is) for attempts of evasion of taxes (trust me, nobody wants to invite a tax auditor to their company, if they can avoid it)

4. even, if you\'re bluffing, but threaten to take them to a Spanish Small Claims Court in their city and tell them that you will be represented by a friend in their city who will be able to appear in court

5. to spread the word about them not paying their translators at international and Spanish translators\' associations and other forums (like ProZ.com and Aquarius.net for example), so they can just forget about finding another translator, if they don\'t pay you



Well, these are some of the things I would do and then I would scratch my head to come up with some more ideas, if the amount in dispute is high enough. I really wish you the best of luck and don\'t let these crooks go free! Let them know that you know what they\'re up to and that you won\'t let them get away with it, that you mean business! Nice words often don\'t work, so threatening might be your only chance to see money AND teach them a lesson, because you have to ask yourself also, how many other translators did they cheat beside me?



P.S.: Put their rating also in \"Agency Ratings\" under \"Extras\" (left column on ProZ.com website), also called the Blue Board! This will help other translators to learn from your mistake. But do it when the matter has been decided either way finally, even if you got paid, but let others know that this Spanish agency is \"reluctant to pay\"! Good luck! ▲ Collapse