Suspension Notice For Invalid UK VAT Number When Not Selling In The UK
Our company is located in the US, and we sold in the US and UK marketplaces for about two years. We stopped selling in the UK last year.
Recently, we closed our UK VAT account/number so that we don't need to continue filing $0 VAT tax returns.
Yesterday we received an email from Amazon stating: "Account suspension risk - UK VAT number invalid", and "Please upload a valid UK VAT number here within the next 60 days or your selling privileges will be deactivated."
We would like to close the unneeded UK/EU marketplace selling account, but seller support informed us that since we have a unified account, it is not possible to close the Europe marketplace without closing the USA marketplace. (Is this true?)
Our next idea was to request a VAT exemption for non-UK sellers (requirements here: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/tax/exemption/declaration > "Terms and Conditions of the VAT registration exemption.") However, responses from seller support say that only UK sellers can qualify for the VAT exemption, in direct contrast to Amazon's Terms and Conditions linked above. After multiple tries, this seems like a dead end.
Our concern is that in 60 days, Amazon UK will suspend our account due to not having a valid VAT number, and since our Amazon account is unified, the entire account (including US) will be suspended. We want to handle this properly, preferably by letting Amazon know what we are no longer selling in the UK and to close the UK/EU marketplace, but this doesn't seem possible.
We aren't even able to get another VAT number to undo this mess because we closed our VAT account and informed HMRC that our company ceased all business operations in the UK last year. (Although there should be a better solution than setting up a new VAT account and paying an accountant to file monthly $0 tax returns just to keep the Amazon account open with the Amazon UK marketplace dormant.)
Does anyone have any suggestions?
Suspension Notice For Invalid UK VAT Number When Not Selling In The UK
Our company is located in the US, and we sold in the US and UK marketplaces for about two years. We stopped selling in the UK last year.
Recently, we closed our UK VAT account/number so that we don't need to continue filing $0 VAT tax returns.
Yesterday we received an email from Amazon stating: "Account suspension risk - UK VAT number invalid", and "Please upload a valid UK VAT number here within the next 60 days or your selling privileges will be deactivated."
We would like to close the unneeded UK/EU marketplace selling account, but seller support informed us that since we have a unified account, it is not possible to close the Europe marketplace without closing the USA marketplace. (Is this true?)
Our next idea was to request a VAT exemption for non-UK sellers (requirements here: https://sellercentral.amazon.co.uk/tax/exemption/declaration > "Terms and Conditions of the VAT registration exemption.") However, responses from seller support say that only UK sellers can qualify for the VAT exemption, in direct contrast to Amazon's Terms and Conditions linked above. After multiple tries, this seems like a dead end.
Our concern is that in 60 days, Amazon UK will suspend our account due to not having a valid VAT number, and since our Amazon account is unified, the entire account (including US) will be suspended. We want to handle this properly, preferably by letting Amazon know what we are no longer selling in the UK and to close the UK/EU marketplace, but this doesn't seem possible.
We aren't even able to get another VAT number to undo this mess because we closed our VAT account and informed HMRC that our company ceased all business operations in the UK last year. (Although there should be a better solution than setting up a new VAT account and paying an accountant to file monthly $0 tax returns just to keep the Amazon account open with the Amazon UK marketplace dormant.)
Does anyone have any suggestions?
3 replies
Seller_o4E5EDuZ6jS0J
[Moderator Edit: removed personal solicitations]
Sonny_Amazon
Hey there @Seller_9rqkOB1DwsSVp,
I am checking in on your thread as it appears you are working through potential suspension for an invalid UK VAT at this time. You have made it clear you do not intend to continue to sell or operate in UK and looking for guidance on potential account closure - given the account is a Unified Seller Account you may not be able to close the UK/EU region without including US/North America.
Given this is the US Forums community, I suggest also posting your question and requesting assistance specifically in the UK marketplace/forum. You can find the UK Account Health Forum here.
Best,
Sonny
Seller_HsHRmIVZQYBBh
Hi MedicalDynamics,
How did you end up solving this? I have the exact same issue right now!
Thanks alot!
