Commission Junction From October 1st (VAT Change)

[angelabx]

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Well, if the full 17.5% isn't ADDED to my earnings to calculate the payment amount then my invoices will still be made out to the US office in USD.

I'm simply not absorbing 17.5% VAT!

[Luca Brasi]

Spoke to the merchant in question and the change on the descrption was just a clerical error and they will be adding VAt on top of commissions, even though the description says otherwise! Flase alarm

[ashagplz]

this shouldnt be left to guesswork and you having to phone merchants...CJ are basically sticking two fingers up at us all....they kept this under the carpet while telling us they have lawyers looking at VAT implications....this must have been in the pan for ahell of along time....

[ashagplz]

well, from a phone conversation it seems this should be very straightforward. They are saying VAT will be added to affiliate payments and shown as having been done so by an invoice sent from vauleclick. VAT applies to all transactions made on after october 1st 2005.

[playoff]

Hi guys
I was an oversea student in UK.
I have now moved back to Singapore.
Everything seem going smooth til now.
My commission was paid directly into my bank account.
But until recently, we are all required to fill up VAT which is a big problem for me as i dont have any VAT. Even dont understand what is VAT.
What should i do now?
Anyone?

Regards

[ashagplz]

What should i do now?

Panic!

do you make £60,000+ in the UK? If not then no problem..VAT is europe/country specific....

[jforster]

Hi guys

As promised, please find an update on the questions regarding our VAT launch which have been posted on the forum. Our client services team have been fielding many calls on this subject and will continue to do so - but we thought it also makes sense to post answers to the following questions here.

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I'm guessing it means that we will now get VAT added to our payments which makes life much simpler for those of us who are VAT registered?

> Yes, VAT will be added to all transactions originating after 1st October 2005 for UK VAT registered publishers only. October payments relate to transactions originating before 1st October 2005 so will not have VAT applied. However, in payments made in November and December there may be transactions that will not have VAT charged on them, for example extensions and corrections from before 1st October.


Will we get a payment on the 30th September from the US and then all future payments from Europe?

> Publisher payments at present will continue to come from Commission Junction US.


I'm already a member of ValueClick & get some income from banner clicks. They send me (by post) a printed invoice (with VAT). Will CJ payments now be the same? Hope so as I've been quite worried about how the current CJ payments would be viewed in a VAT inspection

> All Commission Junction publishers will be receiving a self billing invoice by email to their Super User email address for transactions originating after 1st October. Please ensure your Super User email address is up to date. If you are unsure how to do this, or require further clarification, please contact Commission Junction Client Services on 020 8785 5870. If you're not already working with VCmedia or Search123 and would like to learn more then please let us know.


In the email detailed above there is a click 'here' to access the new agreement. If I click on it from the email sent to me I get page not found. Does anyone have the correct address to see the new PSA-Europe agreement?

> Our apologies, this link is now working. You can also view the new PSA from here - http://www.cj.com/vclk_europe_ltd_pu...ept15_2005.pdf


So if a merchant is paying 10%, will our payments be 10% + VAT, or will the 10% include the VAT. If it's 10% + VAT I can see some US merchants not accepting UK affiliates, as they would then effectively be paying 11.75% commission.

> Publisher payments will be 10% + VAT and Commission Junction will not change US merchants VAT. We are advising merchants that this should not alter the commission being paid to affiliates.


Since payment is made the month after transactions does this mean that VAT will be added to October's payment or will it start from November's payment?

> VAT will be added to all transactions originating after 1st October 2005 for UK VAT registered publishers only, so will be present in November’s payment.


I am VAT registered but I am being paid in USD just now, on 1st October will my account be changed to UK Pounds as well?

> If a publisher is VAT registered and being paid in another currency, they will continue to be paid in that currency after 1st October.


If it is not, can it be changed as I think it be easier to work the account in UKP now that CJ are paying VAT, before it didn't really matter to me.

> If you wish to change the currency that you are paid in you will need to re-apply. It is not possible to change your currency once you have selected it during the sign-up process because of the historical data attached to your account.


Or will they issue a VAT invoice showing the converted US to UK amount with the VAT added when you see the UK amount?

> Yes, this is how it will work.


Just trying to work out how they going to give a UK company invoice for USD to a UK company and show the VAT correctly so the Customs and Revenue will be happy with it, so that kind of makes me think they going to have to get you to change to UK Pounds or give you an invoice that shows it in UK pounds.

> All UK invoices denominated in a foreign currency are required by HM Customs and Excise to state an exchange rate and Sterling equivalent VAT amount to be accounted for by both parties. Commission Junction will comply with this process.


I'd also like to have the account changed over to UKP if VAT is going to be paid.

> If you wish to change the currency that you are paid in you will need to re-apply. It is not possible to change your currency once you have selected it during the sign-up process because of the historical data attached to your account.


This sounds like a complicated problem. When CJ initially allowed publishers to change the currency, they said it was a "once only" offer! However, now you are being moved to the European part of CJ, the dynamics of the initial "once only" offer have changed so much, that I believe they should make the offer again to any VAT registered publishers!

They have 3 options as far as I can see:-

1, Allow you to switch to GBP.

2, Give a GBP figure of VAT on the self billing invoice (like Affiliate Future do).

3, Make you open a new CJ account in GBP (nightmare option).

I would imagine you need to show what rate you have converted the currency at before you apply the VAT and I would imagine that would CJ that do this for me so it could be loads simpler for them if they just switched over the few of us that are UK based still being paid in USD and even more simpler if loads are still being paid in USD but I don’t think it will be loads, a little change now would save CJ and ourselves additional work that none of us would want.

It would be nice if CJ, and all the others, would tell us what exchange rate they are using at any particular invoice date. Basic I know, but not a single one of the networks I deal with do so at the moment.

> Commission Junction will be complying with Option 2, as Option 1 is not possible because of the historical data attached to your account.


But the way I understand it to work is that any Invoice in another currency, issued by a UK VAT registered firm, has to show the UK amount (for VAT purposes) of any foreign amount at the current HMCE rates.
http://customs.hmrc.gov.uk/channels...RatesCodesTools

Check your VAT guide if you have time for a full explanation. As they will be issuing VAT invoices I would bet on them having to do the conversions for you. I would imagine they would have to be registered for Self Billing and so they would need to abide by normal UK VAT law.

> All UK invoices denominated in a foreign currency are required by HM Customs and Excise to state an exchange rate and Sterling equivalent VAT amount to be accounted for by both parties. Commission Junction will comply with this process.


As for the question on will they pay the current commission including VAT or will they pay VAT on top of the normal commission." Well, I guess. We will have some companies trying to pull a fast one hoping we won't notice and not pay the VAT on top. They should know that the big earners won't put up with this and it would prove a mistake, unless they are really good converters.

We had some merchants trying this sort of thing when the conversion of accounts went from $ to £ from what I remember. Would be nice if CJ set the rule, but they can't dictate to the merchant completely.

> VAT will be added on to the commission as stated above. All commissions stated by the advertiser are exclusive of VAT. All UK advertisers will be subject to VAT. Ultimately any merchant can set their own commission levels as they see fit, but we will certainly be advising strongly on best practice in this particular instance.


The date is wrong on the notification - it says 1st October 2006

> This has now been changed to 1st October 2005 – apologies for any confusion!

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Quite a lengthy post! Thanks to all of you who've posted and we are available as always to discuss any of this further on the contact addresses given. Please holler if i've missed anything here.

All the best

Jonathan Forster
Country Manager, UK & Ireland
Commission Junction, A ValueClick Company
jforster@cj.com

[KieronD]

> All Commission Junction publishers will be receiving a self billing invoice by email to their Super User email address for transactions originating after 1st October. Please ensure your Super User email address is up to date. If you are unsure how to do this, or require further clarification, please contact Commission Junction Client Services on 020 8785 5870. If you're not already working with VCmedia or Search123 and would like to learn more then please let us know.

First of all can I say well done on *finally* giving us self billing invoices. Big help with regards to reconcilling payments.

However I recently moved house so tried to change my address in my administrative settings and I got an error message saying that the format for my VAT number was incorrect. This confused me a bit as your control panel did not give me the option to update my VAT number and I didn't even want to update it!

So I emailed support and the answer I received was along the lines of "We are aware of this issue and our technical team will try to resolve it as soon as possible".

If this could be sorted out ASAP it would be really appreciated.

Cheers!

[olias]

Yes, VAT will be added to all transactions originating after 1st October 2005 for UK VAT registered publishers only. October payments relate to transactions originating before 1st October 2005 so will not have VAT applied. However, in payments made in November and December there may be transactions that will not have VAT charged on them, for example extensions and corrections from before 1st October.

OK, I thought this was all clear now and I understood it, but looking at my account balance I appear to have acquired 'fees' that are equal to 17.5% of my September commissions.

[purple]

I have this too, any one asked CJ about it yet?

[tomtomtomtomtom]

Kieron,

If you do need to change your VAT number it needs a:

GB

before the number.