VAT on income from USA?

[woody60]

Here’s a teaser for all you experts.
I am self-employed (and semi-retired). As one of the services I render, I receive a monthly payment from a US company to provide written articles on various subjects which are uploaded to various web sites. The majority of this payment is farmed out to Irish workers who do the actual writing and I keep a small percentage for my administration.
However my actual income, if it were to include this payment, would push it over the VAT registration threshold.( If not included, it would remain under the threshold.)
So my question is: since it comes from out of the EU, do I still have to register for VAT? If ‘yes’ is there any legal way I can deal with this income so as not to have to register for VAT since it would impact negatively on the other work I do?
Thanks in advance

 

[Paddy199]

This is the supply of a digitised good and the VAT rules under Electronically supplied services apply i.e. Fourth Schedule Services. Where an Irish trader provides electronically supplied services to a non-EU customer (whether business or private), the place of supply is outside the EU and no Irish VAT applies.

The above is just concerned with the charge to VAT.

Registration - normal rules apply so if you breach the threshold you have to register. Consider using a disclosed agent setup. Irish writers invoice directly to US customer and you invoice Irish writers for commission. Your supplies are then just the commission. However, you may not like the Irish writers invoicing directly.

Others may have comments on the above.