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0:00 One of the most annoying things that can happen to you in your accounting is Amazon invoices. As convenient and easy as Amazon is for buyers, Amazon is just as annoying when it comes to accounting. And there are actually a few things you should be aware of if you buy from Amazon as a freelancer. And there is also a tax trap that can be very costly, one you may have fallen into without even realizing it. In this video, we take a closer look at what you should watch out for in your accounting with Amazon. Basically, you can get almost everything from Amazon, including everything for your self-employment. Be it purchasing goods or any major purchases, like a desk, a monitor, or a laptop. You can probably find all the things you need for your self-employment on Amazon somehow.
0:46 And of course, it makes sense to simply buy these things there. If you shop privately on Amazon, you probably also have an Amazon account. And so it naturally makes sense to now also make company purchases via this Amazon account. And at first glance, that seems relatively simple. You can enter a billing address on Amazon and then usually receive an invoice, which you can then, theoretically, one would think, simply import into your accounting. The annoying thing with Amazon is sometimes that these invoices aren't always available. This means that sometimes you have to click into Amazon, request the invoice, and wait a few days. And then you actually have the invoice. But sometimes this invoice is, well, how should I put it, more of a receipt. And this invoice you receive from Amazon doesn't always comply with German tax law.
1:32 You may have noticed, especially when you purchase from companies in China, for example, that you sometimes receive a document presented as an invoice that is difficult to read, where the tax information isn't quite right, and so on. In fact, Amazon is working on making these invoices look more and more standardized. But you probably still have a very central problem with many Amazon invoices . Let's take a closer look at what the exact problem is on my screen. What we see here is a completely normal, standardized Amazon invoice. Not one of those disastrous invoices where you don't really know what's actually on it, but a truly standard Amazon invoice, which looks very decent at first glance. That means we have the invoice recipient here, the billing address and the delivery address below, and it also states
2:20 who actually sold us what. Amazon, based in Munich. Below, of course, it says what they sold me. This, as it happens, wasn't for my company because it was a Paw Patrol doll. And here is the price including sales tax. That means I have a net price of €14.38, plus 19% sales tax, which is €2.73, and that results in a gross price of €17.11. That looks correct so far, because a Munich company is selling me something. My headquarters are in Berlin. That means we have a B2B business relationship. Both companies are based in Germany. The VAT identification looks great. I could take this invoice, if it were a business purchase, enter it into my accounting, and treat it as a normal business expense, thus claiming
3:07 the €2.73 as input tax. That's what you'd think, but unfortunately, it's wrong. Here we see Amazon's VAT identification number, and here again, by the way, this VAT identification number begins with LU. This means it's not a German VAT identification number, but a Luxembourg VAT identification number. This is because Amazon has its European headquarters in Luxembourg. And this Luxembourg VAT number leads to... that, for VAT purposes, Amazon did not sell these goods from Germany, but from Luxembourg. This means that we have a sale from a company registered in Luxembourg to a German company. It doesn't matter at all that Munich is listed as the address; what matters is the foreign
3:56 VAT identification number. And now we have a serious problem with this invoice, because if you, as a company, purchase from another company and this other company is based outside of the EU, then the whole thing is an intra-community acquisition. This means that for such a purchase, you need a net invoice, i.e., an invoice without VAT identification. And your purchase, i.e., the intra-community acquisition, is then subject to VAT for you. This means that the correct invoice here would be for the amount of 14.38 euros, and you then report this purchase to the tax office as part of your advance VAT return and then pay the 19% VAT on it . This is generally not a problem, because you can also claim
4:41 this paid VAT as input tax in the same advance VAT return. This means that you effectively only pay the net amount. The problem, however, is that we have exactly that case with this invoice. But you don't receive a net invoice; instead, you can clearly see that you received an invoice with VAT. And why is that? Because Amazon didn't even know that you were purchasing as a business. And that's why Amazon issued the invoice as it would have been if it had been a private purchase. But you're purchasing as a business and urgently need a net invoice. This means that the VAT on this invoice is incorrect. And according to Section 14c of the VAT Act, you actually can't claim incorrectly stated VAT . This means that if you now enter this invoice in your accounting, you can still book it as a business expense.
5:29 But you actually have to book it with the gross amount, i.e. €17.11. And then you still have to tax this invoice again as an intra-community acquisition. This means that you have to pay the VAT on the gross amount to the tax office again and can then reclaim it accordingly. The whole thing becomes really annoying if you're a small business owner. Because then you have to take this gross amount, pay the sales tax on it , and have no way of reclaiming this sales tax. Many small business owners aren't even aware that you actually have to pay sales tax to the tax office in such business relationships. This means that purchases become more expensive for you as a small business owner because you don't have the option of claiming the sales tax paid as input tax. This brings us to a very central question:
6:16 How do you do this correctly? How do you tell Amazon that this purchase is being made as part of your self-employment and not privately? And you do this by providing your sales tax identification number. This means that providing your sales tax identification number in business relationships always signals: Attention, I'm now working as a self-employed person, and this turnover is no longer with an end customer, but with another company. Amazon then actually sends you a net invoice, and you can then include this net invoice in your accounting as normal. The problem is, you can't do that so easily with your Amazon account. You need an Amazon Business account for that. And an Amazon Business account
7:01 is actually really quick to set up. I'll link the whole process below in the video description. Click on it, and in just a few clicks, you'll have a separate account. This means you'll have a private account for all your personal purchases. It's no problem at all if sales tax is shown, as in my example. And then you have a business account that you can use to shop as soon as you buy things for your own business. If you're thinking, oh, that's annoying because I have Amazon Prime and then I can't use it. I do n't really want to sign up for Amazon Prime again just because I order something for my own business, then I can reassure you, because Amazon has a function that basically splits Prime. So if you have a personal and a business account, then one Prime subscription is actually enough, so you can use the Prime function for both accounts and take advantage of free delivery, for example.
7:50 When you've signed up for Amazon Business and log in, Amazon looks like this to you. That means it essentially looks like other Amazon. It actually offers the same products. There are sometimes offers that are specifically aimed at business customers and then you can actually save money with Amazon Business. And Amazon Business also has a few other advantages. For example, there are integrations with accounting systems where invoices from Amazon are automatically transferred directly into your accounting program. This works for Lexware Office, for example. I'd be happy to show it. And on Amazon, for example, you'll be shown the net prices because, as a self-employed person, you have input tax deduction and you're not interested in the gross amount. You're primarily interested in the net amount. And that's why you'll always find the net prices shown here on Amazon Business
8:35 . The reason we do this is so that we receive invoices in the first place, which enable us to properly enter these expenses into our accounting on Amazon. And we've already talked about the fact that you have to provide your VAT identification number for this. And you can do this by going to your profile settings. There you'll see the option Manage VAT identification number. Then you click on it and you can add your VAT identification number here. As you can see, I've already done the whole thing . That means my VAT identification number is entered here. This means that Amazon automatically knows that whenever I make a purchase here with this account, it's a business purchase. I always receive a proper invoice, which I can then easily
9:22 include in my accounting. I personally don't even have to transfer it to my accounting system because I've linked Amazon Business with my Lexio Office account. And the invoices do look slightly different. Let's take a look at that. Let's go to my profile. We'll look at my orders. Take a look at what I've bought. Ah, I bought flowers for my office. Artificial flowers, because I'm too stupid to water them. And then I find the invoice up here. And if I click on it, I can call up the invoice directly. And then we see the invoice in the familiar structure. That means I can see the invoice recipient. I see the business address. That means my business address. I also see the delivery address. Where did the delivery actually go? And I can see the seller. In this case, it's not Amazon;
10:09 it's a company from China. I won't even try to say that. And what I see above all is that this company doesn't sell VAT from China, but that they have provided a VAT identification number that begins with CZ. And CZ stands for Czech Republic. That means, for VAT purposes, I have now made a purchase from the Czech Republic. I am a German company. This means I have exactly the same scenario as in my private account. And further down here, I can also see what I purchased. Namely the artificial plants. I see the amount without VAT. So this is a net amount and also shows 0% VAT. And that's exactly what we need. Because if I, as a company, purchase from another company in another EU country, I need an invoice without VAT. I even get a note down here. It says "tax-free intra-community delivery."
10:57 And that's exactly how it should look. Because I can now easily import this invoice into my accounting. And I can now record and post it as an intra-community acquisition. This means I pay the 19% VAT on this invoice amount and remit this 19% VAT for this intra-community acquisition to the tax office. And at the same time, because I am liable for VAT, I also have the input tax deduction. This means, in practical terms, I pay nothing. But I can definitely deduct the whole thing because the invoice is proper and correct. Let's come to the end of this video and my urgent appeal. Please, please set up an Amazon Business Account and provide your VAT identification number if you purchase from Amazon for your own business. Everything we've looked at in this video
11:45 isn't a huge issue in terms of the amount, because we were only talking about a few euros of sales tax. And with two or three euros, you can say, well, that's not that important to me. And the tax office won't look at it that strictly when it's two euros of sales tax. But if you start buying your monitor, your laptop, your desk, your desk chair, your camera, and so on from Amazon, we're not talking about two or three euros of sales tax, but hundreds or thousands of euros of sales tax that you can't claim because it's incorrectly stated on the invoice. And the only thing that alerts you to this is Amazon's sales tax identification number, which very often begins with LU or, in the Chinese example, CZ. And you absolutely have to pay attention to this, because although
12:33 many self-employed people don't know this, and many tax advisors don't even know it in this form, the tax office does. And if the tax office sees an Amazon invoice in your accounting , and it's clearly an invoice from your private Amazon account, then they know exactly what to look for and have essentially already found the error in your accounting. And so that the tax office doesn't come knocking on your door one day and demand a refund of hundreds or thousands of euros in sales tax from all your Amazon orders, please set up an Amazon Business account as soon as possible. I don't see any downside to Amazon Prime's transfer function at all. This means that all the advantages you might have with Amazon Prime with your private account— as I do, to be honest—you also have with your business account. So in my opinion, there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, unless you don't know it. But you know it now.
13:22 And if you want to know things in the future that other self-employed people don't know, then you should subscribe to this channel. And if, in addition to accurate Amazon invoices, you also need other things for your self-employment—an accounting program, a bank account, a tax advisor—then check out my recommendations below in the video description or simply click here. And if you already have all that, just watch the next video on this channel. For example, this one or this one.
