On Aug 4, 2013, at 11:47 PM, John R Levine wrote:
At last week's very successful Berlin meeting, the finances were
thrown of whack by the late discovery that the IETF had to pay 19%
German VAT on the registration fee. At the IAOC session they said
that about half of that is likely to be reclaimed from VAT paid, but
the net amount is still a large number.
The usual IANAL and IANAC should not be joined by IANACPA.
But a CPA at my company said that we couldn't reclaim the VAT, because the
"service" was consumed in Germany. If others hear different from their
accounting departments, I'd love to hear about it.
Ray said the tax guys told him the IETF would get back about half of the VAT
it paid. That's unrelated to what anyone can reclaim.
My understanding is that Germany has reciprocal VAT agreements with a bunch
of countries so if your employer is in one of those countries it may be able
to reclaim, but since the US isn't one of them I haven't looked in detail.
The IAOC posted an FAQ on the subject at:
<https://www.ietf.org/meeting/87/vat.html>
See the links in the FAQ related to non-European countries that can reclaim the
VAT.
Ray
IAD
The Google English translation of the list is:
Andorra
Korea, Democratic People's Republic of
Antigua and Barbuda
Korea, Republic of (as of 1 January 1999)
Australia
Croatia (as of 1 January 2010)
Bahamas
Kuwait
Bahrain
Lebanon
Bermuda
Liberia
Bosnia and Herzegovina (1 January 2006)
Libya
British Virgin Islands
Liechtenstein
Brunei Darussalam
Macao
Grand Cayman Island
Maldives
China (Taiwan) (1 July 2010)
Macedonia (from 1 April 2000)
Gibraltar
Netherlands Antilles (30 April 1999)
Grenada
Norway
Greenland
Oman
Guernsey
Pakistan (from 1 July 2008)
Hong Kong (PR China)
Solomon Islands
Iraq
San Marino
Iran
Saudi Arabia
Iceland
Switzerland
Israel (from 14 July 1998)
St. Vincent and the Grenadines
Jamaica
Swaziland
Japan
Vatican
Jersey
United Arab Emirates
Canada
United States of America (USA)
Qatar
R's,
John