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E-commerce in EU (mainly Lithuania), taxes and problems

Dontelgel

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Jan 30, 2021
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Hello, I am from Lithuania and I currently, I am living here. (EU)
Since May of 2021 I have been in e-commerce business. At first, everything looked fine and okay but since when I became a VAT payer in Lithuania, everything changed. The taxes, for non-company people are very high (that comes down to around 50% in total from the revenue). I have individual activity certificate which is free and doesn't require anything to get but since my revenue got a lot higher (20-70k EUR a month), it's not possible to make profits anymore, since taxes eat up everything because the more you earn, the higher the % of taxes get. Also, opening a company isn't hard but it would require tons and tons of work because I would have to report everything every single month, put all the invoices down to our local system, write everything down to them and etc. (it's not required if you don't have a company), also getting inspected every month and so is also a real thing. Also, just by being a bit late to report revenue, you can get your home (office) searched by police, tax authorities (happened to a lot of people I know).

I am selling in Lithuania right now and stocking products at my home (Lithuania). Is there any possible way of opening a company in other country to avoid those monthly inspections and so? Not trying to avoid taxes but getting inspected and getting fines for being late even for a few days to submit TAX documents is ridiculous. I also study here, since I am only 18 so getting everything in time is kind of impossible because I don't have that much time in a day.
What would be the best choice to pay less taxes and also, most importantly, have easier ways of reporting my income?

Thank You.
 
Forming a foreign/offshore company for this business would only make things worse. It won't actually change much of the reporting you are currently doing, but it would add a lot more.

Form a Lithuanian company and outsource accounting to an accounting firm. There are many of them and often the same service provider can help you form the company and take care of accounting. They will do all the filing and paperwork, including VAT. This is what almost all start-ups do, unless they have an accountant on staff.

The cost for outsourcing is usually based on number of transactions and some flat fees for filing. I wouldn't expect accounting for an average ecommerce business of your size to cost more than few hundred to at most maybe 1-2,000 EUR per month. You can often negotiate a lower cost if you can demonstrate that your setup produces invoices, payment processor statements, and bank statements in a way that makes it easy to do accounting.

Ask other Lithuanians for recommendations and look online for ones with good reviews. This website might also help: Pradžia