November 1, 2023, 12:19 p.m. |
Reading time: 4 minutes
Amazon Vine is a program from the online retailer that allows users to test products. But now it is said that so-called “Vine Voices” have to fill out a tax questionnaire.
Amazon Vine – an exclusive club for product testers at the online shop. Not everyone will be accepted into this program. The company chooses its “Vine Voices”, as the selected reviewers are called, itself. Those chosen then have the opportunity to order items free of charge, test them and then rate them or write a review. However, there are now signs of changes for Amazon Vine users – from November 1st.
Tax questionnaire for Amazon Vine users is coming
Many “Vine Voices” probably recently received an email from Amazon asking them to fill out a tax questionnaire. That wasn’t the case before. The change is currently being discussed in various forums. And other things reported A user on Reddit said that he was recently asked by Amazon to fill out a tax questionnaire and asked: “Do I have to expect to receive mail from the tax office in which I will ultimately be asked to pay taxes for the products I tested?”
Further down in the same thread you will find a user who received a response from Amazon about the current procedure. The dealer points it out to him new European Union directive there. This, more precisely the “Directive on Administrative Cooperation” (DAC), would require online shops like Amazon to collect and verify certain personal, tax and financial data from service providers.
Specifically, according to Amazon, it is about “DAC7”, an expansion of the EU regulation on tax transparency. Accordingly, the company is now obliged to pass on the following data from Vine participants, which they must therefore fill out in the tax questionnaire:
- First name and last name
- birth date
- Place of birth
- Main residence
- VAT identification number/registration number
- All issued TIN (Tax Identification Numbers)
Also interesting: Secret Amazon club sends members free products
Deadlines for Vine users
Amazon Vine’s new policy was also posted on other forums. It also becomes clear that there are differences in deadlines. In the letter from Amazon, a user in a “Mydealz” thread posted It says: “If you joined Vine before October 30, 2023 and do not provide the required information or Amazon is unable to validate the information provided by December 31, 2023, you will From 2024 onwards you will no longer be able to participate in the Vine program.”
Vine participants who enrolled in the program after October 30, 2023 will not be able to participate until they have already provided their information and Amazon has validated it. This means: Anyone who wants to participate in Vine from November 2023 must provide their data directly to Amazon.
Due to the legal requirements of DAC7, Amazon is obliged to collect tax information from Vine product testers, compare the information with databases of the relevant authorities and report the value of the products ordered and received free of charge together with the data to the EU tax authorities.
The online giant must report the information collected from all Vine product testers to the tax authorities by January 31 of the following year.
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Who pays the tax now?
Admittedly, the current procedure is quite irritating, so you can quickly lose track. But there is an all-clear for product testers. In principle, they will not be subject to any new taxes. Rather, it is about product providers transmitting data from “Vine Voices” to the tax office. The authorities can then check more easily and transparently whether the taxes have been paid correctly.
However, it occasionally happens that Vine users order larger quantities or more expensive products and do not pay tax on them. This is also why the tax office wants to take a closer look and counteract possible tax evasion. In addition, the Platform Tax Transparency Act has been in place since November 2022 (PStTG). This means that users are allowed to make a maximum of 30 transactions per year per platform, which must not exceed the amount of 2,000 euros. If this is still the case, the platform operator must report this to the tax office. This law was originally intended for platforms such as Ebay, Momox, etc., where users generate a certain amount of revenue through private sales. Now the law also affects Amazon customers, more precisely participants in the Vine tester program.
As part of the query, testers should follow Section 46 Paragraph 2 No. 1 of the Income Tax Act (EStG) observe. It says that you do not have to pay tax on part-time income or income from non-self-employed work up to 410 euros.
In the future, Amazon’s tax questionnaire will make it more transparent and easier for the tax authorities to filter out those users who order expensive or high-quality test products and thus avoid the high purchase prices.