作者：Byron Atkinson-Jones

引言：

我不是一名会计师，我只是一个对企业经营法律方面感兴趣的开发者。以下是我对于一些规章制度的解读。

关于企业及会计师

我知道，公司账单可能会吓退大多数开发者。同比创造性地制作游戏，了解这种账单似乎颇为枯燥。事实上，至少我访问过的两位开发者均表示，他们不打算对此具体了解：这是会计师的工作范畴。但无论该话题多么的枯燥与乏味，忽视这一问题不仅会让你陷入法律纠葛，而且也会损耗资金。

会计师不一定需要快速掌握游戏行业的所有动态。大多数情况下，小型企业只能获取微薄收入，但如果你是iOS开发者，那么该行业的某些专业知识可能就是会计师的盲区。比如，我的会计师会提醒我有关收入、季度增值税与年终收益总结报告方面的事宜，但当涉及到苹果如何根据应用销售额支付开发者收入，以及应该如何说明这些收益来源时，会计师坦承自己不知道如何下手。在此，我并没有批评会计师的意思；税收领域十分繁杂，我也怀疑找到一个了解这所有形势的会计师，其成本势必远超当前这位会计师。

tax-planning(from jsrcharteredaccountants.com)

开发者面对的增值税问题

税收问题十分烦人，尤其是增值税，我发现不少开发者被说服采用固定增值税率方案（该处理方法将比完整的增值税系统更加简单）。会计师认为，固定增值税率方案能够减少文案工作，它可以转移会计师制定增值税收取对象与税率的工作职责。其弊端在于，税率假定你的所有收入都应交付增值税，从而忽视了某些无需支付增值税对象。然而，为了减轻工作量，会计师选择降低你所应支付的增值税率，从而让你留住一些零头。例如，我们原先需向客户收取20%的增值税，但向英国税务海关署（HMRC）报备时就好像你只收取了他们14%的增值税，这样便可将余下收益收入囊中。你支付HMRC的税收费用取决于你从事的业务类型。

固定增值税率方案制定的增值税（虽然已降低税率）适用于所有收入范畴，无论该项收入是否拥有其相应的增值税。但这一条例也存在特例。其中一例便是，如果你的收入来自另一个国家，比如美国，那么它就不属于英国增值税的交付范畴。所以，如果你从美国获取大笔收入，那么你无需根据固定增值税率方案支付增值税，它不在HMRC的收入计算范畴之内。这意味着，虽然从减少文案工作的角度看，固定增值税率方案占据优势，但你仍需要追踪自己的收入来源。

根据固定增值税率方案，所有收入都（除了免税项目）都应支付相应的增值税，包括来自零税收产品或服务（也就是本来无需支付增值税的服务或产品）的销售收入。但如果你的所有收入均来自零税收产品或服务，那情况会怎样？依据固定增值税率方案，这并无大碍。你仍然需要为此支付增值税。实际上，根据HMRC的相关制度，如果你的主要收入来自零税率产品或服务，或是免税商品，那么在此采用固定增值税率方案其实并非最佳选择，因为你实则可能需支付更多增值税。

那么，苹果是如何操作这方面事宜的？

关于iTunes收益的增值税

苹果应用或IAP销售额的收入支付方式十分复杂，他们还需应对不同地区的不同支付方式。苹果已经处理了应用与IAP销售方面的增值税问题，因此我们开发者得到的是税后收入。我们不必为此继续支付任何增值税。

但事实上，我们的收入来自苹果卢森堡，它不在英国增值税交付范围内，属于免税收益。

如果你也像我一样无法理解苹果发送的收入报告单，你可能没有什么感觉，只知道苹果常常会往你的账户汇款。基于你的会计水平，你们可能只会将其视为收入而记录下来，然后将其搁置一旁。这表明，你的会计师可能不了解行业实情，而且他认为你会告知相关信息，比如那笔款项的来源。而情况恰恰相反，你却可能会认为会计师会积极找到相关信息——毕竟你只打算制作游戏，而其它事项应由他们负责。至少，我认识的某个开发者并不清楚来自苹果的收益增值税情况，并针对自己在App Store的销售额支付了增值税。

那么，如果你是一个采用固定增值税率法案的小型开发者，而且你的主要收入来自苹果App Store的销售额，那么你应确保会计师了解上述事项。至少，你应告知他们相关信息，方便他们了解实情。正如我开头所言，

我不是一名会计师。我在此提及的所有内容皆出自我对这些情况的理解，我的理解可能有误，这需要你自己判断。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

iOS indie game developers: are you paying too much VAT?

by Byron Atkinson-Jones

First a disclaimer:

I am not an accountant. I’m just a developer who took an interest in the legal side of running a business. What follows is my interpretation of the rules and does not count as advice: should you decide to follow this up, you should talk to a professional accountant and/or lawyer before proceeding. If you find differently, share your view on the topic!

(Editorial note: Byron is based in the UK. Devs in other territories could learn something from his experience, but specifics of tax law will vary. If you have a story to share about running a games business where you are, get in touch.)

Now onto the story:

How well do you know your business?

Business accounting seems to be something that scares the hell out of most of the devs I know. Compared to being creative and making games, it can seem dry. In fact, at least two developers I’ve spoken to about this have both said to me that they don’t want to know about it: that’s what accountants are for. However, no matter how dry and boring the subject may be, just ignoring it can not only get you into legal trouble but could also cost you money.

Accountants are not necessarily up to speed on everything to do with your area of business. For the most part, small business accounts are just small business accounts, but if you are an iOS developer there are a couple of specialised areas that your accountant has probably never come across. For example, my accountant keeps me on my toes in respect to payroll, VAT quarterlies and end of year reports, but when it came to how Apple processes the payments from App sales and how they should be accounted for, they admitted that they didn’t know what to do. This is not a criticism of my accountants; the tax world is vast and I suspect finding an accountant that did know all about it would probably cost me a lot more than my current accountant does.

How should a game dev handle VAT?

Because tax can be confusing, especially VAT, I’m finding a lot of the developers are being persuaded to go down the flat-rate VAT scheme which promises to be a lot simpler to deal with than the full blown VAT system. The accountants are right that the flat-rate scheme does result in less paperwork and it does this by removing the responsibility of working out what should have VAT applied to it and at what rate. The downside is that this rate assumes that VAT should be applied to all your income regardless if that income should have had VAT applied to it or not. To sweeten the deal however, they reduce the VAT rate you have to pay allowing you to keep the difference. So if you charge a client VAT at 20% you would only have to pay HMRC as if you had charged them at a rate of 14% and pocket the rest. The actual rate you pay HMRC at varies based on your type of business but you get the idea.

Under the flat-rate scheme, VAT (albeit at the reduced rate) is applied to all your income regardless to if that income wouldn’t ordinarily have VAT applied to it. There are exceptions to this rule. One of them is if the revenue comes from a country outside of the UK VAT remit, for example, the USA. So if you get a lot of revenue from the USA you don’t need to pay VAT on it under the flat-rate scheme, so it can be removed from your income calculations for HMRC. This means that while the flat-rate scheme looks beneficial from the point of view of less paperwork, you still need to keep track of where your income comes from.

All income (unless exempt) has VAT applied to it under the flat-rate scheme, including revenue from products or services that are zero-rated. In other words, products or services that don’t have VAT liability. However, what happens if all your revenue comes from products or services that are zero-rated? Under the flat-rate scheme this doesn’t matter. You still have to pay VAT on it. In fact under HMRC’s own guidance, if the main bulk of your revenue comes from products or services that are zero-rated or exempt then the flat-rate scheme may not be the best for you because you may actually be paying too much VAT.

So how does Apple feature in all this?

VAT on iTunes revenue

The way Apple takes payment for App sales or IAP revenue is very complicated and has to do with how they represent income to the various governments wherever Apple does business. Apple already processes VAT on App and IAP sales, and we receive revenue from Apple after that VAT has been processed. Therefore,the revenue we receive from Apple is not liable for any further VAT payment from us. On top of this, the income we receive from Apple is actually paid from Apple Luxembourg, which is outside of the UK VAT remit and is exempt anyway.

If like me you have difficulty wading through all the reports that come back from Apple about your sales, it feels like every now and then money just appears in your account from Apple.

Depending on your level of involvement with your accountant, you may just be recording those payments as income and then leaving it at that. This means that your accountant may not be aware of all the facts and is assuming that you will be telling them the pertinent information such as where that payment came from. Conversely, you may be under the impression that the accountant will actively seek that information out – after all you just want to make games, the business stuff can be left up to them. At least one developer I know wasn’t aware of the VAT status of royalty payments from Apple and had been paying VAT on a sole income derived from App store sales.

So, if you are a small developer that has been persuaded to go onto the flat-rate scheme by your accountant and you derive the main bulk of your revenue from Apple App store sales, make sure your accountant is aware of the above. At the very least, talk all of this through with your accountant so that they have all the facts. As I mentioned at the beginning, I’m not an accountant. Everything here is my understanding of the situation, but I could be wrong. It’s important to check it out for yourself.(source:gamesbrief)