Tax assistance by country: what WrkLst covers where you sell from

What tax assistance suggests depends on where the business that sells is established — its home. This article goes through every home WrkLst covers: what it suggests, what you answer in Settings › Tax, what your invoices show and which figures Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares. How tax assistance works everywhere — setting it up, the Tax section of a sale, issuing invoices — is in Tax assistance: VAT and sales tax suggested on every sale. What it suggests is not tax advice: decide your answers with your tax adviser, and check its suggestions with them. This article describes WrkLst 10.

At a glance

• Fully covered — Germany (charities included), the United Kingdom and California.
• Covered, without your country's own invoicing rules — Austria, Italy, the other EU countries without an e-invoicing or reporting system of their own, New York, Tennessee and Singapore. WrkLst suggests the tax and prepares the figures, but does not check your country's own invoicing rules, and the business's card in Settings › Tax says so: ask your adviser about those.
• On request — every other home. See Your situation is not covered.

The home is the Country — and for the US the State — under Business details on the business's card in Settings › Tax. Which home a business has decides which questions the card asks.

Germany

• What WrkLst suggests — original artwork at 7 %; screenprints, artists' photographs, prints and merchandise at 19 %; books and catalogues at 7 %. The margin scheme where a work qualifies. No VAT for a small business, while WrkLst watches the limits: EUR 25,000 last year and EUR 100,000 this year, EUR 25,000 in the year the business was founded. Sales to private buyers in other EU countries with your VAT until they pass EUR 10,000 a year, then with the buyer's country's VAT through OSS; tax-free sales to businesses in other EU countries once their VAT number is confirmed; exports.
• What you answer — Who sells?, Whose name is on the buyer's invoice for a consigned work? and Are you registered for the EU One-Stop-Shop (OSS)?; under Business details your VAT number, Small business (no VAT charged) and Margin scheme by default; your registrations, a German one with the Permanent extension if you have it.
• What your invoices show — the note each line needs: the margin scheme, a tax-free supply to a business in another EU country with both VAT numbers, an export, the reverse charge. From 2027 — for businesses whose turnover was over EUR 800,000 the year before — and from 2028 for every business that charges VAT, an invoice over EUR 250 to a business in Germany must go out as an e-invoice; WrkLst checks it before it issues the invoice.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the VAT return (UStVA), the EC sales list (ZM), the OSS return and the Margin ledger, and the comparison with your DATEV export.

A charity (gemeinnützige Körperschaft)

A charity whose studio or workshop sells works and other items its artists make — an association, a workshop for people with disabilities, a cultural institution — can sell them at 7 % as a Zweckbetrieb. WrkLst never works that out itself: it uses the charity rate only on your answer.

• What you answer — on a German business's card, Charity (gemeinnützig): does your tax office or adviser treat your art sales as a Zweckbetrieb taxed at 7%? With Yes: On which basis? (§ 65 AO, § 66 AO, the kinds of § 68 AO, or Another basis), Since and Confirmed by — for example your Freistellungsbescheid or your adviser's letter. Only with all three does anything change; the card then says Charity rate: confirmed by … since … (…). Below it, Turnover of the whole association outside WrkLst asks, for last year and this year, for Taxable turnover in … and Sales to private buyers in other EU countries in …: the small-business limit, the EUR 10,000 for sales to other EU countries and the e-invoice limit count the whole association, not only its sales in WrkLst.
• What WrkLst suggests — what your artists make is 7 %, also where it would otherwise be 19 %: originals, prints, photographs, merchandise. In the sale's Tax section every extra item — not a delivery charge or a service — has What is …? with Made by our artists (the default), Bought in, Donation with the purchase and Separate donation, nothing in return. Bought-in goods — and works you bought from a dealer or imported yourself — are taxed at the normal rate; a product of your website shop says so with Bought in (not made by our artists). For a work bought from or given to you by an artist or a private person, a consigned work you sell in your own name, or your commission, WrkLst asks you to decide the sale by hand with your adviser wherever the charity rate would change it. Sales under the margin scheme, through OSS, to businesses in other EU countries and exports are taxed as for any other seller. Once your Zweckbetrieb's sales pass the limit in the law, WrkLst asks you to check with your adviser whether the 7 % still applies — for a workshop for people with disabilities or an inclusion business always, on another basis when more than half of those sales are at 7 % only because you are a charity. On § 65, § 66, § 68 Nr. 1 a and Nr. 2 AO the law runs no such test, so WrkLst does not ask. It never changes the rate itself.
• Donations — a donation paid together with a purchase is part of the price and is taxed like the work. A separate donation with nothing in return carries no VAT and does not belong on the invoice: WrkLst refuses to issue an invoice with it and asks you to thank the buyer with a donation receipt.
• What your invoices show — the 7 % and its VAT, like any other line: the charity rate needs no note.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the UStVA lists, of Kz 86, the sales at the charity rate separately for your adviser (Kz 86 · of which reduced rate as a charity (§ 12 Abs. 2 Nr. 8 a UStG)) and counts them once.

United Kingdom

• What WrkLst suggests — 20 %, books at 0 %, the UK margin scheme for works of art, antiques and collector's pieces, and exports, direct or through the buyer's shipper. A business that is not VAT-registered charges no VAT, while WrkLst watches your UK sales of the last 12 months against the registration limit and the sales due in the next 30 days.
• What you answer — Are you VAT-registered? (Yes with the number and date, or Not yet) and Have you told HMRC that you use the margin scheme for works bought from artists or imported yourself? A registration Applied for records your sales as registered, but your documents show no VAT until the number arrives; when you enter it, WrkLst lists the documents to reissue.
• What your invoices show — the VAT invoice details in pounds, margin lines without VAT, and the export notes.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the VAT return (nine boxes) with its MTD file for your bridging or accounting software, and the Margin ledger.

Austria

In Austria the answer to Who sells? — A gallery or dealer, The artist, or An artist's estate or heirs — changes the rates:

• What WrkLst suggests
  • The artist — 13 % on everything you make as an artist: paintings, drawings, sculpture, original prints, photographs, screenprints, ceramics, tapestries. Reproductions, posters and merchandise are 20 %, books 10 %.
  • An artist's estate or heirs — 13 % only for paintings, drawings and collages, original prints and sculpture; photographs and screenprints are 20 %. For a tapestry, a ceramic or an enamel the rate depends on what exactly the work is, so WrkLst asks you to decide that sale by hand. Before an older work leaves the EU, WrkLst reminds you to check whether it needs a cultural-goods export licence.
  • A gallery — 20 %, books 10 %, or the margin scheme: 20 % on your margin, not shown on the invoice. Works you imported yourself are never sold under it. A gallery that is no reseller charges 13 % on originals it imported, acquired from the artist or their heirs, or bought with VAT it deducts in full — on its own answer; see A gallery that is no reseller. The artist and the estate never sell under the margin scheme — their works were never bought — so their card offers no Margin scheme by default.
  • Small business — with Small business (no VAT charged) ticked, no VAT. WrkLst watches the limit: EUR 55,000 last year; this year you stay exempt up to EUR 60,500, and the sale that passes it is taxed. It counts your sales by the day each work is delivered, at the amounts invoiced, exports and sales to businesses in other EU countries included, OSS sales not.
  • Sales to other EU countries, OSS and exports as for every EU country. An artist's or an estate's sale to a private buyer in another EU country takes that country's rate for artists' works where it has one.
• What you answer — Who sells?; for the artist also Has the tax office allowed you to tax on invoices? Artists in Austria owe VAT when they are paid, so No is preselected: your VAT then counts when the money comes in. Answer Yes if the tax office has allowed you to owe it when you invoice. For a gallery, Do you sell works under the margin scheme (Differenzbesteuerung, § 24 UStG)? — see below. Then OSS, the consigned works and your business details as everywhere in the EU.
• What your invoices show — the notes for small-business, tax-free, reverse-charge and margin-scheme sales in the wording of Austrian law, in German on every document whatever its language — for example Umsatzsteuerfrei – Kleinunternehmer (§ 6 Abs. 1 Z 27 UStG), Steuerfreie Ausfuhrlieferung or Kunstgegenstände/Sonderregelung.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the VAT return (UVA) by Kennzahl: Kz 000, the sales at 20 %, 13 % and 10 % (Kz 022, 006, 029), exports (Kz 011), small-business sales (Kz 016), tax-free sales to businesses in other EU countries (Kz 017) and sales where the buyer pays the VAT (Kz 021); a margin-scheme sale counts with its margin, never its price. It is due on the 15th of the second month after the period, and says Last year's sales were above €100,000: file this return monthly. where that is so. Also the EC sales list (ZM), due at the end of the following month, and the OSS return.

A gallery that is no reseller

A gallery or dealer in Austria that does not sell under the margin scheme counts as no reseller for the reduced rate (UStR Rz 1354): paintings, drawings, original prints and sculpture it imported itself, acquired from the artist or their heirs, or bought with VAT it deducts in full are taxed at 13 % instead of 20 %. WrkLst suggests the 13 % only on your answer, from the date you give.

• What you answer — on the card of a gallery in Austria, Do you sell works under the margin scheme (Differenzbesteuerung, § 24 UStG)?
  • No, never: every sale is taxed in full, with Since. The card then says Reduced rate as no reseller since …. With this answer the card offers no Margin scheme by default; if it is still on, Before you can turn it on asks you to turn it off.
  • Yes, for some works, and my adviser confirmed 13% for the works I sell outside it, with Since and Confirmed by (adviser, letter or date). Whether giving up the margin scheme for one sale makes you no reseller for that sale has not been decided by the courts, so choose this only with your adviser's confirmation. The card says Reduced rate as no reseller for works sold outside the margin scheme: confirmed by … since ….
  • Yes, for some works; every other sale is taxed at 20% — nothing changes.
• What WrkLst suggests — 13 % on a work of the class Original artwork (painting, drawing, hand-pulled print, sculpture) that is not sold under the margin scheme, where the work's Tax section says how you acquired it: We imported it ourselves, or bought outside the EU; from The artist or their heirs, with or without a VAT number, also when they consigned it to you and you sell it in your name; or from A business that charged VAT, with the VAT the seller charged entered and Austria as Where it was when you acquired it. Photographs, screenprints, prints, books and works acquired any other way stay at 20 %; a tapestry, a ceramic or an enamel is decided by hand. The line's reason names the case — for example 13% as no reseller (§ 10 Abs. 3 Z 1 lit. c UStG, UStR Rz 1354): you acquired this work from the artist or their heirs.
• Please check — where a missing detail would change the rate, WrkLst points to it and leaves the tax as it is: a work bought from a business with no VAT entered; VAT entered without the country; a work bought from a business in another EU country, which can be 13 % if you paid acquisition VAT (Erwerbsteuer) in Austria on it; a consigned work you imported yourself, or whose consignor charges you VAT you deduct in full. In the last two cases, check with your adviser and type the rate on the line. A work marked for the margin scheme while you answered No, never waits for you: sell it regularly (Sold as on the work), change your answer, or decide the sale by hand.
• Invoices and the UVA — the 13 % like any other rate; the UVA counts it in Kz 006.

Italy

In Italy every invoice to a buyer established in Italy is the e-invoice that goes through the Sistema di Interscambio (SdI). WrkLst makes the file of that e-invoice — the FatturaPA — from each invoice it issues, but does not connect to SdI and sends nothing there: you upload each file in Fatture e Corrispettivi, the Agenzia delle Entrate's portal, or your adviser sends it, and you record SdI's answer in WrkLst. The card of an Italian business says so.

• What WrkLst suggests — original works of art, photographs by the artist, collector's pieces and antiques at 5 % since 1 July 2025, whoever sells them; before that 10 % when the artist sold them. Reproductions, prints that are not originals, screenprints and merchandise 22 %, books 4 %. A photograph edition whose tax class is not confirmed must be confirmed first, because it decides between 5 % and 22 %. The margin scheme where a work qualifies — never for a work you imported: the VAT is 22 % of your margin, inside it, and a work of art whose purchase price is missing counts 60 % of its price as the margin. Sales to other EU countries, OSS and exports as for every EU country; a traveller from outside the EU taking the work home is decided by hand.
• The regime forfettario — tick Small business (no VAT charged). WrkLst watches its limits: EUR 85,000 last year and EUR 100,000 collected this year — the sale that passes it is taxed in full. Under the regime a sale to a business in another EU country carries no VAT and an export stays an export; a sale to a private buyer in another EU country above the EU limit is decided by hand with your adviser. Under the regime you file no LIPE.
• What you answer — Who sells? and the questions of every EU country. Under Business details your tax number is called Codice fiscale. On your Italian VAT registration, Returns says how often you settle your VAT: Monthly returns, unless you opted for Quarterly returns. Under Settings for your adviser:
  • Charge the stamp duty to the buyer — on invoices over €77.47 without VAT the €2.00 stamp duty (imposta di bollo) is due. On, it is added to the invoice total — in your website shop too. Off, you pay it and the invoice only says so.
  • Margin per work — if you opted for the margin per work, for collectibles and for works that cost under €516.46, instead of the period's global margin.
  • SdI file — the Province of your business, two letters such as MI for Milan; your First name and Last name if your codice fiscale is a person's; and Who uploads the files — your adviser's codice fiscale if they send the files for you, empty if you upload them yourself.
• What your invoices show — the notes for small-business, tax-free and reverse-charge sales, and for sales outside Italian VAT, in Italian in every document language, each with its Natura code (for example Natura N2.2); a margin-scheme note follows the document's language and has no Natura code. The reasons in the sale's Tax section name the code too, so you can key the e-invoice for SdI from them. A document to a buyer in Italy is headed Copia della fattura elettronica trasmessa al Sistema di Interscambio — the buyer's copy of the e-invoice you send; to a private buyer it adds that the original is in their area of the Agenzia delle Entrate's website. A document to a buyer outside Italy is the invoice itself.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the VAT summary, the OSS return, the sales side of the Periodic VAT settlements (LIPE) and Send to SdI, the list of your SdI files: see below. Intrastat and the annual VAT return are your adviser's: WrkLst does not prepare them.

The SdI file

• Invoices first — SdI files are made from issued invoices, so they need invoice bookkeeping, switched on under Settings › Accounting; see Invoices: numbered invoices, e-invoices and DATEV export. Until it is on, SdI files: still missing on the card says Turn on invoicing in Settings › Accounting to make SdI files.; after that it lists what your files still need, such as your codice fiscale, your Italian VAT number or your address with its CAP. It never stops you from turning tax assistance on. SdI takes invoice numbers of at most 20 plain characters with at least one digit and refuses a number already used in the year, so your number format should include the year. An invoice to a buyer in Italy must be in euro.
• Download and send — an issued invoice offers SdI file (FatturaPA). Send to SdI under Reports & Analytics › Tax lists your documents of the last 90 days, and older ones still open — the e-invoices to buyers in Italy and the data of the others — each with Send by …, its Status and Download; Download all to send (ZIP) gives you every file still to send at once. Upload them in Fatture e Corrispettivi, or let your adviser send them: an e-invoice within 12 days of its date; the data of a buyer outside Italy 12 days after the sale, or by the 15th of the following month for a tax-free sale to a business in another EU country. A work that left with a customs export declaration needs no data file.
• SdI's answer — Record SdI's answer, on the invoice or in the list: Delivered, Not deliverable or Rejected, with the date, the SdI identifier and, for a rejection, its Error codes. Not deliverable means the invoice is issued and waits in the buyer's reserved area: tell the buyer, for example with the PDF copy. A rejected e-invoice counts as not issued: fix what SdI names and send it again within 5 days with the same number and date — or cancel it and issue a new invoice, which names the rejected one. For a buyer outside Italy only the data were refused and the invoice stays issued: fix what SdI names and send the data file again, without cancelling the invoice.
• Cancelling — Cancel invoice also asks Was this invoice sent to SdI? With Yes, it was sent, its cancellation goes to SdI too: send its file from the list. With No, never, neither goes.
• The buyer's details — a private buyer in Italy needs a codice fiscale, a business an Italian VAT number. People with access to accounting settings enter them in the contact's Tax section under Italy (SdI), with the Codice destinatario — the 7-character code the buyer gave you for e-invoices — or the buyer's PEC, used only when there is no code. A business buyer with neither gets the e-invoice in its reserved area. An order in your website shop from a private buyer in Italy waits for the buyer's codice fiscale, which the checkout does not ask for: the order email to your staff says so, with the day its e-invoice is due.
• By hand — where SdI's coding is not settled, WrkLst makes no file and says why; you can still issue the invoice, and make its file by hand or with your adviser. That is the case for a margin-scheme sale, goods sold through OSS, VAT on a cash basis (IVA per cassa), a flat-rate invoice with a line outside the scheme such as an export, a final invoice after advance invoices, buyers in San Marino or Vatican City, Livigno and Campione d'Italia, and public bodies.

The periodic VAT settlements (LIPE)

Under Returns in Reports & Analytics › Tax, an Italian business finds the sales side of its Periodic VAT settlements (LIPE), quarter by quarter:

• VP2 and VP4 — VP2 Totale operazioni attive, your sales net of VAT, and VP4 IVA esigibile, the VAT on them — for each month, or for the quarter if your VAT registration says Quarterly returns. Margin-scheme sales are listed among them at their price less the VAT on the margin. OSS sales and sales taxed in another EU country are shown beside, not in VP2.
• Yours to enter — VP3 and VP5 to VP14 — your purchases, input VAT, the result, credits, the 1 % interest and the advance — and the VAT you pay yourself on purchases from abroad, which belongs in VP4 too. Download spreadsheet gives the figures; the LIPE itself is filed by you or your adviser, and the advance (acconto) is your adviser's.
• When — each quarter's LIPE is due by 31 May, 30 September, 30 November and the end of February. Each month or quarter shows when to pay its VAT: monthly by the 16th of the following month, July's by 20 August; quarterly by 16 May, 20 August and 16 November, and the fourth quarter with the year's balance plus 1 % interest by 16 March. A date on a Saturday or a holiday moves to the next working day. The bell and an email remind you of both.
• Compare — where the Agenzia delle Entrate drafts the LIPE in your reserved area from the invoices sent through SdI, the return names the day the draft is there: compare VP2 and VP4 — a sale here that the draft lacks may not have reached SdI.
• No total — while the registration does not say monthly or quarterly; under IVA per cassa; in a quarter the regime forfettario ended in; for a margin-scheme sale of a collectible, or of a work that cost under €516.46 or whose cost is unknown, which belongs to the period's global margin unless you chose Margin per work; and for a sale decided by hand as outside the scope with no country. Prepare those with your adviser.
• If last year's sales recorded in WrkLst were above the limit for settling quarterly, the return asks you to check with your adviser whether you settle monthly. A LIPE whose figures change after you marked it filed asks you to send a replacement.

Other EU countries

For a business established in another EU country that has no e-invoicing or reporting system of its own in force — the Netherlands or Ireland, for example:

• What WrkLst suggests — your country's rates for each tax class from WrkLst's register, a reduced rate for art included where your country grants it to you — some countries grant it only to the artist; sales to private buyers in other EU countries and OSS; tax-free sales to businesses in other EU countries once the EU's VIES has confirmed their VAT number; exports. Where WrkLst does not know your country's small-business limit yet, Where you stand asks you to check it with your adviser.
• What you answer — Who sells?, the consigned works, Are you registered for the EU One-Stop-Shop (OSS)?, your business details and registrations.
• What your invoices show — the note each line needs. Your country's own invoicing rules are not checked; the card says so.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the VAT summary, the EC sales list (ZM) and the OSS return.

Countries whose own e-invoicing or reporting system is in force — Poland, Belgium, Croatia, Portugal, Hungary, Romania, Greece, France, and Spain from 2027 — are set up on request.

United States

For every US business, Your sales tax permit in … asks for the permit of your home state — I have the permit number or I've applied for it. Registrations in other states, presences, each state's limits, resale and exemption certificates, marketplace sales and exports work alike for every home; see Tax assistance: VAT and sales tax suggested on every sale. Each line of an invoice shows its sales tax with where it is charged.

California

• What WrkLst suggests — the full rate of the delivery address, every district included, from the California tax office (CDTFA).
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the California sales tax return (CDTFA-401), line by line, with Schedule A2 by district.

New York

• What WrkLst suggests — a New York permit takes its rates from New York's rate table by ZIP code (Publication 718): the state's 4 %, the local tax of the place and the transit district's 0.375 % where it applies, each taken from the delivery ZIP code when you enter the destination or choose Get rate. Where a ZIP code lies in several tax areas, WrkLst names them and does not guess: you decide that sale by hand. Clothing and footwear under USD 110 an item carry no state tax, and the local tax only where the place charges it — New York City does not. A work handed over here to the buyer's own shipper is taxed in New York; if that shipper is a parcel or common carrier, or a freight forwarder exporting the work, choose We ship it.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the New York sales tax return (ST-100): Box 1, Box 1a and Step 3 by place and rate. Its periods are New York's own quarters — March to May, June to August, September to November, December to February — or months, if your registration says Monthly returns.

Tennessee

• What WrkLst suggests — art is taxable in Tennessee whoever sells it. A sale delivered within Tennessee, or picked up here, is taxed at the rate of the place you sell from. A Tennessee permit uses Rates I enter: under Your rates, add the rate of that place with the state's 7 % and your local rate as separate lines — Brentwood and Williamson County 2.75 %; Nashville 2.25 % plus the 0.5 % transit surcharge as a line of its own, with Special district under Charged by — and leave Up to (per item) empty: WrkLst charges the local rate on the first USD 1,600 of each item and adds the state's 2.75 % on USD 1,600 to 3,200 itself. A USD 10,000 painting in Nashville or Brentwood carries USD 788. These limits apply to goods and rentals, never to a service such as an installation. A work delivered out of state is not taxed in Tennessee — since 1 July 2024 also when the buyer's own shipper takes it, with the shipping papers as proof.
• Warnings — WrkLst warns you, without changing the tax, when a sale falls in Tennessee's yearly sales tax holiday, from the last Friday in July to the Sunday after, when clothing, school and art supplies and computers may be tax-free; when a rental is paid in instalments, because the limits per item count across all payments of the lease; and when you sell a consigned work in its owner's name, because the owner then collects the tax.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the Tennessee sales and use tax return (SLS 450), monthly unless your registration says otherwise: line 1, the deductions of Schedule A, lines 7 and 8, the local tax of Schedule B, the single-item tax of Schedule C and the transit surcharge of Schedule I.

Other US states

A business based in another state is set up on request for now: Hawaii, New Mexico, Louisiana, Alaska, Colorado and Alabama, whose sales tax is run locally or charged on the seller's receipts, and every state whose rules WrkLst has not confirmed yet.

Singapore

• What WrkLst suggests — GST at 9 % on everything you sell, art and books alike. Exports are zero-rated whoever the buyer is, with their papers on file within 60 days — the sale shows by when; a buyer in Singapore also gives you their written instruction to send the work abroad. The buyer's own shipper is zero-rated only for a buyer abroad, with the shipper's papers; a work the buyer collects is 9 %, and so is a tourist's — see Tourists, tourist refunds and works carried out by hand. A work outside Singapore when it is sold — at a fair abroad — carries no Singapore GST, and any tax of the country it is in is decided by hand. Your commission on a work you sell in its owner's name is 9 %, or zero-rated for an owner abroad whose work leaves Singapore. A consigned work you brought into Singapore for an owner abroad is decided by hand with your adviser. Works in a Free Trade Zone or a Zero-GST warehouse and the Gross Margin Scheme: see below.

• What you answer — Are you registered for GST?

  • Yes, with the number, the date and How you registered: Our sales passed SGD 1 million (compulsory) or By choice (voluntary).
  • Applied for, as the registration's Status: on a compulsory registration, from its date your sales owe GST, but nothing may be added to the price — the GST is part of the price you entered, and the invoice shows none and says GST registration applied for with IRAS: no GST is shown on this invoice. This is not a tax invoice. A voluntary registration counts only once IRAS has approved it.
  • Not yet — no GST. WrkLst watches the SGD 1 million: your taxable sales of last year, and any single sale above it, and tells you by when to apply and from when GST is due. From that date, WrkLst does not issue an invoice until your GST registration is entered under Settings › Tax — Applied for is enough.
  • Exempted from GST registration — no GST, and no limit to watch.

  Once you are registered, Do you offer tourist refunds (eTRS)?; and for a gallery or dealer, Do you sell second-hand works under GST's Gross Margin Scheme? — both below.

• What your invoices show — an invoice to a GST-registered business buyer, with its GST number, is titled Tax Invoice; others, where your prices include GST, say Price Payable includes GST. Your GST registration number, GST 9 %, and on an invoice in another currency the amounts in Singapore dollars too. A tourist's receipt says eTRS transaction issued once you have ticked it; a Gross Margin Scheme work is invoiced without GST, see below.

• InvoiceNow — WrkLst does not send invoice data to IRAS. From the date IRAS expects your invoices through InvoiceNow, every sale reminds you to send its invoice through your InvoiceNow solution. Enter the date IRAS gave you as the registration's InvoiceNow start date; without one, WrkLst assumes the earliest date that can apply to you.

• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — the GST return (GST F5), quarterly unless your registration says otherwise and due a month after the quarter: Boxes 1, 2, 6 and 13. An export whose papers are still missing after the 60 days moves into Boxes 1 and 6. A dealer that uses the Gross Margin Scheme also gets its stock book.

Works under customs control

A work from abroad kept in a Free Trade Zone or a Zero-GST warehouse — a freeport, for example — has had no import GST paid on it, and is taxed by where it goes.

• Where it is — under Where you are present in Settings › Tax, a place in Singapore has a Customs status: Not under customs control, Free Trade Zone or Zero-GST warehouse; your storage contract or the warehouse operator says which. A sale of a work kept there is prefilled from it. In the sale's Tax section, Customs (Singapore) says In a Free Trade Zone, In a Zero-GST warehouse or At an exhibition or auction, out of a Zero-GST warehouse; tick The buyer takes it over there when it stays under customs control, goes back to the warehouse or moves straight to another zone.

• The work's status — on the work, Customs status (Singapore): Came from abroad, import GST not paid or Import GST paid, or bought or made in Singapore. A work in a Zero-GST warehouse counts as from abroad; a work in a Free Trade Zone without its status waits for your answer, or for a decision by hand. Multi-edit sets it for many works at once; see Tax classes: what each work is for VAT. A work with import GST paid is taxed as anywhere in Singapore.

• What WrkLst suggests for a work from abroad

  • Handed over there, taken out by the buyer's shipper, or released into Singapore — no GST: outside the scope of GST. Released into Singapore, import GST on the sale's price is paid to Singapore Customs on the import permit by whoever takes the work out: agree with the buyer who does. If you release it yourself before you invoice, set the work to Import GST paid, or bought or made in Singapore and the sale is taxed as usual.
  • Sent abroad by you straight from a Free Trade Zone — outside the scope, on the return only as revenue (Box 13); from a Zero-GST warehouse — zero-rated (Box 2), with the export papers within 60 days.
  • At an exhibition or auction out of a Zero-GST warehouse — no GST if the work goes back; if it stays in Singapore, 9 %, and the import GST suspended when it came out is paid to Singapore Customs on a payment permit.

  A delivery charge for works that stay in Singapore is 9 %.

Tourists, tourist refunds and works carried out by hand

When a work leaves Singapore in luggage, tick It leaves Singapore in someone's luggage (the buyer, their staff or ours) in the sale's Tax section — on a collection, the buyer's shipper or your own staff — and say where the buyer lives.

• A tourist — a private buyer from abroad whose work leaves in their luggage counts as a tourist for GST: 9 %, like any sale in Singapore. If they buy for a business abroad, mark them as a business buyer. If you know they are not a tourist, you can decide the sale by hand as an export with the papers below.
• Tourist refunds (eTRS) — answer Do you offer tourist refunds (eTRS)? with No, Yes, through Global Blue or Yes, through Global Tax Free. With an agency, a tourist's purchase they take with them carries a notice: if they leave by air through Changi or Seletar by the date it names, issue the eTRS transaction in the agency's system now, with their passport in hand, for purchases from the agency's minimum including GST. Then tick eTRS transaction issued, with an eTRS reference (optional). If the buyer can no longer claim the refund after a change to the sale, WrkLst asks you to void the transaction in the agency's system. Your return reports these sales in Boxes 1 and 6 as usual: do not claim the refunds in Box 7 or Box 10 — the agency pays them. Display a notice in your gallery that tourists must show their passport in person.
• For a business abroad — a work carried out of Singapore for a buyer abroad who buys for a business is zero-rated once you hold, within 60 days, the papers of a hand-carried export: through Changi, the export permit Customs cleared there, the invoice and the payment; through Seletar, by sea or by land, the invoice, the payment, the buyer's confirmation of receipt, the carrier's declaration, their ticket and passport page, and the export permit. The sale says what to do — issue the invoice first, then declare the export permit with you as the exporter. Papers filed after the 60 days keep the sale at 9 %. For a buyer in Singapore, or one whose residence you don't know, a work carried out by hand is 9 %.

The Gross Margin Scheme

Under Singapore's Gross Margin Scheme you pay GST only on your margin, and the invoice shows none. A gallery or dealer — never the artist or an estate — answers Do you sell second-hand works under GST's Gross Margin Scheme? with Yes, Since and Confirmed by (for example an IRAS ruling or your adviser). IRAS allows the scheme for businesses that deal in second-hand goods regularly, not for an occasional sale, but it hasn't said whether artworks count: fill in the IRAS self-review checklist and confirm with IRAS or your adviser first. Without the answer nothing changes.

• What WrkLst suggests — for a work whose Sold as is Margin scheme, bought in Singapore from a private seller or from a dealer who sold it to you under the scheme, with its purchase price: GST of 9/109 of your margin — the price less what you paid, in Singapore dollars — and none on a loss. A work bought from the artist, one on which GST was charged, or one whose source or purchase price is missing carries 9 % on the full price, and the sale says why. A work you brought into Singapore, a work from abroad under customs control and a consigned work sold in your name are decided by hand with your adviser. An exported work is zero-rated at its full price.
• Not online — IRAS asks for the buyer's signature on the invoice, so a Gross Margin Scheme work can't be bought in your website shop: sell it in person.
• What your invoices show — no GST and no rate on the work's line, its stock number — the work's inventory number — IRAS's statement Goods are sold under GST Gross Margin Scheme. Both the seller and buyer cannot claim any input tax on the goods. and lines for your and the buyer's signature. Such an invoice is never a Tax Invoice: for a GST-registered buyer, invoice the work on its own, apart from lines with GST.
• What Reports & Analytics › Tax prepares — on the GST return a margin sale in Box 1 at its price less the GST, the GST in Box 6; and the Gross Margin Scheme stock book: the works bought into the scheme in the period, in the order of their inventory numbers — the stock numbers must run in sequence — then the works sold, with buyer, invoice, purchase price, price, margin and GST. The day book and the purchase invoices for works bought from private sellers are yours to keep.

Your situation is not covered

At the bottom of Settings › Tax, under My situation isn't covered, choose Send a setup request. If you have several businesses, choose the one it is For; tell us under Anything special? what is particular, and choose Send request. Your current setup goes with it. We check whether WrkLst can support your situation; how your sales are taxed is for you and your tax adviser to decide. While we look into the request for a business WrkLst cannot cover yet, its card says Setup requested and tax works as before; you get an email when it is done. For a single sale, Request this setup in the sale's Tax section sends that sale only, and your business's setup stays as it is.

Good to know

• WrkLst prepares the figures; you or your adviser file them. Nothing is filed for you — not with ELSTER, FinanzOnline, HMRC, SdI, IRAS or a US state.
• Only your sales are covered: input VAT and your purchases are not.

Related articles

• Tax assistance: VAT and sales tax suggested on every sale
• Tax reports: thresholds, US sales tax by state and your declarations
• Tax classes: what each work is for VAT
• Invoices: numbered invoices, e-invoices and DATEV export