Re: Name on a received invoice?

Quang N · ‎06-30-2015

I have a quick question on the invoices you receive from Upwork. As a client, when receiving an invoice from Upwork whose name and address is shown on that invoice? Is it Upwork itself or is it the name and address of the freelancer that was hired by you? So who are you paying according to the invoice, Upwork or the freelancer?

Alexey I · ‎06-30-2015

It can be big problem for companies. While oDesk for now works only as payment gateway and the value of oDesk is 2-3% (payment comission). This change also increase risk for companyes, while tax authority can tell that this payments is wage and companies should pay additional taxes.

Florian K · ‎07-01-2015

The new invoice design (not containing any company information and just the name of the freelancer) is a big problem indeed. At least in the European Union. We just had a talk with our accountant who forwarded this to an Austrian tax inspector. The result: The new invoice cannot be used and is not legal in the EU!

An invioce always needs the address of the party selling the service. So either the address of upwork is needed or the full address of the freelancer.

If this does not get changed we are forced to leave odesk in the near future as we do not want to get into legal trouble.

Dave E · ‎11-09-2015

Did anyone at UW ever reply to this? The Elance invoices were great. I've contacted UW, made tickets, contact the CEO through Linkedin--I can only conclude UW is no longer for business!!

My invoice from UW shows I pay UW, so they are the contracting party. The company name of the provider never shows up.

Tickets fall on deaf ears and auto-responders, all I get is automated responses with no action behind it. I've had to taken to having the freelancer provide a separate, duplicate invoice that is tax-compliant in my area. This is intensely aggravating and may not hold-up if challenged since the money-flow is to UW.

Anonymous-User A · ‎11-09-2015

@Dave E wrote:
Did anyone at UW ever reply to this? The Elance invoices were great. I've contacted UW, made tickets, contact the CEO through Linkedin--I can only conclude UW is no longer for business!!

My invoice from UW shows I pay UW, so they are the contracting party. The company name of the provider never shows up.

Tickets fall on deaf ears and auto-responders, all I get is automated responses with no action behind it. I've had to taken to having the freelancer provide a separate, duplicate invoice that is tax-compliant in my area. This is intensely aggravating and may not hold-up if challenged since the money-flow is to UW.

It seems that there is some hope for 2016. Please look at this thread

https://community.upwork.com/t5/Announcements/Frequently-asked-questions-about-VAT-for-EU-freelancer...

Peter A · ‎02-14-2018

Is it enough to have only the Name and address? I thought also tax number (for example Russia) is a must or VAT in Europe. What do you think?

Joachim M · ‎02-14-2018

@Peter A wrote:
Is it enough to have only the Name and address? I thought also tax number (for example Russia) is a must or VAT in Europe. What do you think?

Peter,

As your profile isn't public I don't know whether you are located in the EU or not.

If you are located within the EU and your freelancer is located outside of the EU, there is no specific format of invoice required. All requirements with regards to content and format are only for invoices within the EU. You only have to care about reporting the import of a service into your country and pay the importation VAT. That's it. You as importer are responsible for paying VAT for the import.

Peter A · ‎02-15-2018

But the issue is:

I am in EU and in my country they require to have tax number on invoices even if the freelancer is in the EU or outside. Does any other country do that?

Joachim M · ‎02-15-2018

@Peter A wrote:
But the issue is:

I am in EU and in my country they require to have tax number on invoices even if the freelancer is in the EU or outside. Does any other country do that?

Peter,

Sounds like you are located in Romania. No, no country in the EU requires that. There do seem to exist countries without tax numbers - not in the EU though. The EU determines what is requested within the EU but not what happens beyond their borders.

Peter A · ‎02-15-2018

It is Hungary.

But you are saying that tax number is required to have on the invoices when you issue one in the EU. It is a must if you have one. Though in Austria (when I worked there as a client) did not give one till you reach a certain amount of money. So this means in some country it is not a requirement to have any tax number by default. Then why countries ask for that for the other party, right? Not fair.

So you mean EU does not require to request tax number on the other parties invoice? Which country? I will go there 🙂

Joachim M · ‎02-15-2018

@Peter A wrote:
It is Hungary.

But you are saying that tax number is required to have on the invoices when you issue one in the EU. It is a must if you have one. Though in Austria (when I worked there as a client) did not give one till you reach a certain amount of money. So this means in some country it is not a requirement to have any tax number by default. Then why countries ask for that for the other party, right? Not fair.

So you mean EU does not require to request tax number on the other parties invoice? Which country? I will go there 🙂

Peter,

You seem to be confusing VAT ID and tax number. As far as I know all EU countries issue tax numbers for any taxable person/company. This is not the case with the VAT ID, in most cases this is upon request only.

EU regulations call for either a VAT ID or a tax number to be on the invoice if raised in an EU member state. EU regulations say nothing at all about about invoices raised in non-member states e.g. Russia.

Peter A · ‎02-15-2018

Oh I see.

But which country are you in? In Hungary they request to have a number on the freelancer's invoice, which they usually don't have, since they might do freelancing as a freetime next to their regular jobs, so they declare the income as "other" income.

Joachim M · ‎02-15-2018

@Peter A wrote:
Oh I see.

But which country are you in? In Hungary they request to have a number on the freelancer's invoice, which they usually don't have, since they might do freelancing as a freetime next to their regular jobs, so they declare the income as "other" income.

I'm located in Germany as you can see on my profile. Hungary is part of the EU and EU regulations apply - even if your Mr. Orban doesn't appreciate the idea.

Ionut Cosmin M · ‎07-07-2020

Joachim, Romania doesn't require that number on the invoice.

Joachim M · ‎07-07-2020

Ionut Cosmin M wrote:
Joachim, Romania doesn't require that number on the invoice.

The EU set it as a requirement. Never mind what Romania requires.

Krisztina U · ‎07-01-2015

Seriously, Upwork? You removed all items that make an invoice an invoice? What's next, changing the currency sign to an egg or mushroom? Is this even legal?

Joachim M · ‎07-08-2015

@Krisztina U wrote:
Seriously, Upwork? You removed all items that make an invoice an invoice? What's next, changing the currency sign to an egg or mushroom? Is this even legal?

The contractors have the same problem. All necessary features are implemented on Upwork's other company Elance.com and Upwork seems to be unable to implement them. Same for VAT regulations.

Anonymous-User A · ‎08-08-2015

I was shocked when I migrated my data from Elance to Upwork and realized that the features in regard of taxes and VAT ID that all worked well in Elance are not available in Upwork. I reported this to Upwork and asked for help and now I have realized when I follow the discussion here that a lot of people of Europe working with Upwork have the same problem. Why is something that works well in one system (Elance) not establised in the other system (Upwork) as well to help freelancers from Europe to do their work according tax regulations? If this will not be changed I will not see an change working on jobs where I have to apply VAT (mainly European countries) on the long term.

Joachim M · ‎08-10-2015

@Margarete M wrote:
I was shocked when I migrated my data from Elance to Upwork and realized that the features in regard of taxes and VAT ID that all worked well in Elance are not available in Upwork. I reported this to Upwork and asked for help and now I have realized when I follow the discussion here that a lot of people of Europe working with Upwork have the same problem. Why is something that works well in one system (Elance) not establised in the other system (Upwork) as well to help freelancers from Europe to do their work according tax regulations? If this will not be changed I will not see an change working on jobs where I have to apply VAT (mainly European countries) on the long term.

Margarete, I took the simple way out of this dilemma. If a client also has an Elance account I suggest him to post the job on Elance where he and I will get invoices legal in Europe. If he can't do that or doesn't want to do it, I charge 19% more on Upwork than I do on Elance. That's the VAT I ahve to pay for all jobs on Upwork. Should a client complain about the higher price I'll inform him why I have to charge more.

Anonymous-User A · ‎08-14-2015

Joachim, Thank you for the explanation. This is a way to deal with the problems. However, you will get less jobs then, the invoices are still not be suitable for the requirements of German taxation law and the opportunities for clients to post news jobs in Elance will be more and more limited in the next months.

Joachim M · ‎09-23-2015

@Margarete M wrote:
Joachim, Thank you for the explanation. This is a way to deal with the problems. However, you will get less jobs then, the invoices are still not be suitable for the requirements of German taxation law and the opportunities for clients to post news jobs in Elance will be more and more limited in the next months.

Hi Margarate,

Sorry for the late reply, I was on holiday.

True the invoices still aren't compliant with German law but the revenue service doesn't really care. They just want to see your turnover and if you can't prove otherwise take the 19% VAT. Hence for Upwork I simply raised my price accordingly. They didn't object to my filings for last year using this very pragmatic approach. It does affect the number of jobs I can acquire but then there are other sites and I already know of several clients that will take me down after the two years period and work directly.

J R · ‎07-01-2015

Hello,

I use Odesk-Upwork from some time... spending about 7000 - 12000 dollars on it.

The invoices that they do are illegal. An invioce always needs the address of the party selling the service.

Becouse cannot declare that I spent this money and had to pay 3500 dollars for high benefits...

I need a valid invoice from Upwork to declare that I did not have these 7000-12000 dollars of benefits...

This is really bad for this big company, I can not believe it.

Lena E · ‎07-01-2015

We are aware that the new invoice changes created problems for users in Europe. As a result, updates have been made that now display an address so the invoice will meet document requirements, as specified by various tax authorities.

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

-Lena

J R · ‎07-02-2015

Hello,

No. It still only disply my address and my details. It not displays Upwork address and details.

Please we need this in Europe.

Thanks,

Juan

Lena E · ‎07-07-2015

J R,

The invoice includes Upworks address on the bottom right hand corner, see below: