What happens to business customers when you don&#39;t register for VAT? From my understanding, if you are permitted to and choose not to register for VAT: You do not add VAT to the prices you charge to customers. You do not have the right to reclaim VAT on business expenses. However, how does this work with business customers? Normally, if a business customer is registered for VAT, they will try to reclaim VAT on purchases from you. However, this doesn't make sense in this situation. Do businesses you interact with have to know if you are registered for VAT or not and act accordingly? Must they simply not try to reclaim VAT when you are not registered for VAT?
Businesses can only claim VAT when they hold a valid tax invoice/receipt A purchase from a non-registered supplier (e.g. one who has chosen not to register, a foreign supplier, a private individual etc.) has no VAT, no paperwork and should not be claimed (although mistakes do happen).
If there is no written contract, why not just respond to their invoice with a letter stating you do not intend to pay because the trial was free so you don't owe anything. If they attempt to collect, make the same case to the court. Then the burden is on them to prove otherwise. Which, if there is no written contract agreeing to pay an ETF, might be difficult for them to do. Be careful about surreptitiously recording phone calls without the other party's knowledge or consent. In some jurisdictions this is illegal and can subject you to criminal prosecution.
In business dealings, you would have a contract with a company, not with its owner. The new owner inherits both the assets and liabilities of the company. It's up to the buyer of the business to do due diligence before buying the company. The old owner may escape obligations to clients and suppliers once the sale of the business is complete, but the new owner could sue the old owner for fraud. (It may be possible to escape some liabilities by declaring bankruptcy, but that's not the situation you described. One unethical accounting trick that a company can use is to split the company into two corporations such that one branch inherits the liabilities, and it go defunct.)
They don't actually claim to have a patent. Lots of people license a patent, and then they are using &quot;patented technology&quot;. The only effect of this statement is: If you want to copy their product, you better find out what patent they are licensing, otherwise you might be in legal trouble. And their statement means you should have known that your copy of their product is covered by some patent, so you lose some defenses if you are accused of using a patent without license. And of course many customers think if something is patented then it must be good. Which is not true obviously. But logically who owns the patent doesn't make a difference to that, so their statement isn't misleading IMHO.
In the second case, is there anything to declare to the taxes? Yes, just like in the scenario of depositing in your bank account. Otherwise it would be easy for everybody to avoid the heavy tax burden by bartering or transacting without the use of official currency. The Code général des impôts in its Article 13 includes in the concept of bénéfice ou revenu imposable the market value of profits and benefits in kind (&quot;y compris la valeur des profits et avantages en nature&quot;).
This has very little legal effect. It means that someone forgot to update their annual registration and pay the fee and could be resolved in half an hour with a small late fee payment. It is a sign of slight sloppiness, but is only sometimes evidence of something more serious. For example, if a company moves to a new location without remembering to inform the Secretary of State, it might not get the annual report notice and thus fail to file. And, a company rarely has an occasion to double check that it is in good standing. Usually, the only legal consequence is that the company can't commence a lawsuit without bringing itself into good standing and that another company can steal its business name (if it can do so without violating a common law trademark arising from use of the name). It does not significantly change the rights of parties dealing with the company in terms of property ownership, contract rights, etc. This said, closer scrutiny than a company without that issue might be in order and the fact that you are checking at all means that there might have been other reasons apart from this fact to be concerned.
You ask them explicitly, maybe adding that you need that info specifically to calculate tax. IP address is not reliable because your customers could be using VPN, Tor, or be on vacation overseas. (By the way, "IP" on a website about law would more likely be understood as "Intellectual Property", not "Internet Protocol address".)
You paid a higher amount so you got to drive the latest model for a year. I can buy a lower amount right now, but I only get to drive last year's model. Or I can pay a higher amount to drive the latest model again. That's life. I have a Wii. I didn't buy it when people queued up for it, but when the shop was selling them off for half the price. That's life. You pay more for the latest and greatest, and then it gets cheaper. The protection you are talking about is this: If the shop advertises a motorbike for £8,000 and when you go into the store the price is suddenly £10,000 then there is some protection in place. The protection means the shop will get a major telling off from trading standards if you complain, and possibly a fine. It doesn't mean you get the motorbike for £8,000. And it most definitely doesn't mean you get money back when they reduce the price a year later.