Tools Marketplace Tax Information

This Tax Information is a plain-language summary of how taxes work on the Tools Marketplace. It does not constitute tax advice. Sellers and Buyers should consult a qualified tax adviser in their country of residence. The substantive tax rules are set by the legislator of each relevant jurisdiction; we describe here only what the platform does and does not do.

1. The parties and the tax roles

• ChefSphere — ChefSphere OÜ, Estonian registry code 17470129 — is the operator of the Marketplace. It acts as the collector of platform fees only on worldwide Stripe-processed sales. Its precise VAT posture is stated in Section 2; invoices it issues show the same posture.
• Full Sellers (worldwide listings) are connected through Stripe Express / Connect and have submitted KYC, banking, and tax-ID data in the Seller Agreement onboarding.
• Lite Sellers (in-person-only or rent-only listings) have not submitted KYC or tax-ID through Stripe because the platform does not process the money for those transactions. They remain personally responsible for their tax obligations.
• Buyers are individuals purchasing for personal use or businesses purchasing for business use.

ChefSphere's role as the tax agent depends on the jurisdiction, the nature of the Seller (business vs private), and the nature of the sale (physical goods vs rental service).

Professional vs private Seller — why it matters

Every Seller declares in the dashboard whether they sell as a professional (a commercial actor with a business registration or a regular trading activity) or as a private individual (occasional sale of items they own personally). The declaration controls:

• Consumer-law rights the Buyer has against the Seller. The 14-day right of withdrawal and the 2-year legal guarantee of conformity under EU law apply only when the Seller is a professional (B2C).
• VAT registration threshold in the Seller's country. Professionals are typically above a registration threshold; private individuals are generally outside VAT scope until they become a professional by pattern of activity.
• Income tax treatment. Both professionals and private individuals owe income tax on profits; professionals must register as self-employed (micro-entrepreneur in France, FIE in Estonia, etc.).
• DAC7 inclusion. Both can be in scope, but the thresholds below apply.

Falsely declaring "private" to avoid consumer-law obligations or tax registration is a breach of the Seller Agreement and may constitute tax fraud in the Seller's country.

2. ChefSphere's own VAT posture

To be transparent about the statutory basis for every tax line on every platform-fee invoice and on every worldwide-Stripe-processed receipt:

• Union One-Stop-Shop (OSS). ChefSphere OÜ is registered for the EU Union One-Stop-Shop scheme under Articles 369a–369k of Council Directive 2006/112/EC, with Estonia (country code EE) as the Member State of identification. Union-OSS returns are filed on a quarterly basis and cover cross-border B2C supplies of electronically-supplied services and of distance-sold goods to consumers in other EU Member States.
• Estonian domestic VAT (KMKR). ChefSphere OÜ is not registered for Estonian domestic VAT, because taxable turnover in Estonia remains below the €40,000 registration threshold in Käibemaksuseadus §19 (Estonian VAT Act).

If either of those facts changes, this document and the invoices are updated at the same time by editing the VAT configuration referenced by the tokens above.

3. VAT at checkout — Stripe Automatic Tax (worldwide only)

• Checkout sessions for worldwide-shipped orders use Stripe Automatic Tax. Stripe calculates the VAT or sales tax at the moment of checkout based on the Buyer's verified billing and shipping address.
• The price shown on a Marketplace listing is VAT-inclusive for consumer Buyers in jurisdictions where ChefSphere or the Seller is required to collect VAT. The VAT amount is broken out on the receipt and on the invoice.
• For B2B Buyers supplying a valid VAT number in an EU country other than Estonia (intra-community acquisition), the reverse-charge mechanism may apply: the supply is invoiced net of VAT and the Buyer self-accounts for VAT in their country. The rule depends on the combination of Seller status and destination.
• Stripe-computed VAT values are stored on the order as taxAmount and feed the invoice.

4. VAT on in-person sales and on rentals — cash-settled, Seller's direct responsibility

For in-person cash sales and for rentals, ChefSphere does not act as the merchant of record. The platform does not:

• collect VAT at a checkout (no online checkout exists);
• invoice the underlying sale / rental;
• transmit data on the specific transaction to tax authorities under the marketplace VAT rules.

This means:

• Professional Sellers / Owners (business actors) remain personally liable for VAT on their in-person sales and rentals and must issue their own VAT invoice where their national law requires it. That is usual for commercial activity in the EU and is enforced by the Seller's country's tax authority, not by ChefSphere.
• Private individuals selling an item they own occasionally, or renting it out, are typically outside VAT scope but remain inside the scope of income tax in their country of residence (see section 7 for DAC7 scope, which does not automatically cover these cash flows).

Buyers / Renters who need a receipt for a cash transaction should ask the Seller / Owner for one at the meet-up. ChefSphere's record of the order (with timestamp, item, price) can support a simple receipt but is not a tax invoice.

5. Seller-side VAT — when the platform collects vs when the Seller collects

• Professional Seller, worldwide sale to EU consumer. Where ChefSphere is the deemed supplier under EU rules, ChefSphere collects VAT at checkout and remits it under its EU OSS/IOSS registration. Where those rules do not apply, the Seller remains liable for VAT and must supply a correct tax invoice to the Buyer.
• Professional Seller, worldwide sale to non-EU consumer. The sale is typically an export from the EU; no EU VAT is charged at checkout; destination VAT/customs may apply on delivery (section 6).
• Private Seller, occasional sales. Generally outside VAT but inside income-tax scope in the Seller's country of residence.
• Any in-person sale or rental (all Sellers). ChefSphere does not collect or remit VAT. The Seller / Owner is responsible in their own country.

Nothing in this document makes ChefSphere the merchant of record for a transaction where it is not under applicable law.

6. Rentals

• P2P rentals are services. Where the Owner is a professional, VAT applies under the Owner's country-of-establishment rules. Where the Owner is a private individual, the rental price is generally outside VAT but remains within income-tax scope for the Owner.
• The deposit is not consideration for a supply and is not subject to VAT unless applied as a damage deduction; in that case, the deducted amount may constitute consideration for a supply and may be VAT-able depending on jurisdiction.
• The deposit itself is in cash between the parties and never appears in a ChefSphere tax record.

7. Cross-border shipments — customs and import VAT (worldwide only)

• Worldwide shipments outside the EU leave the customs territory at export. Import duties and import VAT are levied by the destination country.
• DDU is the default. The Buyer pays customs charges directly to the carrier on delivery.
• DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) is available when offered by the Seller and supported by the carrier through Shippo. Pricing under DDP includes the duties that the Seller pre-pays.
• Sellers must declare the correct HS code, country of origin, and customs value. Under-declaration to reduce Buyer duties is prohibited and voids chargeback defence (see Chargeback Policy).

8. Seller-income reporting — DAC7 in the EU (scope limited to platform-processed payments)

• The Marketplace falls under Council Directive (EU) 2021/514 ("DAC7") where it enables Sellers resident in an EU Member State to make money through the platform.
• Scope. DAC7 applies to the "consideration" that a platform enables a Seller to collect. For ChefSphere this means worldwide Stripe-processed earnings are in scope. Purely cash-settled in-person sales and rentals — where ChefSphere never collects or holds the money — fall outside the consideration that we can report. The Seller nonetheless remains personally responsible for declaring this income in their own country.
• ChefSphere, as a reporting platform operator, is required to collect, verify, and annually report the in-scope per-seller data to the competent Estonian tax authority, which then exchanges it with the Seller's country of residence.

Seller data collected and reported (Full Sellers, worldwide activity)

• For individuals: first name, last name, primary residence address, any tax identification number (TIN) issued by the country of residence, date of birth.
• For entities: legal name, primary business address, any tax identification number, commercial register number, and the addresses of each permanent establishment.
• Activity data: quarterly aggregates of the consideration received, the number of relevant activities, any fees withheld by the platform, and bank account details associated with payouts.

Thresholds and exceptions

• Reporting excludes occasional sellers who, in the calendar year, have completed fewer than 30 relevant sales and have received consideration of less than €2,000 on the in-scope (Stripe-processed) side. Sellers above either threshold are in scope.
• The thresholds are calculated on platform-processed earnings only; ChefSphere does not have authoritative data on cash-settled activity and therefore cannot add it to the DAC7 aggregate.

What Sellers must do

• Keep their tax-ID, address, and business-registration fields up to date in the seller dashboard.
• Respond to in-app requests for additional verification; DAC7 prohibits the platform from paying out after repeated failure to produce the required data.
• Declare all Marketplace income — including cash-settled in-person sales and rentals — to their country of residence. The DAC7 report does not substitute for the Seller's own income-tax return, and a Seller's own return must include cash activity that DAC7 did not capture.

9. Tax ID capture

At onboarding, Full Sellers provide a tax ID (VAT number, SSN/TIN, or equivalent). The value is encrypted at rest. Sellers can update their tax ID in the seller dashboard; historical values are preserved in an audit log. Tax IDs feed DAC7, the Stripe Tax configuration at checkout, and the Marketplace platform-fee invoice.

Lite Sellers are not asked for a tax ID at onboarding because the platform does not act as their payment processor.

10. Invoicing

• ChefSphere issues an invoice for its platform fee (15 %) and any auxiliary fees (photo, variant, instant-payout) on worldwide sales. The invoice is available to the Seller in the seller dashboard and is tax-compliant in Estonia.
• Seller-side invoices for the goods or services sold to the Buyer are the Seller's responsibility. Sellers in jurisdictions that require a formal VAT invoice must generate and send it to the Buyer, regardless of whether the sale was worldwide-shipped or in-person / rental.

11. Currency and rates

• The reference currency is EUR. Stripe may present local equivalents at display time; the charge is settled in the currency configured at the Stripe account level.
• Foreign-exchange charges by the Buyer's bank or by the Seller's bank are outside ChefSphere's control.
• For cash payments, the currency is the one shown on the listing (usually EUR). Foreign cash should not be accepted unless pre-agreed.

12. Audit-trail

• Every worldwide checkout records the VAT calculation as returned by Stripe Automatic Tax (rate, amount, jurisdiction).
• Every worldwide refund records the actual VAT refunded as reported by Stripe.
• Every worldwide payout records the platform fee retained and the amount transferred to the Seller's Stripe Express account.
• In-person / rental cash activity is recorded in the order/rental history (item, price, timestamp, pickup location, photos, chat) but not in a tax-side ledger, because no tax is collected by the platform.
• Tax-relevant records are retained for the statutory period (normally 7 years for EU-operator bookkeeping) and longer where a legal hold applies.

13. Changes to tax law

Tax law changes frequently (EU e-commerce package changes, local VAT rate changes, DAC7 amendments, US-state sales-tax nexus rules). We will post a new version when a change materially affects the Marketplace's tax treatment or a Seller's reporting obligation. Changes driven by statute take effect on the statutory date; administrative clarifications take effect 30 days after in-app and email notice.

14. Contact

• Tax questions, DAC7, invoicing (worldwide): [email protected]
• Legal notices: [email protected]
• DPO / data-protection: [email protected]