Invoice for PayPal fees in EU

[penseller]

Does somebody know where can I find an invoice from PayPal for the fees they keep taking or who to contact to receive an invoice?

I don't know how PayPal thinks business works in the EU but the statements and reports that can be generated are NOT legal documents and if my book keeping is not in order I'll be fined because the numbers won't match reality.

I found one topic with zero replies here:

https://www.paypal-community.com/t5/Selling-on-your-website/Montly-Invoice-of-Paypal-feeds/m-p/11864...

I can't be the only one from the whole continent who hasn't got this figured out and I can't just make up invoices in my accounting even if I know the company details of PayPal Europe.

Paypal (Europe) S.A R.L. ET CIE, S.C.A.
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<removed> Luxembourg
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Any help would be appreciated because customer support on the phone didn't seem to understand what I was talking about. Thanks!

[Webdados]

@Teslafan101 You just don't understand how things work in Europe (or any country with logical business and tax laws).

Each and every company expense must be justified by an Invoice. The problem is not finding out how much PayPal has charged in fees, it's the fact that they don't issue an Invoice for what they're charging to business accounts.

Stripe does it. AWS does it, Cloudflare, Cloudways, you name it... They all do it. You can download a monthly Invoice from your account of they even send it to you automatically via email every month.

A monthly statement or report is NOT a legal expense document.

[puntorosso]

It looks like PayPal is trying to avoid a proper answer to this matter.

Tax regulation in Europe can be tough. A simple csv report won't work for our tax offices.

PayPal is getting a commission for every transaction and this has to be legally documented.

Stripe is far more transparent and provide a periodical Tax Invoice for their fees, which you can download as pdf.

Just wondering how this system can be working for years without problems (or at least without publicly known problems 😉

I agree with other community members: if I would do something like this with my company I would be already in jail.....

[Jmo64]

The fact that it is good enough for the IRS doesn't solve the problem for the rest of the world. In the EU apparently it is not acceptable. I face the same issue in Mexico, SAT will not accept the monthly statement, it is not a legal invoice by their terms.

[pwkip]

I'm am switching all my payment options to Stripe because of this. if PayPal takes my money, I should be able to generate a Tax invoice for that amount.

[puntorosso]

It's incredible. PayPal, simply ignore any thread about this serious problem.

No answer, no statement, nothing.

Being in Luxembourg, probably they are legally somehow protected.

Especially now, in this Covid situation where everybody is struggling to survive, is frustrating to see big companies bypassing so easily government regulations and avoiding tax payments.

We get regularly tax audits, for some thousands yearly, while PayPal is buying villas and yachts for their shareholders with their billions tax-free incomes.

Crazy world.... 

Shouldn't we at least report infrangement to our local tax offices?

Probably won't change anything, but maybe can force them to publish at least an official statement.

P.S.: To make it even more hilarious: I have received a new achievement Badge for this post! Not only they are ignoring us, but they are also making fun of it.

[penseller]

I guess I should've have replied sooner. The way we tackled this problem is:

Paypal accounts need to be managed in accounting as a standard bank account and the monthly Paypal statement should be used like the monthly statement from a bank, thus any fees from Paypal also must be managed the same way as fees from your bank.

Logically it checks out since banks don't provide invoices for their fees either but I didn't know Paypal was classified as a bank in Europe (or at least should be considered as one for accounting purposes).