A Post Brexit Zoho

With Britain leaving the EU on the 31st of December 2020 there are a lot of questions that either remain unanswered or which people are seeking clarification for. In this post I look to answer two of the most important ones. What happens to GDPR and how to handle VAT for customers outside of the EU. For us at Goldstar, it will be interesting to see what a post Brexit Zoho will look like.

The end of GDPR?

In the agreed trade deal with the EU, it has been agreed that transfer restrictions on data will be delayed for at least four months beyond the Brexit date. This means you have until April to be up to speed with the changes to personal data flow and have any safeguards in place that may be required. At the end of this four months there is a possibility that we will see another six month delay. With Zoho already conforming to the new changes it’s likely that delay will not be required for any Zoho user.

GDPR is the regulation that has governed Britain up until now. However, this is an EU regulation and no longer applies to UK law. It is important to note that GDPR has now been incorporated into DPA 2018 (The Data Protection Act 2018). GDPR still applies if you operate in the EEA (European Economic Area), offer goods/services in the EEA or handle data incoming from the EEA. So with this in mind, not a lot has changed other than the wording.

What about data before the transition?

Data collected from outside the UK prior to the 1st of January 2021 is to be known as ‘Legacy data’. This data will be governed by the regulation it was processed under (known as ‘Frozen GDPR’). Since the UK is adopting GDPR into DPA, no further action is required with this data.

What to do next?

If you are a small to medium sized business within the UK it is recommended that you use the free online tool created by the ICO to give you more personalised help. If you are going to be continuing with data collection from the EU then you will need to be sure to use SCC’s (standard contract clauses) if required. The online tool from the ICO can be found here along with more information about SCC’s and how to use them correctly.

Zoho’s position as a data processor within the EU means that Zoho have had to do a great deal of work to ensure they are compliant and can still offer services to customers in the UK. They have registered with the ICO and paid a Data Protection fee allowing them to process UK data. They have also appointed a local UK representative who can be contacted by UK companies regarding DPA. Zoho have also updated all the Privacy Policies to have UK specific versions available to UK customers.

Let’s talk about VAT

VAT treatments can be scary and confusing especially to SME’s. Zoho have done an incredible job at ensuring that Zoho Books is updated with all the information and support required for post Brexit. Zoho have tried to make the new VAT treatments as simple as possible.

Prior to Brexit you had 4 VAT options:

• United Kingdom – Businesses or consumers within the UK
• EU VAT Registered – Registered businesses within the EU
• EU Non-VAT Registered – Businesses or consumers in the EU
• Non EU – Businesses or consumers outside the UK and the EU

This has now been simplified into two VAT treatment options:

• United Kingdom – Businesses or consumers within the UK
• Overseas – Any business or consumer outside the UK. Previous VAT treatments such as EU VAT Registered, EU Non-VAT Registered, and Non EU will be grouped under Overseas.

Zoho have created their own blog post regarding this. It goes into much more detail about how to use these two options, click here to see more on Brexit implications for VAT.