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A Vat of Terrible Experiences

The Daily WTF
2 weeks 6 days ago

Taxes are a royal pain for everyone. Amazon has found a unique way to make them even worse, as Kris W. attests:

I recently bought a €9.61 kitchen knife on Amazon Spain. My card was charged €7.94 instead. After some investigation, I discovered that Amazon had applied an old VAT registration number I'd added to my personal account years ago, and had classified my purchase as a VAT-exempt intra-EU business transaction. The invoice even contained my business address from 2022, which no longer appeared anywhere in my account settings. I just wanted to remove the VAT number so I could go back to buying kitchen utensils without accidentally generating international tax paperwork.

Unfortunately, Amazon no longer provided any visible way to manage that VAT number. Their customer support chatbot insisted I provide the order number from which I wanted the VAT number removed. A human agent confidently explained that I must have entered it into a secondary address field, and instructed me to delete and recreate my shipping address. Another support representative sent me an extensive list of documents I'd need to provide, including my passport, airline boarding passes, proof of export outside the EU, or my NATO identification card. Apparently removing a VAT number from an Amazon account is a process normally reserved for international travelers, Andorran residents, and military alliances.

Eventually, I found Amazon's official help page. It explicitly stated that VAT numbers could be removed either by contacting Customer Service or by creating an Amazon Business account to use the self-service option. After another round of correspondence, Customer Service informed me that they were not allowed to remove VAT numbers and instructed me to use the Business settings that my personal account didn't have. So I followed the documentation and created a Business account using my existing email address. During registration, Amazon required me to enter the very VAT number I was trying to remove, then promptly congratulated me by email on successfully adding and activating it.

But I couldn't access the Business settings yet. Amazon couldn't verify my business and demanded official documentation, so I obtained two freshly-issued certificates from two separate Spanish government agencies to prove that I was, in fact, a self-employed software developer. I uploaded both documents and waited. Eventually, my shiny new Amazon Business account was approved. I now had a separate Business account, complete with its own purchasing features and complimentary Business Prime membership. At last, I could navigate to the promised VAT-management page!

The page displayed my VAT number, confirmed it was valid, and offered a button to add more tax information. Beside the existing number, however, there was no Edit button. No Delete button. No self-service removal option whatsoever. There was only a link saying, Contact Customer Service to change your tax ID.

Naturally, the link led to a generic help center. After creating an entire business account, submitting government paperwork, and successfully registering the same VAT number a second time, I had arrived precisely where I started: Customer Service, which had already explained that it was not allowed to remove VAT numbers.

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Ellis Morning

Anthropic Announces 'Public Benefit Fund', Committing 5% of Its Shares

Slashdot
2 weeks 6 days ago
"Anthropic says it's committing 5% of its shares to a 'public benefit fund'," reports TechCrunch, "structured as a wholly-owned entity within the company — with the option to contribute an additional 2% for every 50% increase in Anthropic's value." Important context from CNBC: The timing of Anthropic's public fund announcement is both mandatory to prepare for an initial public offering, and "beneficial from an image perspective," especially as AI reshapes the jobs market, Lise Buyer, partner at IPO advisory firm Class V Group, told CNBC... Anthropic said it will share more about the fund structure and governance in the coming months, including valuation milestones that may increase the stake. It said it will also share progress on the fund in an upcoming public benefit report. In response to Anthropic's announcement, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said on X that he "recommend[s] giving the shares directly to the public." Anthropic's announcement hints the fund could address job-market displacements. It says the fund "might" explore "large donations to traditional nonprofits" — or, that it "might" explore "direct distributions to specific populations. One example is labor market impacts." It then argues AI could "cause instability" for many workers. And while Anthropic has already committed $200 million for "studying and addressing" this issue, Sunday's announcement says "bolder" approaches may be needed, and that the Fund "will have the versatility to pursue them." "Combined with its co-founders' pledge to donate 80% of their equity and an employee donation matching program, roughly 20% of Anthropic's shares will be dedicated to public purposes," reports Reuters, "excluding any additional shares added later."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

EditorDavid