Anybody know who Eric Church is . <| sep |> No , it ' s not fine , because it was never established that the person who said it was ok to share was actually the original author . Absolutely no evidence has ever been forthcoming to prove otherwise . The rest of the excerpt you left out btwThe post was later deleted for an unspecified reason . That unspecified reason was precisely because the identity of the poster could not be verified . <| sep |> Can only speak as an east coast person . But I was also hanging out with anarchists and some five percenters and shit . <| sep |> If the software you are buying is from a US company based in the US , then they will not be charging you VAT and so , you don ' t have any VAT to pay . It ' s the same if you were to sell them something from here in the UK no VAT is to be charged on the sale . If they are shipping you a physical diskdrive with the software on , then you may be liable for customs import tax , but you ' ll know about that when it lands in the country the post office will give you an invoice for the tax to pay . Edit I didn ' t realise the VAT registration rules also applied to US companies selling in the UK , but it appears it can do . Similar rules to UK companies selling in other EU countries if sales to those countries are over 70 k per year for digital products , then the company is supposed to register for VAT in those countries . So I guess it ' s on the company to have registered or not , not you . Buy the product and then ask them if they are VAT registered in the UK , if so ask for a VAT invoice and account for it in the usual way . If they are not , then no worries .