Readers’ forum: German VAT

We act for a UK subsidiary of a German engineering company. Our client ordered goods from a German supplier for a customer in Ireland. The goods were delivered straight to Ireland without entering the UK.

The German supplier originally sent an invoice to my client without any VAT added but it has now replaced this with an invoice including 19% of German VAT citing the reason being that the goods never left the EU.

This seems strange because it did not charge our client VAT when the UK was in the EU. My client quoted the Irish customer without any VAT so would suffer a loss on the sale with the 19% VAT charge – it does not hold a licence to directly export goods to Ireland.

First can readers confirm if the German supplier was correct to add the German VAT?

Also what...