St Patrick’s Day is celebrated on Wednesday 17th March 2010. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, so the 17th March is a national holiday.
On St Patrick’s Day we will be closing our phone support and operating our online support with reduced staff. Our phone support will re-open on Thursday 18th at 10am, with hangovers. Thank you for your understanding.
There were big changes to the European Union ‘tax regime’ on 1st January 2010. As such, services we sell for “Business Use” are exempt from Value Added Tax (VAT) in 26 EU countries. We are advising all EU businesses to ensure that they are not unnecessarily paying 17.5% VAT.
Tax exemption exists for business customers in the following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (incl. Monaco), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden.
UK businesses: There is no tax exemption for UK businesses because Spiral Hosting is registered for tax in Northern Ireland. We cannot VAT-exempt invoices for UK businesses and you will have to reclaim any VAT from HMRC.
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Ho! Ho! Ho! We have sent the following email to all customers:
Merry Christmas from Spiral Hosting!
Dear client,
Thank you for your continued support over the past year. Spiral Hosting has grown, developing our infrastructure and customer support and building on our successful brand and products. We have big plans for the next year, and we hope that as our business prospers yours does too.
Instead of sending you a Christmas card this year, we have chosen instead to make a charitiable donation to Concern Worldwide.
Concern is committed to a world without poverty. They work in 28 countries bringing food, clean water, good health, education and a higher standard of living.
We donated by buying gifts from www.concerngifts.org. We bought some essential drugs, water filters, two piglets, six chickens and a donkey called Pete.
If you would like to know more about the work of Concern, visit www.concern.net or call their donation line (Ireland: 1850 410 510 or UK/International call +44 (0)800 032 4002).
Wishing you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy & Prosperous New Year,
The Spiral Hosting Team.
http://www.spiralhosting.com
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You can view all the latest announcements, including Christmas opening hours, on our company blog.
Our customer/technical support will be available every day throughout the Christmas holidays 24/7 as normal via our support ticket system.
Our sales & billing phone number will close at 2pm on 16th December (for our staff Christmas party!) and it will also be unavailable on 24th, 25th and 31st December, and 1st January. It will be operating as normal on all other dates.
If you are a dedicated server or colocation customer you can still avail of our 24/7 server reboots and emergency phone support by calling the out-of-hours mobile numbers. These can be found on your last server invoice.
We have sent an email to all customers explaining that from the 1st January 2010 we have to start charging 17.5% tax on all products sold to EU residents. Here’s the details:
Dear client,
This is a notice that from 1st January 2010, Spiral Hosting Ltd will begin to charge Value Added Tax (VAT) on all products sold to customers located in the European Union. This notice explains how it will affect you and how you can claim an exception if you have an EU VAT Registration Number or operate as a ‘relevant business person’.
If you are not located in the European Union, please ignore this email as it does not affect you.
Who has to pay VAT?
All customers who reside in the European Union (EU27) must pay VAT. Spiral Hosting Ltd is a registered company in Northern Ireland and will therefore charge the standard UK VAT rate, currently 17.5%.
The EU27 includes: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France (incl. Monaco), Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom.
If you are located in any other country, we will not charge you any VAT.
Exemption for Businesses
- Firstly, VAT Registered Businesses:
If you are a business with an EU VAT registration number, please email your VAT number to billing@spiralhosting.com and we will change your account so that invoices are VAT-Exempt. You can also enter your VAT number through our Client Area by going to the My Details page: https://secure.spiralhosting.com/clientarea.php?action=details . If you do this, no VAT will appear on your invoices and you will be responsible for paying any VAT yourself directly to your local tax authorities.
Please note:
1) Under EU VAT Directive 2008/8/EC, we will validate every VAT Registration Number and detail your VAT-exempt business expenditure on our EC Sales List.
2) There is an exception for UK businesses. We cannot VAT-exempt invoices for UK businesses and you will have to reclaim any VAT from HMRC.- Secondly, other businesses:
If you do not have a VAT Registration Number, we can still change your account so that invoices are VAT-Exempt providing you take responsibility for paying any VAT to your local tax authority. To make such a request, please email billing@spiralhosting.com stating: “On behalf of Business Name, I declare that we are a ‘taxable person’ under EC Directive 2006/112/EC, Article 9. I request that you do not charge us VAT on our invoices. We agree to pay any VAT directly to our local tax authority in Country.”
We may ask for additional information to keep on file so that we can prove you definitely operate a business. This may include a company registration number, a certificate from your local tax authority, or copies of your business letterhead, commerical documents or commercial website.
Please note:
1) We will detail your VAT-exempt business expenditure to our local tax authority if they ask why we have not charged you VAT.
2) There is an exception for UK businesses. We cannot VAT-exempt invoices for UK businesses and you will have to reclaim any VAT from HMRC.When will I start seeing VAT on invoices?
Invoices created on/before 31st December 2009 will not have VAT, and invoices created on/after 1st January 2010 will have VAT. This is regardless of the date that the invoice is actually paid.
Can I avoid paying VAT?
Yes! You can renew your web services with us before we start to charge VAT. Many services can be renewed up to 10 years in advance. Please speak with our Sales Team.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to contact billing@spiralhosting.com or your Account Manager directly.
Best regards,
The Spiral Hosting Team
To check if emails from Spiral Hosting are getting sent to your Spam folder, first login to Gmail then type into the search box at the top:
This should immediately list all emails from Spiral Hosting in your Spam folder. Hopefully there will be none!
If you find that emails are being sent to your Spam folder, please create a filter so it doesn’t happen again.
You can create a filter by following these simple steps:
1) While reading any email that has been mistakenly filtered, click on the down-arrow next to the Reply link, and select ‘Filter messages like this’ from the menu.
2) On the next screen, type *@spiralhosting.com into the From: box. This will allow emails to come from all our billing, sales, support and staff email addresses.
3) Click ‘Next Step’ at the bottom.
4) On the next screen, select the checkbox next to ‘Never send it to Spam.’
5) Apply the filter to any other emails affected (if any):
6) Click ‘Create Filter’.
All existing emails from Spiral Hosting should now be moved to your Inbox, and future emails too!
If you still have problems receiving emails from us please don’t hesitate to contact our Support Department.
The Spiral Hosting team wish you a very Happy Easter!
On Easter Monday, customer support will be available all day via our support centre, but we will be operating with reduced staff. Our sales & billing phone number will be closed all day Monday, and re-open Tuesday at 10am.
Did you know Spiral Hosting can help you on Skype Chat?
We are on Skype most of the day – except the odd coffee break – and we are usually on at night too. We can answer any answers you have about any of our hosting packages, domains, SSL certificate and server solutions.
Also, we can solve most technical problems over Skype (some can take a while to work on, and we might ask you to open a support ticket so we can send you a proper reply when we’re finished).
Our Skype username is spiralhosting.com
We are also expanding the hours Live Chat is available, and we continue to offer support by email, skype and phone, including our ‘Let Us Call You’ service.
We’re delighted to announce that Spiral Hosting now provide a UK freephone number for all sales and billing enquiries.
Most enquiries can be solved quickly by emailing us, but we are available on the phone should you need us.
The number is 0800 221 8949
Office hours are 8am – 6pm.
Outside these hours please use our 24-hour online support. Please note we are trialing the freephone number and our primary contact number for UK clients remains the same – 028 9002 5008.
The Spiral Hosting team wish all our clients a very happy St Patrick’s Day.
St Patrick’s Day is celebrated on Tuesday 17th March. St Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland, so Tuesday is a national holiday.
On Tuesday, we will be operating with reduced staff, and our primary focus will be on customer support which is available all day via our support centre. Our sales & billing phone number will close at 1pm, and re-open on Wednesday at 10am (with hangovers).
