How would you accomplish this?

He should find a company willing to do that for him, for a fee that is less than the VAT.

jafo said:

I thought of letting him use an LLC in the US. Any chance that could backfire?

Highly unlikely that the sellers would accept, as they would need to file proof of export in the form of a bill of lading/CMR/courier papers (depending on the merchandise sold) in order to substantiate the non application of VAT.

I don't see the issue with using a US LLC, but maybe I am overlooking something. He is a Honduras citizen. Wouldn't they be able to make a non VAT invoice anyway?

Rick said:

I don't see the issue with using a US LLC, but maybe I am overlooking something. He is a Honduras citizen. Wouldn't they be able to make a non VAT invoice anyway?

It sounds like it’s a matter of the sellers not wanting to take responsibility for proving the paper trail for export and accepting VAT liability. You need one of three things here: 1) willingness for the recipient to pay VAT and pursue the refund (which is not the way he wants to do it), 2) the seller to 0-invoice and then file the export paper trail (which they don’t seem to want to do for some reason…they are small, just don’t want to bother with it, or some specific reason), or 3) contract with an export fulfillment company to handle this. I don’t know of any the last will do this one a one-off basis but then I’ve never looked into it.

JohnnyDoe said:

Highly unlikely that the sellers would accept, as they would need to file proof of export in the form of a bill of lading/CMR/courier papers (depending on the merchandise sold) in order to substantiate the non application of VAT.

And accept liability to pay if this isn’t up to standards.