Features

As a collaborator of the project, I can give my opinion about the planned features.

• The plugin will definitely handle the IP address (the billing address is already part of standard order data).
• Handling conflicting data should not be part of this plugin, at least not at this stage. After speaking for hours with the local Revenue, I think they realised that the pieces of information they require can be:

• Unreliable (IP address)
• Not applicable. Most of the “accepted evidence”, such as SIM cards, landline, cable connection, etc, doesn’t apply to small online shops.
• Unavailable, or available too late. The credit card or bank location, if available, is returned after payment, and that’s too late. Just think about the absurdity: customer should pay for the order, so that you can find out where the card is registered, so that you can tell the customer how much he would have to pay.
  The revenue officers told me that none of them even thought about this, and this shows how much time was spent thinking things through.

In any case, if data is conflicting, a merchant cannot be expected to cancel a sale, nor to rectify orders and invoices manually, chasing the customers for VAT refunds. Even worse, no customer is going to waste time providing “additional evidence” about their location.

• The feature to check a VAT number against VIES is in the “to do” list.
• I cannot describe the differences between free and paid version (I hate the term “pro”, it often means “cr.p”), as the plugin is still in development and many features are in draft stage.
• Bonus: to play devil’s advocate, I have to say that I do prefer to use external services for accounting, because they allow me to delegate the paperwork to my accountants. I’m particularly keen to make this plugin flexible, so that integrations with accounting software can easily pick up the EU VAT data and pass it to the remote system.

Important: the above may change, everything is in development at this stage.

Hi,

I’ve just released version 1.1, which now records the IP geo-location information, and displays that information as well as the info on how Woo decided how much tax was applicable, in the admin area. It can also distinguish VAT from other taxes.

I also don’t want to outsource more stuff to a SaaS provider. That’s why I’ve been working hard on this plugin. I need it to be ready for 1st Jan, just like everyone else!

Personally I am in favour of providing a feature to handle conflicting data, via asking the customer to resolve between the two options via self-certification. Probably this will be an option, as, as you can see from Diego, not everyone likes the idea. But, since the law has subjective areas, not everyone’s tax officer is going to agree with Diego’s, so I will be working on the feature.

I definitely agree with Diego that there are a lot of badly-thought-through things in this law. It’s a nightmare. Did you know that people in the Canary Islands are exempt from VAT? Or that not VAT is chargeable to Swedish soccer clubs? We won’t be making handling that a priority. ??

Probably the main distinction between free and paid versions will be that the paid version will have extra reporting facilities to save time with filing reports. (As yet, the free version does not have any reporting facilities either – but it has been begun). Support for Diego’s excellent “currency switcher” plugin will also probably go in the paid version. And perhaps automatic checking that your VAT rates are up-to-date. Basically, as with UpdraftPlus, my aim is that the free version is genuinely useful and not annoying (in my opinion!) because of some glaring omission, and that the paid version will add value.

None of the above is final, or a promise. This is a free plugin, and so whingers will be ignored. ?? Patches from other developers are welcome!

Best wishes,
David

Will be there a feature to check a VAT number (if the customer provides it) and exempt the sale from VAT, if it’s a valid number?

Yes. I have not yet decided which version this will go in. VAT exemptions imply you’re making business-to-business sales, so I’m leaning towards the premium version for that.

David

Hi David and Diego, thank you for your replies. I installed the plugin on a test configuration and follow its development. This is the first solution (at an early stage so far) for WooCommerce. I don’t mind paying for extra features ?? You may also want to have a look at the VAT add-on for EDD to see how it handles certain scenarios ??

@quanto Done already. I stumbled upon it while testing the Currency Switcher for EDD, that’s the addon that confirmed my idea of adding a self-certification field. However, EDD is a fairly different system and the VAT plugin is not coded particularly well, unfortunately, therefore it usefulness will be limited.

How will this plugin deal with conflicting data – e.g. the customer’s billing address is in a EU country but his/her IP is not (or vice versa)?

Will be there a feature to check a VAT number (if the customer provides it) and exempt the sale from VAT, if it’s a valid number?

I’ve now finished coding + testing features for the Premium edition for this.

1) The shop owner can now decide what to do if there’s a conflict: a) Ignore it (use the billing or shipping address, according to his settings) b) Ask the customer to resolve it, or c) Ask the customer to self-certify anyway, even if there’s no conflict.

2) The customer’s VAT number can be collected + checked online, and VAT removed from the sale if it is valid.

It’s been tested on WooCommerce 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2. Watch this space!

Next up, the plan is to work on reporting – some features hopefully for both free and premium versions.

David

Thanks, David, great work! About reporting: Have you found any documentation about the VAT MOSS import/export file formats? The Pro version must export in a file that can be imported to EU MOSS to official reporting.

Hi,

Do you have any links that explain that more? I’ve not read anywhere about electronic reporting – I was working on the assumption that we just need to be able to produce a print-out that contains all the information, grouped in the right way, that an accountant would need.

David

Also, so far your plugin adds settings to the WooCommerce Tax section. Do you consider to create its own section, tab, etc. where the shop owner can see and control all aspects of this EU Taxation?

Do you consider to create its own section, tab, etc. where the shop owner can see and control all aspects of this EU Taxation?

Currently I’m thinking that a) yes, a separate menu entry will be created that will lead to a page that is a kind of “control panel” for everything, but b) the tax *settings* will remain in the “Tax” settings section of WooCommerce (so, the new page will point you to those settings). This seems to me to avoid having tax settings which aren’t in WooCommerce’s tax settings tab, as well as having the “home” where all compliance issues can be dealt with from.

David

Hi David, here is an aggregation of articles online concerning EU VAT 2015 changes: https://rachelandrew.github.io/eu-vat/implementation.html

In order to facilitate EU VAT reporting and payment to each EU member state where the customers are located, each national government creates an online Mini One-Stop Shop (MOSS) where the seller registers and enters his EU sales at quarterly basis. Here’s info for the UK MOSS: https://www.gov.uk/register-and-use-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop and here’s for Ireland: https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/moss/index.html

Such MOSSes exist in every EU country as of October 2014 and they will be functional from 1 January 2014

Taxamo also has some nice explanatory blog posts on MOSS: https://www.taxamo.com/tag/mini-one-stop-shop/

Basically, the seller must provide VAT MOSS returns (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/vat-supplying-digital-services-and-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop/vat-supplying-digital-services-and-the-vat-mini-one-stop-shop#vat-moss-returns).

I cannot find any info on their data format. I haven’t registered with my country MOSS so far and I don’t know what it’s like. Maybe there’s an inside info somewhare

Here’s some pointer for the reporting data:

Article 63c of the EU VAT Directive refers to the information required to be retained by the eMerchant. It includes the following:

The Member State of consumption to which the service is supplied

Type of service supplied

Date of the supply of service

Taxable amount indicating the currency used

Any subsequent increase or reduction of the taxable amount

VAT rate applied

Amount of VAT payable indicating the currency used

Date and amount of payments received;

Any payments on account received before the supply of service

Where an invoice is issued, the information contained on the invoice

Name of the customer, where known to the taxable person

Information used to determine the place where the customer is established or has his permanent address or usually resides

(Source: https://www.taxamo.com/moss-audit/)

https://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/vat/leaflets/mini-one-stop-shop.html#section10.3

Hi,

Thanks. I misunderstood you – I thought you were talking about some on-disk file format for data export – e.g. some XML variant.

I’m aware of the above. But always grateful for more people adding their own understanding of the situation, as there’s a lot of confusion around this law. (I have an accountant, of course! And he’s been on a course dedicated to explaining this new law).

Best wishes,
David

@quanto As an Irish based developer and merchant, I found the information on the Revenue site confusing at best. It doesn’t mention that all the VAT information should also be reported in revenue’s currency (i.e. if you sell in USD you should provide data in EUR).

For reference, my accountant has no idea of how this new system will work, so, if anybody feels “ignorant”, you are not alone. ??