just for digital or physical too?

Yes, you can have a mix of digital and non-digital products – or in VAT terms, products for which the place of supply is the customer location, and products for which the place of supply is the shop location. There are many existing users doing that. Just remember that some of the important parts of setting up are in WooCommerce core – particularly, having your products in separate tax classes with their own tax tables.

David

the variations of my products are a mix – which makes it complicated, but still do-able I think then.

we sell designs. Each design is its own product with variations based on how the design is to be delivered.

variation 1 – is a downloadable PDF (digital VAT – Vat applied at the customer location applies)

variation 2 – is a manually sent PDF (a gift sent from the customer to a friend) (under UK vat law, doesn’t count as a digital product, so if sent outside the UK it’s not vatable if not registered for OSS, inside the UK it’s vatable if we’re over the VAT threshold).

variation 3 – printed version – not vatable under UK law (printed papers) but may be subject to EU VAT (either through OSS or paid by customer when it arrives)

variation 4 – a full kit (fabric, thread etc) – vatable under UK law, also VATable by place of customer location if registered for OSS, but not if not..

Yes, they will be set up with their own tax tables (currently I’m not charging ANY VAT as I’m not VAT registered yet)

OSS is something I’ll have to consider costs of.

Thanks for confirming it can be set to work with both types of product – makes sense as OSS now covers both. Argh, the complications of being close to the VAT threshold!

I really appreciate the quick response!

This reminds me – one thing that you may have to do is not allow a customer to mix different types of goods in his cart at the same time, because the deemed place of supply may depend on the line-item … but WooCommerce only has one taxable address per order, not per line-item.

pretty sure almost everything is based on the customer location now, legally.

That’s the case for digital goods and pretty much every physical good since what, July 2021 with the EU changes?

per HMRCs own website –

goods & services shipped in the UK – standard rate VAT

goods & services shipped outside the UK – zero rate VAT (unless you are registered for OSS in which case you charge that country’s VAT rate)

In either case, it’s the customer address that determines place of supply.

What items are you thinking of that change it to supplier location?

• This reply was modified 2 years, 6 months ago by PaineFreeCrafts.

> “goods & services shipped outside the UK – zero rate VAT (unless you are registered for OSS in which case you charge that country’s VAT rate)”

That’s an answer to the question, isn’t it? Zero rate VAT, because it’s a deemed place of supply at the selling end. So if someone in France bought that in the cart from you alongside digital goods, then they have two line items with different places of supply.

I should clarify – I’m not a tax lawyer or accountant. My interest is only in making sure the plugin covers the scenarios people need. Whether anyone implements their actual tax situation correctly in the settings is, well, their problem :-).

David

ah fair enough.

but actually it’s zero rated because of where it’s shipped to (outside the UK).
So still based on the customer address.

in your case – customer based in France

orders 1 digital file (treated as supplied in France, EU VAT applied – assuming registered appropriately)
orders 1 physical product (treated as delivered in France – zero rate VAT applied, until we register for OSS).

in both cases, the supply address is still France, just different VAT rates – which can be set by product variation in Woo and seem to work so far in my testing. I can easily have a “physical product standard VAT rate” and only apply it in the UK and a “digital product standard VAT rate” and have EU country VAT rates set up. I think ??

so for a digital variation, the tax code would be “digital std”, based on customer address, and within the woo tax tables, the different tax rates by country entered.

the physical variation, the tax code would be “physical std” based on customer address, with only a UK tax code entered for that. As everything else would be 0 rated.

the printed chart variation would have an “exempt” code which would show separately.

unless I’m either overthinking it or missing something obvious?

apologies, this is rather beyond the scope of your plugin. I’ll continue testing. It may be that default Woo will do the job and my accounts system will handle the reporting. I’ll see <3

All most informative, thank you!

Try this one: customer from France is on holiday in the UK orders a digital download, and a physical item for which they select “local pickup”.

Under UK and EU rules, the digital download is taxable in France (provided they can give a French billing address for their card; being on holiday isn’t meant to switch the VAT to the UK), whereas the physical item is taxable with 20% UK VAT.

But yes, this doesn’t apply to your shop and is just somewhat academic for most of us.

agreed – in principle that would be the case, can’t see it working like that in practice for me though ??

Thankyou for your help and thoughts. Your plugin definitely looks like it will help with the reporting side and is something I will thoroughly test as we are getting close to needing something in place <3