Feature Request: Integration of Taxamo assure into the checkout for UK companies selling to EU

[amanda_drury]

I'm not sure how to put in a features request - please can someone tell me if this way doesn't work.

I have been looking into how as a small business I can improve the experience for my EU customers of purchasing from myself, post Brexit as a UK business.

Royal Mail have recommended a company called Taxamo assure which acts as a IOSS. They calculate and charge the customer VAT and pay it to the EU on our behalf without us having to fill in the VAT return. They charge £2 for each transaction. It sounds like the perfect solution but unless you are a shopify plus business one cannot get access to the Shopify checkout and do the API integration. The irony is if you are a shopify plus customer you will be big enough and it will be more cost effective to set up your own IOSS.

I have spoken to support about this who have suggested that I put in a feature request. So here it is. If more people can also express an interest in this feature it may have more chance of being implemented and go somewhere to ease the Brexit headache of doing business with the EU.

[SMU]

I think there will be an automatic VAT update on our stores, although I am not too sure about this.

We need to ensure that we have selected 'collect VAT' in our admin settings however, this does not apply to countries like the US....as UK merchants do not charge VAT on items sold to the US so I am hoping that shopify update will differentiate between the countries we need to collect the VAT from as it is not applicable to all our customers. We could do with shopify clarifying this or providing us with an option to de select VAT for the countries where it is not required. If anyone else knows how to do this please share with us.

[Christian48]

Currently I have all EU countries tax rates set to zero. If I change that to their respective tax rates, surely tax will then be applied to all orders regardless of value.

[SMU]

Yes it think so. I think shopify are doing an update on July 1st regarding the VAT. I am hoping this update will automatically set the correct VAT rates for each EU country a UK merchant sells to otherwise we will have to put it all in manually for 27 countries...

[Christian48]

I'd be happy to do set the rates individually if Shopify introduces the tax feature. All EU countries have their own shipping profile anyway on my store as the shipping rates for carriers (other than Royal Mail) vary so much from country to country.

[Savvy_Paul]

Under Tax Settings click on Set Up for the European Union zone.

There's an option on the next page to input your IOSS number.

The difficulty is that everything beyond that will have to be done manually unless there is an integrated solution that draws the information directly from Shopify.

You may get by doing it manually for a few weeks, but it will soon become a significant burden, and a potential for costly mistakes.

Given Shopify's track record of extracting extra cash for apps, at every possible opportunity, it does seem surprising that this has not yet been done for IOSS registration / reporting.

[Christian48]

For some reason I don't have the option in Tax Settings to set up taxes for the EU. All tax settings on my store are created from the shipping profiles. I'll talk to support to find out why.

[Savvy_Paul]

[Christian48]

Yup, definitely missing from my store. Support were as useful as a chocolate tea pot!

I'm guessing it's because each EU country has it's own shipping profile on my store. Looks like I'll have to delete all the profiles and create a European Union one and try and balance out the carrier rates for shipping via courier.

[JackBlack]

Could Shopify answer this thread and add some clarification? It feels like they're not taking this seriously. If they can't make it easy for me to sell to the EU from the UK I will start thinking about changing platforms.

[Shay · Accepted solution]

Hi @Christian48 

I understand that you don't have Registration Based Taxes setup on your store at this time. If you are selling to the UK/EU this will be an important step for you to complete. Depending on your tax setup you had on your store when we rolled this feature out, you may not have been automatically opted in for it. If that is the case you will want to contact our live support and let them know that you need to enable "Registration Based Taxes" on your store. From there, they can reach out to the appropriate support teams internally to get that feature enabled (Feel free to share this forum post for context). You can also see more information on this here: Manage Your UK Taxes. 

To contact our live support please follow this link: Shopify Help Center - Contact Support, sign into your store account, search for your issue and use the contact support button at the bottom of the search results to see all our live support options. 

As @Savvy_Paul shared in their screenshots, registration based taxes allows you to provide your tax registration ID for the appropriate countries/states/provinces you sell to and uses our automated tax system to check the appropriate tax and apply it at the checkout. After July 1st, this will be updated to include your OSS/IOSS registration information to capture taxes on orders that meet the specific threshold requirements put in place by Brexit. 

In regards to the integration of an external services to work as your intermediary for businesses using the IOSS model, I want to reiterate that your feedback here is being shared with the appropriate teams.

I know that while IOSS registration is not mandatory, the simplification of the checkout experience it provides is definitely the ideal option for businesses with a lot of sales to the UK/EU. At this time, because IOSS is not a legal requirement Shopify does not provide a built in integration for an IOSS intermediary. 

Based on the information that has been shared in this thread, Taxamo does offer an integration solution but that is restricted to our PLUS store plans as it requires access to the checkout API. If there are other options available for this integration, the ability to offer it is entirely in Taxamo's, or any external providers, hands to create. They have full access to our API documentation and can develop and list their app in our app store. If they require any support from our developers, that is something handled by a team outside of my own and I am not able to provide additional insight into that process on the back end. Shopify does not control the integration of third party apps and services and if you would like to have features provided by a third party company (Like Taxamo), you will need to contact them directly to ask them to create a suitable app integration. 

I am going to mark this response as the "Solution" to make it easier for other merchants to see the information shared here. Please feel free to continue sharing your feedback and I will answer any questions I am able to. 

Thank you!

-Shay

[SMU]

This isn't really a solution. As everyone who has contributed to this thread still has no way to sell their products to EU customers without said EU customers paying VAT and additional charges upon arrival in their country.

Whilst the IOSS is not a legal requirement, everyone who has contributed to this thread so far wants and needs a seamless payment experience for their customers at point of sale.

It appears only those who pay higher Shopify platform fees have been fortunate enough to take advantage of the Taxamo integration with shopify. Did it not occur to developers at the time of this integration that those who do not have a Shopify Plus platform will need exactly the same service if selling to the EU? 

So whilst I appreciate you have addressed some issues, this changes nothing for me or anyone else in this thread.

[Savvy_Paul]

It could be worse...but it could be a lot better.

Shopify is facilitating automatic calculation of VAT by individual EU destination, at checkout. That's a definite plus.

However, filing daily manual reports to an intermediary is not going to be a lot of fun.

If that continues, then I would expect clients to be demanding to look at other platforms.

[Christian48]

Hi @Shay,

At the time I didn't enable registration base taxes on my store because I am not registered in an EU country to collect VAT. The feature was completely redundant to my store. All I needed to do to be compliant on 1st January was to zero rate VAT to all EU customers. And now that I need to collect VAT for IOSS, I can't because there is no solution. Your solution is only for large stores that are using OSS and can afford to pay for an EU intermediary for IOSS, but for the rest of us it isn't.

[JackBlack]

So for a seamless integration of a DDP checkout we need to pay 2k USD a month? Yikes.

Kind of weird how a Shopify staff can mark their own post as a solution when the users clearly need something better.

I really urge the Shopify team to come up with something better, your competition has better offerings and my small business is heavily reliant on EU sales. As per this thread and others I know I am not alone.

[SMU]

@Shay As you can see, this isn't actually solved and this will continue until we all find a solution to the issue which is affordable to smaller UK merchants. Thank you for clarifying other points but as aforementioned, nothing has been 'solved' for anyone who has contributed to this thread thus far in relation to IOSS. 

If any other UK merchants find an alternative solution to this please post here. 

[Dbaca]

If folks are looking for a simple solution that is easy to calculate https://www.crossborderit.com/ioss . We offer IOSS services with a flat fee of 1€ per transaction. There is a ton of ambiguity on the topic and I worry that people are overcomplicating this and that tax services are under complicating it. I am happy to help or answer questions. 

[Dbaca]

I run a competitor to this company. I am happy to help you all make this go more smoothly. https://www.crossborderit.com/ioss

[colin14]

Can someone confirm please if crossborderit can be cancelled at anytime as it appears a good intial setup until Taxamo are sorted.

[TimothyCann]

Hi Dbaca (Crossborderit)

Can you confirm how long it usually takes to get an IOSS Number through after registering with you please? Also from a manual submission of the information (as most of us won't have access to our Shopify checkout's for API integration) can you provide any information on how this would need to be submitted to you? 

Thanks.

[Zoe_Brooks1]

Hi Dbaca,

I emailed your company earlier in the week with no reply, can you please clear a couple things up for me? 

You state pricing "starts" from €1, can I please see a more transparent pricing structure?

What is your cancellation policy for this service?