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.

[Dbaca]

We are preparing final instructions and those who have gotten the IOSS through us will get them this evening.

[TimothyCann]

Hi,

Have received the email with instructions, but I don't see the "Upload" tab in my Crossborderit CBIT account?  Is anyone else having this issue or is it not quite live yet?

[LauraECY]

I had this and contacted them. They are working on updating the system and
will have it live later today. I guess we are too eager!

[LauraECY]

A quick update in case others are having the same issue...

We have an IOSS number from CrossBorderIT and I logged in to Shopify to try and update the tax settings to account for it. 

I was following this information from Shopify help but we do not have these settings. 

I had a long discussion with Shopify support, including setting up a new shipping zone called European Union but our Tax regions only show a full list of countries rather than the shipping zones and specifically not one for European Union. I asked if we needed to set up Registration Based Taxes and the support agent couldn't say if that would fix the issue. We decided to go ahead with that but I am still waiting for an email to allow us to make that change as I am not the store owner. 

I will update as I make progress through the process!!

[LauraECY]

Hi all,

A quick update on where we are up to.

Having the "Registration based Taxes" authorised gave me the correct settings for collecting tax on EU orders below 150EUR. I entered our IOSS number provided by CrossBorderIT and tested a few addresses in our drafts. The taxes appear to be being applied correctly. I will be attempting to upload a couple of orders to CBIT this morning. 

We have also realised that we can't continue to use the Post Office Drop and Go service as they have no way of processing IOSS post, so have had to set up Click and Drop with Royal Mail instead. 

It does feel like we are making progress!

[prispuddings]

Hi

How do you add in reduced rated taxes for some EU countries. These will be country specific.

[Candi_Q]

Hi @LauraECY 

How has the exporting to Crossborderit gone? I am considering this option.

It seems the only potential solution for Taxamo is to pay a shopify expert to integrate it. I imagine this won't be cheap. 

[LauraECY]

So far so good! There were some teething issues with the data upload and I
am hoping they will improve the guidance information as it is quite
confusing.
The key thing is to make sure your Shopify store is set up for Registration
based taxes. There was a bit of confusion with Shopify Support when I asked
to set this up but we got there eventually.

Other considerations are how you send your parcels as I think I mentioned
the Post Office Drop and Go service does not support IOSS shipments. We
have moved to the Royal Mail Click and Drop service to ensure electronic
customs data can be included.

Our only other issue with the process is that we are manually creating
Commercial Invoices for each order. There will be ways to automate this but
we can't justify the outlay at this point.

Now we are just waiting to hear what happens when parcels enter the EU and
if any handling charges are applied!

[Candi_Q]

Hi @LauraECY 

Thank you for your quick response!

Okay, sounds pretty good so far.

I am already on Royal Mail Click and Drop but just doing pay as you go. Hopefully this won't be a problem.

I thought commercial invoices were optional but I will look into doing this as never done one before.

Seems like this is the only viable option for a brand new and very small business.

Thanks again and I hope it goes smoothly for you!

Candice

[Boo14]

Thanks for your updates, Laura. They have been very helpful! I have just uploaded our IOSS number from CBIT today and am on a 'chat' with Shopify at the moment to make sure that all is set up correctly. Having read your latest message, it looks as though we are going to have to change from Drop and Go, too! I will have to look into this now. Good luck, everyone!

[LauraECY]

Me again with an update on our experience with CBIT. I had quite a bit of difficulty uploading sales data and contacted support for assistance. They provided an excel document which did help as it had some explanations of what was required for each column. The csv format is quite tricky but I got there eventually by creating the data set and concatenating it. I then copied this into a new sheet to upload and that worked. 

I fed back about some confusion on the FAQ page regarding product upload and IOSS data upload. Today I see the explanatory information that really helped has been added to the FAQ page with clarification about what is required for each different process.

I am finding CBIT to be very responsive and am impressed with the speed at which they are adapting information. I am eager for the app though!

[Hermine_Makangu]

CBIT are very helpful once you contact them especially once your details are on the system.

I guess the registration depends on the demands in the country but from different forums I noticed that the average was about 2 to 5 days. If it takes longer, there may be a problem with the inormation submitted to them, so it is better to contact them.

I also had issues uploading my first file it was due to the way in which the date is written in the UK versus their system. I have a dummy example of what worked for us, it is always better to check with CBIT.

Lastly something we found useful to calculate VAT for sales that happened before we got the IOSS number: https://www.thevatcalculator.com/eu-vat-calculator/ It is very good, they calculate added VAT as well as included VAT.

IossNumber	TrackingNumber	TransactionDate	SalesAmount	VatAmount	SourceCountry	DestinationCountry	Service	IsCorrection	OriginalTransactionDate	OrderNumber
IM00000000	1ZET497KD9109	2021-07-08	111	20	GB	BE	0	0		K7HJZB

[Candi_Q]

Hi @Hermine_Makangu 

This is really helpful. Thank you! Do you have a contact number for Crossborderit? I could only find the support email which I emailed and haven't heard back.

Thanks in advance.

Best,

Candice

[Hermine_Makangu]

Hi @Candi_Q 

I don't have their contact number but they were very responsive with this email: support@crossborderit.com 

[Candi_Q]

Hi @Dbaca 

I still don't have an ISSO number and have not heard back from anyone at Crossborderit after emailing the support email address. I'm a bit surprised as everyone else seems to have had great support thus far.

Can you shed any light on this?

Thanks,

Candice

[Dbaca]

He tax system has been down for a few days which has caused some delays. We are working to get the numbers together when it is back up and running.

[Christian48]

Hi @Dbaca , I'm still confused about the .csv file. Does the sales amount figure include shipping? Reason I ask is VAT is charged on shipping too.

[Dbaca]

I hope this was solved.. Email me if not. info@crossborderit.com

[Curb_Wear]

Thanks for sharing this. When uploading the orders, do you convert to EURO? I charge in Pounds but it requires the sale and VAT amount to be in EURO.

Also pricing, it starts from €1 per shipment, have you found it to be this price for most of your orders? 

[Dbaca]

I can Answer this direct from Crossborderit. The price per transaction is 1€ for IOSS.

[pandroid]

Hi @Dbaca,

The pricing information you share here contradicts the response I got from your support@ email address.

I asked:

Let's say I ship a package that contains £20 worth of goods and the shipping cost is £7.50 to a destination that has a 21% VAT rate.

So, goods and shipping total = £27.50

21% VAT charged on that total of goods + shipping total = £5.76

Total charged to the customer = £33.26

What is the cost of clearing this package through your service?

Is it:  1 EUR + 5% of £5.76 (VAT charged for this order?) = 1 EUR + £0.288

(plus the monthly fee of 19.99 EUR?)

And the response I got was a one-line:

This looks sound as a calculation.

So, which one is correct - 1 EUR per package you are advertising here or 1 EUR + 5% fees on VAT charged that your email support folks tell us?

Thanks.

[LauraECY]

3 weeks in and our first IOSS orders have been delivered to customers. Sadly they were still charged before they could have their parcels delivered. These were to Austria and Italy. 

I have contacted Royal Mail to ask for their feedback on this as they implied charges would be unlikely. If customers are still going to be charged at their end then I struggle to see what all this effort has been for as we will really struggle to win back the alienated EU customers. 

[Nitsa]

I have noticed a really disturbing situation with EU customs lately with nearly all packages being held up and subject to erroneous charges and nothing we can do about it. Our tracking shows a package held in Frankfurt for over 3 weeks and all attempts by us and customer to get a response failing miserably. A client in Belgium who works for a large magazine publishing company, tells us that while shipments from Japan, China, US etc arrive as normal, some not even charged let alone opened, the reverse is true for packages from the UK, delayed, opened, charged often at wrong rates. IOSS is not going to change that mindset.

[MichaelC-C]

I agree and, having just completed yet another ONS questionnaire I continue
to boggle at how slow the Office for National Statistics is to pick up on
the fact that Import VAT was and remains a major problem and now seems to be
a political football.

[MichaelC-C]

Blimey what a shambles! Please let us know what Royal Mail says.

[Candi_Q]

Hi @LauraECY 

That is really disappointing to hear. I finally get my IOSS number but still have not had a single response from Crossborderit after 5 emails to their support team. 

I sent my first parcel to a customer in Ireland via Royal Mail Click and Drop. I have struggled with uploading the necessary files on crossborderits platform. Hopefully the customer receives it okay.

[Fanattik]

Hi there,

Was the amount your customers charged VAT though or just import duty, I have a feeling that although ioss takes care of VAT until the Royal Mail offer a DDP service the EU customers will still have to pay import duty on items.

[LauraECY]

It looks like VAT to be honest. We are looking into it. What a mess.
Hopefully CBIT may be able to incorporate landed fees?

[Morning]

Was the amount your customers charged VAT though or just import duty, I have a feeling that although ioss takes care of VAT until the Royal Mail offer a DDP service the EU customers will still have to pay import duty on items.

Duty is only due on consignments over 150 euro and IOSS can only be used for consignments up to 150 euro, so there's never an overlap between IOSS and duty.

[Nitsa]

@Morning. I think you're working on the assumption the rules are being followed; they're not. I stopped EU shipments last week because it was costing too much money chasing them up. Example, (and only an example, have many more I could pick from), 4 shipments sitting in Frankfurt, customs saying they have wrong tariff codes. OK, so 4 shipments all with different tariff codes because they were different items, codes we have been using world wide for 5 years with no problems, codes we are still using to US & Canada with no problem and now Frankfurt says wrong codes. Pure BS. Spain, Ireland, Sweden, Denmark no problems with shipping, rest of EU not worth the headache. Another company in our building, shipping bike parts, has also stopped shipping to EU for same reasons, in their case this comes to @£3K monthly.

I wish everyone good luck with their quest but please don't assume just because you are doing things correctly that it will be reciprocated.

[Morning]

@Nitsa I'm sorry to hear that, it sounds very frustrating. However, I think you’re making assumptions about my assumptions, which I don’t think can be inferred from my post.

I hope you get the customs issue resolved promptly.

[LauraECY]

It was VAT. I have chased it up with the Austrian tax authority and also
contacted Royal Mail to see if they can explain why the tax information was
not passed through correctly, as I am assuming this is the case. We had
also attached a commercial invoice containing all the relevant information
as a hard copy.

The initial generic response from the Austrian official was that no other
charges should be levied on IOSS parcels.

As an aside I found a forum post of Etsy sellers also finding that
customers had been charged twice so it appears that the system as a whole
isn't working and this is not just limited to individuals with separate
IOSS numbers.

[Boo14]

I have just had a French customer write to say that he has just refused a parcel, after being asked for 13€ from postman and that he will not be ordering from us again due to this situation! There was notification on the La Poste tracking to say 2€ customs fees were due, which I was also surprised by, but obviously not a lot of money, but an extra 13€ for a t-shirt when you have already paid tax, is crazy! That is what signing up to this system was supposed to avoid! So frustrating...we have our IOSS number going on our Click & Drop CN22 labels on the outside of the packaging. IOSS is set-up in Shopify and charging correct local tax amounts. I can't figure out what else we can do? 😞

[Nitsa]

@Boo14 Frustrating isn't it? And as you say, what else can you do? The point I was making in my previous post is that you can do everything right and still get hit by this. We took the decision to suspend shipping because we didn't want to burn up customer goodwill. There is a lot of frustration about this in Europe as well from people ordering small items from as far away as China and getting hit with unfathomable charges. Really don't know how this is going to turn out...

[Dbaca]

Carriers are having a hard time with this process. The best thing to do is to complain to them. UPS had problems the first week and corrected them. I see many carriers getting things strait. I am sorry it was at the expense of a customer.