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.

[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.

[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.

[ShirleyScott]

Is there any news on the CBIT integration with Shopify?

[Dbaca]

We have four customers testing now so hopefully it will be done soon.

[ShirleyScott]

Hi Dbaca
That is great news to hear people are testing an integration for Taxamo on Shopify. Please advise as soon as it is released. Do you have an idea when that might be?
Best wishes
Shirley

[Dbaca]

We have several customers in Beta now so we will roll it out fairly soon . I am of course relying on my programers.

[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]

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

[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.

[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.