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.

[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.

[Nitsa]

UPS ? Please give me a break, don't answer emails, don't acknowledge anything beyond a "do not reply" response, check out the trust pilot reviews. Look at me, 20 days and counting and I sill can't get packages out of Frankfurt, see attached file. DPD, Royal Mail, at least they engage with you, UPS is like a black hole....

[Dbaca]

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

[Dbaca]

Our Shopify APP is ready. I will upload all the data without needing to do it manually. 

You will need to have your IOSS number from us. Then E-mail support@crossborderit.com with your Shopify Domain and we will build you a private link. 

In a few weeks when the public APP is working you will need to switch from the private app to the public one which will have more functionality. 

[KarenG1]

Hi there, really keen for this to happen too!

[Fanattik]

Could be a problem.

We have used the IOSS number and had an email this morning from a Spanish customer saying that he was charged the VAT, even though we used CROSSBORDERIT. Do you think this was just a mistake by the Spanish post office, what do we do when this happens because the customer wants us to pay him back the VAT we charged him. How do we get the money back from CROSSBORDERIT when this sort of thing happens?

[LauraECY]

Hi, we have had this with 2 customers. I think it was an issue with Royal
Mail. We had written the IOSS no on the parcel, attached a Commercial
Invoice detailing the tax paid by the customer and none of that seemed to
have been taken into account. The first person I spoke to at Royal Mail
said it sounded like a customs issue and then disconnected the call as I
was explaining why it shouldn't have been.
I then spoke to the Click and Drop team who said their latest update should
have fixed the issue. After discussing it with our accountant we refunded
the customer who provided proof of having paid that amount to receive the
parcel and will exclude the transaction from the CBIT upload. I don't think
the UK and EU postal services were in any way ready for this and so the
implementation has been tricky. We are desperately hoping that the bugs
have been ironed out now.

[ShirleyScott]

Really basic question here but can someone tell me how we register for an IOSS number? Do we have to do it through a third party? We are based in the UK, with no subsidiaries in the EU but we ship to the EU.

[Curb_Wear]

I had the same issue with the IOSS logo not showing on a shipment going to Sweden, Click and Drop advisor told me this was just a label error, but like you mention it seems none of the postal services are ready and businesses are left to pick up the cost or extra work to try and reclaim any taxes paid twice.

[Boo14]

@ShirleyScott Check out https://www.crossborderit.com/ It's what a lot of us are using and they have been really helpful and we were set up with a number really quickly too.

[Boo14]

Re the Click and Drop labels, I agree that there seems to be a problem with the IOSS number not auto-filling on some of them, so double-check your printouts! Further to my post the other day, we sent the French customer two parcels from separate despatch locations, one got there fine and he was not asked to pay anything and the other (which was rejected, as he didn't want to pay tax), we now think was missing the IOSS number on the CN22 generated by Click and Drop! Really frustrating! 

[LauraECY]

Apparently (according to the Click and Drop customer services) if the IOSS
symbol is on the address label the EORI and IOSS numbers on the CN22 are
not required. It all seems a bit of a risk and we won't know for a couple
of weeks if there are any charges!

[Boo14]

@LauraECY Thanks for this. What is the IOSS symbol? I have not seen this on Click and Drop?? We are in the process of setting up a business account, as we used Drop and Go before, so are having to do everthing manually via a Personal C&D Account at the mo! Thanks.

[LauraECY]

[image: image.png]
We are only using Click and Drop for EU orders as we want to continue
supporting our Post Office using Drop and Go.
Considering that the electronic customs information is supposed to be the
important step it seems ridiculous that this tiny symbol can make a
difference!

[Boo14]

Hi @LauraECY Thanks. Unfortunately I can't see the attachment on your message? I'll have a look at Click & Drop too see if I can find something. We are using both D&G and C&D at the moment, too. 

[LauraECY]

Sorry about that, I'll try again!    

[Boo14]

Thanks for that Laura. I have just looked back and re-generated the paperwork of some past orders and can see that only one (23rd July) has that symbol on it. I had noticed the IOSS number had not printed on that one, so hand-wrote it on myself. I'm just concerned about the one before that! Fingers crossed. Thanks again. 🙂