Different VAT tax for each product variant

[Adrian77]

Hi to you all,
Is there a possibility to set custom VAT tax rate on each product variant?
If I sell a t-shirt, let's say the red variant would have a 5% VAT tax and the green variant only 3%?
Thank you.

[Nick]

Hi @Adrian77,

Nick here from Shopify. Great question! 

It is possible to display two different VAT prices for your products but it would only be possible for products with one variant as well as the price on your product page is not updated via JavaScript. You can see a where Shopify mention this in one of their help documents below:

You can see the help document about showing VAT prices on your products from Shopify here. Something to note is that this is an advanced tutorial which isn't supported by Shopify. Because of this, your best bet to apply this if you aren't comfortable doing it yourself is by reaching out to a Shopify Expert here. 

Hope this helps and answers your question! 

All the best, Nick

[Adrian77]

Thank you for your answer.

I red the note and I am comfortable doing it myself. But I don't need the price with VAT just to be displayed,
I need the different VAT percentage on different product variants to be able to generate invoices correctly.
This is why I wand the VAT percentage for the product variant to be saved into the DB somewhere, to retrieve it
at the checkout when I want to generate the invoice.

The twist is that I do have the same product with many variants and some of the variants have different VAT tax,
I don't need for my customers to see the amount that represent VAT, I need that amount just to generate invoices.
They don't care about what percentage is the VAT. Customers will be interested in the amount they have to pay, regardless
of what percentage of that amount represents tax.

So, using the link you provided, is there a possibility to edit the template in such a way to get something like this:
{{ if (product.variant == 1) then product.price | times:1.XX | money }}, and to be able to save this value somewhere and use it
when shopify generates the invoice? Assuming there is just one product variant where I need different VAT value, and all the other
variants use the same VAT value.

But if this workaround would be useful just to display the value, and not use it when the invoice is generated it won't help me.

The resource you provided is helpful however, thank you for your patience.

[Nick]

No problem at all @Adrian77, hope it helped in some way. 

Tax overrides work on a collection basis, so it would apply to the whole product, not one specific variant. You would need to create multiple products if you wanted to apply a tax override for multiple products. 

[Adrian77]

Unfortunately I can not do that, I can't have two products and add them in separate collections because it would be the same exact product twice, first would have just one variant and the second 30 or more variants. And beside the excepted little variant anything else about the product would be exactly the same. Multiply this by many products and it would create a huge confusion among the clients. I can't see this as a viable solution.

[Nick]

Hi @Adrian77,

I double checked this with our tax development team to see if it would be in any way possible to have different tax prices for different variants of the same product and they confirmed what I mentioned to you in the reply above. 

This is good feedback though, and what I will do is submit this as a possible feature request for the future to our development team on your behalf. You did mention about editing the code previously also. This is something which would be out of my expertise, but it might be worth talking to a Shopify Expert to see if it can be done from the back end of the website? But in terms of a tax override from the admin side of things, what you're looking to do isn't possible. 

[Adrian77]

All right, thank you for your reply.
So it seems like I am down to this two potential solutions:

1. Is there a way to add a product variant to a collection? Just the product variant, not the whole product with all it's variants. I could simply override the tax for this particular collection. I found this thread: https://community.shopify.com/c/Shopify-Discussion/adding-product-variants-ONLY-to-collection/td-p/4... but there was no answer provided in there. After all this time there might be a solution for it.

2. It might be needed to try and make my own app for this problem.
Regarding this, I have two more questions:
- if I have my separate database with taxes for each product variant that needs different tax, is there a way for shopify to use my tax rate for the product variant after the order is submitted instead of tax value stored in my shopify database? I need this value for creating the invoice and when the client's card is charged. Is this scenario feasible?
- Is there a way to host my app on the same server the my shopify shop is install onto? I would like to avoid making API calls across different web servers to reduce delays and lag. During promotions or peak times this might create a failure point which would spell disaster.

[Nick]

No problem at all. 

Let's take a look at your questions:

1. To have a product variant in a collection the original product the variant is attached to must also be in the collection. Product variants are associated and attached to their primary product in this sense at least natively within the Shopify admin. I did some digging and found an app which might be able to help you out with this. The app is called SV-Variants on collection page and displays product variants as separate products on collection pages. I'm wondering if this could do what you need it to. 
2. With regards to creating your own app, this is something that is not in my expertise and I wouldn't be the best person to ask. It might be worth asking this separately in the Shopify Apps community board here to find an answer for this. It would have better eyes and the audience in this topic board is more appropriate for the question. 

[Daniel-Triciclo]

Hi there,

I was reading this post when trying to find a solution for B2B customers taxes in Spain. Some of them need to get charged and extra tax of 5.4% on top of 21% VAT ( IVA). 

Lets say you have a base of 100 € , normally it would be 121 € with taxes, but an additional 5.4% ( 100 * 5,4%) must be applied for some of them due to their fiscal position. Total 126,4 € 

I have managed to get this amount with tax overrides, but I need to enable that this rule applies only to those specific  customers, because majority will have only the 21%.

I don't want to duplicate products as they are connected to customers database with SKU. And creating different collections with tax overrides doesnt work. I cant also add a "fee" because I want it to be code as "tax"

Is there any work around to "tag" customers and make different rules for products, right now only "tax exempt" is available. Any app?

Thanks!

Daniel

[Nick]

Hi @Daniel-Triciclo,

I'm wondering if the Tax Exempt Manager app will work for you here? What the app does essentially, is it collects and automatically checks your customer's VAT ID using the official EU database VIES for tax numbers of the European Commission. If the entered VAT ID corresponds to the correct sample, the customer can buy automatically without VAT. Something to note is that the customer does not have to create an account and you as store owner do not have to do anything to enable them to do so. 

Another app which might be useful for you here is Exemptify. The same basic concept applies. Because of this, it might be worth looking into both options to see which one you like and resonate with best. 

Hope this helps! 

[Daniel-Triciclo]

Hi @Nick 

yes, those apps are great for customer to dont have to pay EU- TAX, but we are looking to "add" and extra tax, not to remove it.

This is a requirement in Spain ( it is called "recargo de equivalencia") and most of B2B will need it, and so far, there is not a solution for this.

It will definitely boost the B2B here if available.

thanks

Daniel

[Nick]

Ahhh ok. Thanks for adding more context to this @Daniel-Triciclo. 

I took another look in the app store and found an app which might be able to work for you here. I hope it does at least. It's called Dual Price Display PRO and mentions that it allows you to set the tax rates in a percentage. I'm wondering if this will do what you need it to.

[Daniel-Triciclo]

thanks @Nick ,

I have check that app, and it only helps to display different taxes ( which you match with your tax settings)

what we are looking for is something more complex, as it does require to modify the taxes by group of customers.

Here it does explain a little bit more in detail the scenario, maybe something you can share with your tax team:

PS: the tax is 5.2% not 5.4% as I wrote before, and it might vary depending on the base of the main tax.

thanks for your help

Daniel

[Nick]

Thanks for sharing the link @Daniel-Triciclo.

I'll be sure to share all of this feedback with the correct team here to make them aware of this. 

Feedback like this is very valuable for understanding what store owners like yourself are looking for to successfully run your businesses efficiently, so it is truly appreciated.  

[JoeCas]

Hello Adrian,

I read through this thread and we're facing the same issue with implementing tax overrides to specific variants of our products.

Were you able to find a solution to this? Would really appreciate if you could share it here.

Thank you.

[Soufeina]

Hi Adrian, were you able to find a solution for your problem eventually? I have the exact same problem: I want different taxes on different variants of the same product. Is there a useful app! Thanks in advance!

[Adrian77]

@Soufeina, no. I was unable to find a solution. Unfortunately I had to give up on shopify.

[acero_10]

I have the same problem too.

I need some of my product variants to have a lower tax, but not all the product variants...

[Nick]

Hi @acero_10,

I spoke to our higher-level support team about this. You cannot do a different VAT for each variant. You can only charge different tax rates by doing overrides which require you to override a collection. Since you have to put the whole product in a collection, and not just a variant, it’s not possible to override the rate for just one variant.

Because of that, the best workaround is creating each variant as its own separate product here. 

[Emilie_Jalie]

This is to be a deal-breaking issues that many sellers are facing. 

It becomes increasingly important when using the charge VAT on digital goods option.

I strongly believe there should at least be a verification at checkout to ensure that VAT is only applied to products that are not listed as physical products in order to avoid any legal / tax collection issues.

We built an entire store with the "parent product with two variants: one digital, one physical" structure (because having duplicates everywhere + translations would be un-manageable). We based our development on the fact that Shopify had a tool to charge VAT on digital goods and are now facing a problem because the "charge VAT on digital goods" doesn't check if the product is indeed digital or not. It is misleading and I would add it to the bug fix list (not a feature request since there is already a feature... it's just not working as it should). 

Sellers outside EU should not collect VAT on physical products. It would (I think) be quite easy to add a hidden condition to ensure the option behaves like its label says: "charge VAT on DIGITAL goods" (not just any good in a given category).

[Stitch-Online]

Hi all

Digging the subject here because we are in the exact same situation and it looks like we might have to give up on Shopify just like @Adrian77 did 😞

Very frustrating because on paper it doesn't look that complicated.

@Nickmaybe the higher level team has changed it's mind since the last time?

To sum things up: we NEED to find a way to implement different VAT rates on a specific product depending on it's variants. No more no less.

Thanks in advance.

[Nick]

Hi @Stitch-Online and everyone else,

Thanks for your patience, and feedback on this, it's been collected for our team's review on the existing feature request for it. 

[Monia]

Following. Looking forward to an update, Nick.

[AntoineR20]

Hi Nick

We are facing the same issues re different VAT tax for each product variant on food products. Do you have an update on this feature request?

Regards

Antoine

[Nick]

Hi @AntoineR20,

There is no update as of yet! There is a feature request made for this so the team is aware. I can't offer any timelines, but have made a note to update this thread once there is an official notice! 

[Andr7]

Hi Nick! This thread was posted in 2019, I'm surprised that Shopify hasn't come up with a solution yet in 2022. We also require different VAT rates for different products. Has there been any updates?

[Adrian77]

Hi guys. 
There is no solution to this issue.
I believe they just don't care.

I was forced to give up on shopify.

[MatOps]

Hey Nick,

Any updates on applying different VAT rates to product variants? 

It's been almost 4 years since highlighting this feature