I completely agree with @RobbieRonalds a @jesick above. The new solution in Shopify Tax is only an option, that is a workaround solution, not something everyone here is actually expecting. I am not sure @mcrawford if Shopify is aware how much money do they loose in Europe because of that.
We sell electronic goods, simply everyone is taking them on Invoice in Europe and people bounce back on international sale, as they see no easy option for an VAT invoice. They just turn on their feet and buy it more expensively on Amazon or other marketplace. We also do not launch more international shops as it make no sense to only run the sale for a B2C clients. As far as we see on local sale it might be around 30-40% clients lost because we miss that simple solution.
It make no sense to me why you don’t plan to launch for everyone. Shopify is making revenue on % provision and almost half of the clients can’t purchase the goods as they should be. The income of your Shopify Tax clients will not cover even a bit of that provision waste here.
Just leaving a reply here because we’re also looking for a solution in this matter. The proposed solution is not really a good one as the customers VAT number can only be added in retrospect and not during checkout. About 10% of our sales is to companies (B2B) in the EU which should be given a 0% VAT rate. For example a company ordering on Allcam.it (our website for Italy) should have 0% VAT rate calculated upon entering a valid VAT number. We use Sufio for our invoices which has an option to have a VAT field in the cart with VIES check. But right now when product is €99,99 including VAT, the price is just changed to €99,99 excluding VAT, very strange.
Hi Optis, thanks for your reply and proposed solution. Having a VAT field at the customer account section is not really viable (who ever goes there?). I understand that it’s not possible to have the VAT field at the checkout unless Shopify chooses to, but it should at least be in the cart or at another visible location during checkout. Is that an option with your app?
Thanks for clarifying. I agree that a reminder at the cart page could be sufficient for B2B customers to fill in their VAT number there. Currently we have a VAT field at the Cart page using Sufio. Unfortunately, the VAT deduction only work when the VAT settings for that market are set to ‘Dynamic’. I read above that the EUVAT.app doesn’t have this issue? A big problem now too is that when B2B customers in a market where the prices are shown as ‘VAT included’ fill in their VAT number, the price in the cart stays the same as the price including VAT, so these customers end up paying more for the products.
Hi @Rene89 — as we discussed, the easiest way forward is to install and try EUVAT.app
It adds a VAT field in the cart, does automatic VIES validation, and once validated the customer sees net prices in the cart (and the same net totals go through checkout). On Shopify Plus, VAT input is also supported directly at checkout.
Give it a try — this should solve the issue you described with B2B customers paying gross instead of net.