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.

[Zoe_Brooks1]

Also adding my vote for this! We need it asap!

[MichaelC-C]

Yes please we also need to use Taxamo - or a better one if Shopify have it, and preferably before 1 July 2021 please.

[Curb_Wear]

To reassure everyone, 1st July is when the One Stop Scheme launches, it's not a deadline. You will still be able to sell to Europe and the receiving customer will have to pay customs. 

Also, Germany is not ready to use the IOSS scheme on 1st July - they are only ready by 1 January 2022 !

But if Shopify can integrate with with Taxamo this would help greatly!

I have a customs guide on my shop, if helpful to anyone:

https://www.curbwear.com/pages/customs-information-for-our-international-customers

[Fanattik]

Hi there,

Shopify told me that they will not allow the processing of any European orders after the 1st of July if a valid IOSS number has not been added to the account. I made them confirm it twice to me just to be sure I understood them correctly.

[amanda_drury]

this is true, we can continue to use the same method as we have been using, the IOSS has been introduced to make life easier for businesses, fingers crossed there will be a solution and it will make trading a lot easier but I doubt that will be by July 1st

[Shay]

Hi @amanda_drury 

Thank you for sharing your concerns and suggestions surrounding the upcoming tax law changes happening on July 1st. 

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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 understand that in order to use the recommended service for this app that you need to access the checkout API and that is restricted for non plus stores. You are correct, that would be the case if that is the requirements of using this service. I can see how beneficial it would be to have that ability to integrate an app like that or for Shopify to have that feature available as standard. I have shared your feedback to our development team but there is no current timeline for something like that specifically. 

To clarify, and to make sure that I fully understand the specific feature you are wanting this to add into your store: The Taxamo Assure service provides a way to track and report your VAT tax per order in one easy way, saving you the time of having to manually calculate and report yourself? 

Also, to clarify one of the terms being used here, IOSS is specifically for non-EU merchants whereas OSS is for merchants located in the EU. 

While I am not a tax expert, I definitely want to assist with any additional questions you or other merchants have. To best help me help you, if anyone has questions if you can ask as a clear question + ideal solution that will help me get the context and information you need! 

Thank you! 

-Shay

[amanda_drury]

Hi Shay,

to answer your queries -

"To clarify, and to make sure that I fully understand the specific feature you are wanting this to add into your store: The Taxamo Assure service provides a way to track and report your VAT tax per order in one easy way, saving you the time of having to manually calculate and report yourself"

The key point here that you have not mentioned is that it is for UK businesses selling to EU customers but essentially you are correct, rather than the customer having to pay VAT when they receive the goods, which can put customers off ordering they pay at the checkout and taxamo acts as an intermediary and files the VAT return and pays the EU the necessary VAT according to the country that the customer has ordered from. It is not practical for many small businesses to register to be a IOSS themselves.

Also, to clarify one of the terms being used here, IOSS is specifically for non-EU merchants whereas OSS is for merchants located in the EU. 

This is correct, the UK is no longer in the EU

While I am not a tax expert, I definitely want to assist with any additional questions you or other merchants have. To best help me help you, if anyone has questions if you can ask as a clear question + ideal solution that will help me get the context and information you need!

I am very surprised that shopify has not looked at how best to help UK merchants with the issues that have arisen from the UK leaving the EU. In a nutshell we would like you to either talk to Taxamo and come up with a way to integrate their API into our websites or for shopify to become an IOSS and develop your own system that can be seamlessly integrated into the checkout.

I am no expert on this - I am a jeweller. I suggest developers at shopify look into how best to keep the EU sales coming in for UK businesses as there are solutions out there, I'm really surprised and disappointed that shopify isn't on this already.

thank you

Amanda

[Reina2]

Hi Shopify staff,

Thank you for getting back to us.
This forum seems to be mostly for Shopify sellers in the UK, so we are looking for a solution for IOSS ( not OSS!) .
We are requesting an integration between Shopify ( check out ) and Taxamo.
If you sign up to their website, they actually have a API form which you can , assumably, integrate into any backend of websites.
I am sure it may be quite easy for Shopify developers to look at their requirements and create something that could integrate taxamo’s api to add the
(1) calculation for each EU countries taxes , then add this at check out, so that the EU customers can purchase the goods and pay Tax at the same time. Taxamo will then process the money collected and forward/ process to the designated EU country’s tax payable. And Taxamo should be giving us some kind of IOSS number, which we UK seller can put on at shipment with Royal Mail ( I think most sellers here are using UK Royal Mail) .
Then through Taxamo , we are covered with IOSS .
Please see below the link to Taxamo. I think you will have to speak to the developers there and see what Shopify needs to do.

https://www.taxamo.com/taxamo-assure-rmg/features

Please see the Uk Royal Mail telling us the option of using Taxamo.

https://www.royalmail.com/import-one-stop-shop-ioss



Please , we need a smooth integration of Taxamo into Shopify for IOSS( mostly for assisting UK seller be able to keep selling in EU countries) .

*** Otherwise, you will loose all sales to the EU countries , and EU Shopify seller would have to find a better e-commerce platform that can help us sell to EU.
I think it is beneficial and necessary for Shopify to find a integration with Taxamo ASAP. Otherwise you will loose Uk Shopify sellers for sure.

Shopify staff,
Please reply.
Thank you.

[Reina2]

Hi Shay, 

Thank you for getting back to us. 

This forum seems to be mostly for Shopify sellers in the UK, so we are looking for a solution for IOSS ( not OSS!) . 

We are requesting an integration between Shopify ( check out ) and Taxamo. 

If you sign up to their website, they actually have a API form which you can , assumably, integrate into any backend of websites. 

I am sure it may be quite easy for Shopify developers to look at their requirements and create something that could integrate taxamo’s api to add the 

(1) calculation for each EU countries taxes , then add this at check out, so that the EU customers can purchase the goods and pay Tax at the same time. Taxamo will then process the money collected and forward/ process to the designated EU country’s tax payable. And Taxamo should be giving us some kind of IOSS number, which we UK seller can put on at shipment with Royal Mail ( I think most sellers here are using UK Royal Mail) . 

Then through Taxamo , we are covered with IOSS . 

Please see below the link to Taxamo. I think you will have to speak to the developers there and see what Shopify needs to do. 

 https://www.taxamo.com/taxamo-assure-rmg/features

Please see the Uk Royal Mail telling us the option of using Taxamo. 

https://www.royalmail.com/import-one-stop-shop-ioss

Please , we need a smooth integration of Taxamo into Shopify for IOSS( mostly for assisting UK seller be able to keep selling in EU countries) . 

*** Otherwise, you will loose all sales to the EU countries , and EU Shopify seller would have to find a better e-commerce platform that can help us sell to EU. 

I think it is beneficial and necessary for Shopify to find a integration with Taxamo ASAP. Otherwise you will loose Uk Shopify sellers for sure. 

Shopify staff, 

Please reply. 

Thank you.

[Julia_Gibbs]

Thank you for this request, I have a small business selling UK to EU and a workaround to integrate Taxamo or a Shopify version is 100% necessary IMO if we are to continue selling to Europe. Like others I was surprised nothing has been set up so far, and time is running out for small businesses! Please Shopify, look at a workaround ASAP!

[MichaelC-C]

HI Amanda,

I agree with you but would suggest the potential damage is wider than UK
Shopify customers selling into the EU. I believe it is world Shopify
customers selling into the EU including EU Shopify customers selling within
the EU. It's a scandal that Shopify, at this late date, one week before
implementation of the new EU rules, appears to have got nothing on offer
and is apparently disinterested in Taxamo, the only economically viable
solution that, so far, I have been able to find for low value consignments.

[MichaelC-C]

Yes, Taxamo even publishes its API code but according to what I have read on
this blogg, only Shopify Plus customers can integrate it into their
check-out

[MichaelC-C]

Yes checkout the Taxamo integration page

https://www.taxamo.com/taxamo-assure-rmg/integration

Only Magento is integrating it - no mention of Shopify.

[MichaelC-C]

Yes the Shopify Support staff seem to think its just a question of
calculating import VAT. They are completely underestimating the size of the
problem. It's a question of seamlessly integrating into our secure Shopify
checkouts a method to calculate import VAT for the shipping destination
country send that money to a secure third party (who is registered under the
EU IOSS scheme) who will then send the import VAT to the EU destination
country's Sales Tax authority, include in our Shopify sales reports the fact
that the sales tax part of the sales revenue we collected has automatically
been sent to third party countries.

[CustomizedChopp]

Can I also add our voice to the call for an urgent integration of Taxamo into the Shopify checkout.

[SueCa]

@Shopify - the issue here is not only the calculation of the relevant VAT for each country, but for UK traders they need to use an EU intermediary to register for IOSS and remit the VAT on their behalf to the relevant countries.

UK traders are not able to register directly for the IOSS scheme without an EU intermediary and other providers are high upfront/ annual ongoing cost - which for small shops is not feasible. The reason we are requesting an integration with Taxamo is to access a lower cost transactional service which would allow sites to comply. It appears to be the only low cost transactional service available in the UK.

Being part of IOSS allows VAT to be paid at checkout by the customer and provides a better customer experience than the risk of having parcels sent without duty and be delayed or have excessive charged.

[KBTTPS]

Some alternative solutions/information we've looked into in case of interest:

AVALARA - spoke to a rep from this company. They already work with Shopify and are automatically part of the Shopify Plus plans. The rep I spoke with said he 'thought' that there were some discussions underway with Shopify about offering their solution to all Shopify plans in light of the July 1st changes - but he had no concrete info.

A question for @Shopify to confirm/deny...

Avalara can do the following:

IOSS registration for your business (you have to register via an intermediary), the ongoing IOSS intermediary work and ongoing compliance/monthly returns etc.

As an Avalara customer you get access to their Customer Portal, which centralises your VAT accounts. You will see a clear overview of what has been filed, which returns are due and how much VAT you have to pay to your IOSS registered tax office (they register in France I believe). You upload your data onto their secure portal. monthly, and their team will take care of the rest. 

Costs:

You can pay annually / twice a year or quarterly  (below are annual payment costs)

One off fee for IOSS registration £415 + VAT

Annual payment intermediary services £768 + VAT per year

Annual compliance/returns services £1440 + VAT per year

So ignoring the registration fee, it's £184/month +VAT

Minimum contract term is 12 months

They also sent this link - haven't watched it but in case of use I'm sharing

https://help.avalara.com/008_VAT_Learning_Center/Avalara_VAT_Returns/An_introduction_to_the_Avalara_...

Guy I spoke to is UK based and called Zavier Bailey zavier.bailey@avalara.com

--------------------------------------------

We have also requested information from another UK company called VAT Digital who offer IOSS services - https://www.vat-digital.com/service/import-one-stop-shop/

Waiting to hear back from them with pricing - will update when we know more.

[Christian48]

I too would like to voice my support for this request. 50% of my sales are to EU customers, the bulk of which are below €150. It is imperative that Shopify implement a solution so that I can charge VAT at the checkout to these customers, otherwise I risk losing a large section of my customer base. 

[Curb_Wear]

Taxamo Plug-ins supported

Magento (Launching July 2021)

The Magento plug-in allows for easy connectivity with your Magento check-out process.

Shopify: please work with Taxamo as Magento are!

[AlexMakermet]

Just adding my vote to the pile on this one. Many of our customers will experience problems unless this integration is prepared. 

Thank you - look forward to its resolution.