VAT for businesses in the EU

[omp199]

We have a customer in Portugal who says that she has entered her VAT Number at the checkout but is still being charged the full amount with VAT included.

I have checked our business settings in Actinic. We have the correct rate of VAT set up. We have three tax zones: "EU Tax Zone", "UK Tax Zone", and "No Tax levied". We have Portugal assigned to the EU Tax Zone. We have the tax levied in the EU Tax Zone set to "VAT", and we have the "Allow Exemption" box ticked.

I have verified that if I log in as a Portugal-based customer, the checkbox for the exemption and the text box for the VAT Number appear properly on the website.

In my testing, I have entered a fictitious VAT Number. However, I have had no error message back saying that the VAT Number I am entering is invalid, so I can't tell if any check is even being done on the number. The website seems to ignore it, and continues to display the VAT.

So my questions are:
1. Is Actinic supposed to do any verification of the VAT Number that is provided by the customer, or is the seller supposed to check it after the order has been received?
2. Is Actinic supposed to exclude the VAT from the order total if certain criteria are met, or is the seller obligated to give a partial refund after the order has been received?

I would be grateful for any answers.

Thanks!

[Mark H]

Maybe she has entered a fictitious number?

[cbarling]

> Is Actinic supposed to do any verification of the VAT Number that is provided by the customer, or is the seller supposed to check it after the order has been received?

Actinic currently doesn't do any verification of the VAT number.

> Is Actinic supposed to exclude the VAT from the order total if certain criteria are met, or is the seller obligated to give a partial refund after the order has been received?

Actinic is supposed to automatically exclude the VAT under these circumstances. I believe that bug has been fixed in this area recently. Which version are you on please?

Chris

[omp199]

Thanks for the explanation, Chris.

We're using Actinic Developer version 7.0.

We are not currently planning to upgrade, due to constraints of time and money. (Our understanding is that upgrading to version 9 would require a lot of work.)

Do you know of any fix for this particular issue that can be applied to version 7 without upgrading?

Thanks.

[cbarling]

Sorry, I hadn't noticed this was in the v7 area of the community.

I wasn't aware that there was a problem with VAT exception in v7 - does anyone reading this use it successfully?

Chris

[Paul Bulpit]

1) It is the seller's responsibility to check the validity of the VAT Number submitted - if you put an invalid number on your quarterly EC Sales List submission it will be rejected.

We use this link.

IF IT THROWS UP INVALID, YOU NEED TO CONTACT THE CUSTOMER.

2) We have not had any problem with V7 in this area, it works fine, even when an invalid VAT Registration Number is submitted.


_________
Paul

[Mark H]

What is more, not only does the number have to be a valid one, it has to be the correct number for the customer. Often a good idea to see some proof by way of faxed headed paper etc.

[Sean Williams]

We always do a Vat number validity check:

http://ec dot europa dot eu/taxation_customs/vies/vieshome.do?selectedLanguage=EN

[omp199]

Thanks for the further replies, and for the notes about checking for validity of VAT Numbers.

But back to the apparent bug in Actinic v7. It seems to only show up in certain circumstances.

It seems that it works if I am not logged in to a customer account, and select an EU country as my invoice address. It displays the VAT exemption checkbox and the box for the VAT Number, and if I submit the form with both of those filled in, the VAT is no longer included in the order total.

However, if I am logged in to a customer account which has already been set up with an EU country as the invoice address, it does not work. It displays the VAT exemption checkbox and the box for the VAT Number, but even if I submit the form with both of those filled in, the VAT is still included in the order total.

Is anyone else able to reproduce this situation?

[acompton]

I wasn't aware that there was a problem with VAT exception in v7 - does anyone reading this use it successfully?

I've had no problem with it, but I don't use logins.

[grantglendinnin]

Perhaps Actinic could look at an integration with one of these VAT-number checking services....? That must be one of very few obvious features that I've never found in any ecommerce cart...

[omp199]

I've had no problem with it, but I don't use logins.

It only seems to happen for me when I am logged in.

Has anyone with Actinic v7 tried going for the VAT exemption when logged in as an EU-based customer...?

[omp199]

Hello again, and Happy New Year to all who are still reading the v7 threads!

We are still experiencing the problem with the VAT exemption not being applied (in Actinic v7) for customers in other EU countries who are logged in to their trader accounts.

The issue has come to the fore again, as one of our customers has run into trouble when trying to finish off her accounts for the year 2009. Her figures still include the VAT. Actually, there are quite a few customers for whom this is the case, but this customer in particular is pleading with us to get the issue sorted out!

We can, of course, sort out the VAT as and when the orders come in, by issuing partial refunds, but this is time-consuming and expensive. We would really like to get it sorted out so that the affected customers are not charged the VAT to start with.

Does anyone have any idea of how we can do this - without upgrading to a later version of Actinic? Would we need to edit the Perl code? We can do this if necessary, but would be grateful for a bit of guidance, as our Perl skills are a bit rusty.

[acompton]

I had to bite my hands off and type this post with the bloodied stumps, but perhaps it might be easier to think about upgrading .