[ic] VAT deduct

[Kevin Walsh]

>
> First of all -- hats off for such an amazing application!  I'm in the
> process of moving over an online store from Intershop v4, and have to say
> I'm much more impressed with the features/control available in Interchange.
>
> Anyway, on with the question.  I have imported the items from our database
> inclusive of 17.5% UK VAT, and would prefer to keep all prices in the
> database VAT inclusive.  Therefore, I need to deduct the VAT for non-EU
> customers.  I have tried to do this by setting the tax for these countries
> to -17.5%, however this does not seem to work.  What would be the best way
> to handle this?
>
> My first guess is to search the region column of the country table, compare
> it with the [value country], and embed some perl on the basket/checkout
> pages?
>
I'd suggest that you change your prices so that they're stored exclusive
of VAT.  With slight changes to your page code, you can display the price
inclusive and exclusive of VAT for customers in the UK, or elsewhere in
the EU.

I suggest this for a number of reasons:

  1. If a price is stored as £1,175 (inc. VAT) then -17.5% applied to
     that price will be £969.38 and not the £1,000 you're probably
     expecting.  That could be worked around by changing the percentage
     you subtract.  Of course "$price /= 1.175" would work as expected.
     Just be careful.

  2. Storing prices inclusive of VAT will make it difficult to show
     a proper tax breakdown on your checkout and receipt pages etc.

  3. The prices will seem expensive to people outside the EU.  Showing
     inclusive and exclusive prices for each product helps to avoid
     confusion, even for customers in the EU.

  4. Your postage amounts would also need to be stored inclusive of VAT,
     which becomes far too confusing if you decide that you need to
     perform pro-rata VAT calculations on the postage amount.

  5. When the VAT rate changes, you'd have to change all of your prices
     to match, rather than simply changing 17.5% to 99.9%, or whatever
     it goes up to next time.

I'm sure I could come up with some more reasons, but they'll do for now.

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