Re: EU VAT

[Chris Travers <..hidden..>]

On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 10:23 AM, Nigel Titley <..hidden..> wrote:
> On Mon, 2011-08-08 at 10:15 -0700, Chris Travers wrote:
>> On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 8:34 AM, lrspares45 <..hidden..> wrote:
>
>>
>> Ok.  What goods and services are taxable at what rates are also set by
>> the country, right?
>
> Correct. Some countries (the UK is one) have multiple rates of tax.
>>
>> Is this a cash-basis form like the 1099 form in the US?  or is it
>> accrual basis?  In other words, if you make the purchase at the end of
>> one year and pay for it the next year, which year do you report it on?
>
> It depends. You can choose to work either on an accrual or a cash basis.
> Small businesses tend to work on a cash basis, larger ones (like
> ourselves) work on an accrual basis. When you register for VAT you tell
> the tax man what accounting system you want to work on.


Ok, so the 1099 reports are entirely cash basis which sucks but that's
the way it is.

What this means is we would have to create accrual reports for this,
>
>> I ask because in LedgerSMB 1.3 we have the ability to track purchase
>> items that have to be recorded on a customer or vendor-specific tax
>> form.  Right now the only tax form supported is the US 1099 form, but
>> the reporting could be modified to provide similar reporting of line
>> items for other forms.
>
> This *might* help. But only if you can choose to report, or not,
> depending on whether you export or don't.

Reporting is per line item.  The reason is we are supporting 1099
stuff and this is NOT tied to which goods or services are taxable.
Rather they track payments to contractors over a period of time.  Some
things are reportable, while others are not (for example, reimbursed
expenses are not reportable).  So you can select or deselect
individual line items from reporting.

In other words, you create a "tax form" and tell whether it is
default-selected.  Then you assign that tax form to a set of customers
and/or vendors.

Then when you are creating invoices, you can select whether individual
line items are reportable.

Now, this currently only allows one tax form per customer or vendor.
>
>> Ok.  I will look at this.  One thing I would like to see us focusing
>> on after 1.3 RC1 is looking at this issue and what needs to be done to
>> make LedgerSMB better.
>
> Yes, VAT handling is really vital for LedgerSMB to be useful in Europe.
>> Helps a great deal.
>
> If you need to know more then just ask. My cousin is a VAT inspector
> (she partly does our books for us) so we get a lot of free advice.

Thanks,
Chris Travers