Re: EU VAT

[Nigel Titley <..hidden..>]

On Mon, 2011-08-08 at 14:44 -0700, Chris Travers wrote:
> On Mon, Aug 8, 2011 at 2:19 PM, Nigel Titley <..hidden..> wrote:
> 
> Ok, so per customer then.  The tax form system of 1.3 would be
> virtually ideal for this.  You could create three tax forms and attach
> them to customer accounts, then track what's reportable or not, and
> report on it.  The only issue is accrual vs cash (the current reports
> are cash-basis, but accrual is easier to implement so that's not an
> obstacle).

Yes, we certainly need accrual.

> >
> > No... it is customer specific... hence our solution using Sales
> > accounts. You *could* use rough logic like
> 
> Perfect.  That makes this largely a reporting issue in 1.3.

>From what you say below, yes, we should be able to collapse it to a
reporting issue, which is what I would prefer anyway.

> 
> So basically we need to write EU vat tax reports.

Which I'm happy to help with

> Ok, so the 1099 reports can serve as a basis there, though will
> probably have to be tweaked for local rules.

Indeed
> >
> >From what you are saying in 1.2, that's probably the case.  In 1.3, we
> have additional ways to categorize customers for tax reporting which
> should help this a lot.

Excellent, this is perfect. 

> >
> > I'd really like to understand what the issues are with inventory
> > tracking and multiple sales accounts.
> 
> Ok....  so example.... suppose I sell items I want to track in
> different categories.  Maybe I sell complete computers, computer
> repair services, and computer parts.  I might set up sales accounts
> like:
> 
> 4110 Computer Systems
> 4120 Computer Parts
> 4130 Computer Repair Services
> 4140 IT Consulting Services
> 
> Now I want to categorize sales by defaulting a customer account to an
> income account.  I can't do that per se.  Instead I would have to
> suffix them like:
> 
> 4110-01 Computer Systems, VAT Taxable
> 4110-02 Computer Systems, Exmpt non-export
> 4110-03 Computer Systems, Export
> 
> etc.  However with the default account stuff, I fundamentally cannot
> track accounts across multiple criteria.  Consequently, it can't work
> as a general solution even if it works for a single customer.

Understood. I see the problem.

> > Yes, roughly. What my perl script does is searches for all invoices to
> > EU countries (which, I must say, would be easier to do if the country
> > fields were constrained to a list) and which have zero VAT. But as I
> > say, this only works because we don't sell food and baby clothes.
> 
> 1.3 constrains countries to a list.

Excellent


> Ok,so what 1.3 does for you (and this is new since the patch was
> commissioned is):
> 
> 1)  Allow tax forms to be attached to customers/vendors. So you can
> say "this vendor is an ECSL vendor" and "This customer is an ECSL
> customer."  You could also say "This vendor is a VAT vendor" and "This
> customer is a VAT customer" as well as
> "This customer is a VAT export customer" etc.  This should make the
> reporting a LOT easier.

Sounds just right, and a lot more general.

> 2)  Countries are constrained to a list.
> 
> Is there anything else that would have to be stored that is not?

For us, probably not. As long as we can pull out the reports as
discussed above, we will be happy, and it looks like you are putting in
the right general mechanisms to allow this.

Many thanks

Nigel