[Triple A Racing]

Originally Posted by xim

Did you mean that the invoices need to use different view depending on the order amount?

No. We simply meant that the invoices produced, do not comply with the UK VAT (HMRC) regulations (see below for more detail) By now, this far along the development path, they should. Please remember that this module was originally released as a UK VAT module. It then became a EU and UK VAT / GST Module, but with no explanation or reasoning as to the new title / intention... and now after #BREXIT, you'll have already realised yourselves that this 'combo' type approach is going to fail anyway...

Originally Posted by xim

We understand that we are not able to compliance all the taxes rules for EU, UK, US, Canada, Australia and other countries. In this case, we need to be Tax Automation company, but not e-commerce platform solution. So if you need a more professional solution to handle with taxes, we would recommend signing up to Avalara. Yes, this is the paid service

We can't comment on X-Cart's own International Taxation abilities obviously, but this is a basic, simple requirement for ALL e-commerce solutions. Period! We don't think any supplier of said software products, can simply give this problem back to their end users whilst stating "...ahhh sorry, but this is out of scope. Why not buy this service / add-on / consultancy package instead?" that's never going to work surely? Meantime, what we can say, is that from our own UK experience, no sensible, switched on UK Business is ever going to pay a USA Company for advice on UK VAT That's like a UK based company proffering "excellent advice" on State Sales Tax Differences / IRS Implications between say Clark County Nevada and any County within Montana. Have a look. It's interesting

Originally Posted by xim

..but they know everything about taxes and can automate all the stuff

We maybe wrong of course, but we have yet to meet anybody or any company that "...know everything about taxes..." Many think they do (!) we agree but that's not the same! Any UK Business that's already had an in-person "...VAT Visit" and worked thorough prepared records will understand this pretty clearly

Originally Posted by xim

X-Cart 5 allows setting up different tax classes. So, if the cart has products with different tax classes, there is no one rate for the cart. There are several rates. That's why we just do not show the rate at all. You are the first merchant who asks us about it. It is still about simplified and full invoices - https://www.gov.uk/vat-record-keeping/vat-invoices?

Within the link that you have provided, you'll see exactly what we mean. Specifically these items: Price per item, excluding VAT and Rate of VAT charged per item - if an item is exempt or zero-rated make clear no VAT on these items and If items are charged at different VAT rates, then show this for each This is very cleary explained. The XC5 module (or rather it's default invoice output to be fair) does not comply - that's also very clear to see. Other end users have already pointed this out within this forum, so we're not alone in seeing this, although yes, we maybe the first to raise this within a specified message. To build on point 3) that we originally posted; we said that a simplified version was already present way back in X-Cart 4 (4.1.9 in our case). Again this was not compliant with UK VAT (HMRC) regulations, but it was 6 years ago, it was a little closer to compliance and it worked(-ish) better than this XC5 module. See this screen grab from an invoice way back in 2010 when UK VAT was still at 17.5% You can see the 17.5% VAT rate is shown where it is applicable to goods, but it's NOT shown where there is NO VAT applicable (in this case, these items were motorcycle sports performance magazines, which were zero rated for VAT). So two different rates are used and both rates are shown, but there was (and still is now in XC5) no Price per item, excluding VAT Hence in our opinion, this module is actually less efficient and usable than 6 years ago and for all the reasons we originally posted plus the kind but non-problem solving response above. The three following pics are: 1) 2010 XC4 (4.1.9) ScreenGrab: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50440624/Z-Forum/2010%20XC4%20Invoice%20ScreenGrab.png 2) 2016 XC5 (5.2.15) ScreenGrab: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50440624/Z-Forum/2016%20XC5%20Invoice%20ScreenGrab.png plus out of interest 3) One of our customers bought two iPhone SE's online recently. They kindly allow us to grab a screen grab of their Apple invoice FWIW: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/50440624/Z-Forum/2016%20Apple%20Invoice%20ScreenGrab.png this has no shipping charges (it was free shipping) but it's still easy to see that this is NOT rocket science, so to get this right isn't that challenging. All the information needed for the UK VAT XC5 module already exists within SQL. It's simply the output format / presentation that needs to be corrected and re-worked and it's not a re-invention of the wheel

Originally Posted by xim

We have two integrations with online services to validate VAT ID. You just need to enable VAT ID field under customer profile

We think there maybe a misunderstanding here? We already know all this and have pointed this out very clearly in our original message, plus... what our perceived bad points are about this approach and then asked... WHY? That's the big question that's not been answered....yet

Originally Posted by xim

About TAX exempt module. It costs only $99. We paid more for lunch for two people in the US

If the lunch reference is genuine and not a light hearted joke then perhaps it's X-Cart themselves that need to contact US based Avalara for tax and expenditure advice, not non-US end users! We've managed to visit 34 out of the 50 USA States and that's not something we needed to do anywhere. It sounds more like poor advance planning or a specific location only having a limited choice / availability to us

Originally Posted by xim

But with this addon you get more features to manage your taxes and exemptions. I am sure; it is an excellent investment.

No. In our opinion it's far from that. The last item in our original message (sorry it's so long) gives all the reasons why and in specific detail too. Now that XC5 development has already switched onto XC5.3.*.* let's forget any XC5.2.* upgrades as clearly they are not going to happen. There's no real, credible excuse or reason why this cannot be done in XC5.3.*.*, (that we can see anyway) bearing in mind that it was CORE inclusive in XC4 and a lot closer to being correct than the current XC5 version is and even with additional, purchased add-ons will ever be.

We are happy to help XC5 make this happen via beta testing etc, but we won't be working on XC5.3.*.* for a little while yet, as we still need to solve our final live store upgrade from 5.2.13 to 5.2.15 because that (again!) has upgrade issues for us. We'll do this first, via Tickets next week.