Improvements For European Union In Cs-Cart 4.15.1

We expect CS-Cart and Multi-Vendor 4.15.1 to release this June. So we figured it would be a good idea to let you know in advance what we're working on, and what to expect. As we implement more EU-related features, I'll describe them in this topic and update the list with links to the posts.

Stay tuned - more info will appear in this topic in the coming hours, as I describe the functionality. Feel free to give feedback or let us know what else EU-related you need.

P.S. This topic is specifically about European Union and the requirements of businesses that operate in the EU or ship products to or from the EU. To keep it that way, I may have remove comments that aren't on topic or don't contribute to the discussion.

Price per unit

European Union regulations require that you show prices per unit for some products. For example, if you sell bottles of beer, you need to show not only the price of the bottle, but also the price per liter/milliliter. The regulations can get complicated. For example, one of our clients from the EU asked the ability to show not the price per milliliter, but per 250 ml. instead.

Aside from cookies (which I'll cover at a later date), this was one of the most requested features. That's why CS-Cart 4.15.1 will include the "Price per unit" add-on. It will work like this:

- The product editing page will get the "Price per unit" section.

- The price per unit will be calculated automatically. You just need to set the desired measurement unit (abbreviations like "ml", "g", or "kg" work best), and the number of units in the product. You can also specify the number of units for which to show the price, if you need that "per 250 ml" instead of "per ml".

- You can export and import the fields in the "Price per unit" section just like any other product fields.

- The price per unit will appear on the product list and on the product page.

I've attached a couple of screenshots to show you how it works.

price-per-unit-admin-panel.jpg

price-per-unit-product-list.jpg

Great news!

Could you elaborate more on the point no. 4?

  • Subtracting taxes from prices for tax-exempt customers, if price includes tax.

Does this means that you will also add distinction to legal entities and in the checkout there will be possibility to ask for Invoice and add VAT number and other information with automatic tax deduction? Can you show us the screenshots?

Hello, Jacek,

I planned to elaborate as we completed the development of each piece of functionality. Once something is developed, I can provide screenshots (like with "Price per unit"). But I can already provide some info on point 4.

Taxes in the EU are a very complex matter. That's why we're not addressing them in one go. The way I see it, there are the following things that could be done in regard to taxes:

1. There are two scenarios in CS-Cart:
- Price includes tax (we're told it's preferable in the EU), like: €36 (including taxes)
- Price doesn't include tax, like: €30 (€36 including taxes)
Each customer profile has a checkbox called "Tax exempt". When ticked, it is supposed to remove the tax. But previously, tax-exempt customers didn't get the price reduced from to €36 to €30, if the tax was included in the price.

This is what we're definitely changing for 4.15.1 (and working on it right now). We figured it was important to get it out of the way first, because it could prevent other improvements.

2. Another challenge is finding out which customers are tax-exempt. That depends on multiple factors:

- Whether or not the seller and the buyer are in the same country.

- Whether or not the buyer's country is in the EU.

- Whether or not the buyer is a legal entity (confirmed by VIES-verified VAT number).

For the moment, that requires a third-pary add-on, like this one. Our previous change to "Tax exempt" will help that add-on work better (because you'll be able to show prices with taxes included).

From what I've learned so far, it doesn't require a full-on distinction between physical and legal entities. Just a field for "VAT number" in profile/checkout (so that legal entities could provide their number and get the exemption), and its verification through VIES (so that ordinary customers couldn't cheat the system). If you need something more, then please let me know in this topic.

For the moment, this part hasn't reached development yet, so I can't promise that it'll be in 4.15.1. But it's one of the big things we're considering for 4.15.1 or some other future version, and we understand how it could be implemented.

3. Rate areas and standard tax rates set by default. This is a quick and easy thing for us to do, but it could help new customers. Right now, they'd have to create a rate area for each country and specify the tax rates all manually.

We can create a rate area for each EU country, and set the standard tax rates for VAT. It won't remove the need for CS-Cart users to consult with tax experts, but it'll help with store configuration.

4. OSS and IOSS integrations for easier payment of taxes, both for EU residents and importers. This one is the most complex, because it depends which country's OSS the seller has registered in. Right now, I don't see yet how CS-Cart could help here. So,this definitely won't be in 4.15.1. But I know that Royal Mail shipping service offered some solutions for those who sell to EU from outside the EU.

this is good news,

BE very interested to see ho wdevelopment of the IOSS etc are implemented too

When V5 ?

When V5?


Sorry, anything more than we already said before is still TBA. Can confirm that I just saw it yesterday and that we're making progress.

With that said, it would be more correct to call it not CS-Cart 5, but rather CS-Cart Laravel or something like that. It will start as an enterprise-level solution, not a replacement or upgrade for the current CS-Cart.

Also:

P.S. This topic is specifically about European Union and the requirements of businesses that operate in the EU or ship products to or from the EU. To keep it that way, I may have remove comments that aren't on topic or don't contribute to the discussion.


Please let's stay on topic. I'll be removing any off-topic comments below this one.

this is good news,

BE very interested to see ho wdevelopment of the IOSS etc are implemented too

For the moment, I can't promise anything on OSS/IOSS. Definitely not in 4.15.1, because we'd like to release it not later than June.

P.S. Hopefully, my reply above wasn't confusing. I meant that:

- point 1 and 3 will be done by 4.15.1;

- point 2 may be done in the foreseebale future;

- point 4 (OSS/IOSS) is a long shot.

For the moment, I can't promise anything on OSS/IOSS. Definitely not in 4.15.1, because we'd like to release it not later than June.

P.S. Hopefully, my reply above wasn't confusing. I meant that:

- point 1 and 3 will be done by 4.15.1;

- point 2 may be done in the foreseebale future;

- point 4 (OSS/IOSS) is a long shot.

Of course, it is clear no problem

will this have made any progress at all?

https://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/62601-eu-vat-one-stop-shop/?p=347027

https://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/64786-quantity-discounts-apply-across-variations/?fromsearch=1

It's great to see the VAT system being taken care off. We have noticed some glitches in this system which we reported several times, but never really got a hold off. Hopefully this is sorted with this upgrade too.

What would be a huge improvement for us if we can upload our prices excl vat, but show them including vat to the customer. We have several products with thin margins, so it is impossible to have the same sales price in an area with 15% vat and 25% vat. As we sell to consumers it is required by law to show the prices incl vat.

So what simtech development created for us:

- We upload prices excl vat

- based on the percentage in rate area the sales price is calculated

- we show the sales price to the customer including vat for his respective country

We have this custom developed, but to have this native would be much better. I would be more than happy if you can re-use this code to make it a native feature.

However OSS support isn't a thing at all for us honestly, I can't imagine anyone filing his taxes using the cs-cart data as end-data. To file our OSS taxes we just created a rate area per country and connected each rate area with our accounting software.

Regarding VIES verification:

This exemption is only valid if the shipping address it outside your own country. So even if the billing is a foreign country, but the shipping country is not, then VAT should be charged by default.

We got this custom developed as well by Simech Dev and I would be more than happy of our code became standard code in cs-cart if it improves development time.

It's great to see the VAT system being taken care off. We have noticed some glitches in this system which we reported several times, but never really got a hold off. Hopefully this is sorted with this upgrade too.

What would be a huge improvement for us if we can upload our prices excl vat, but show them including vat to the customer. We have several products with thin margins, so it is impossible to have the same sales price in an area with 15% vat and 25% vat. As we sell to consumers it is required by law to show the prices incl vat.

So what simtech development created for us:

- We upload prices excl vat

- based on the percentage in rate area the sales price is calculated

- we show the sales price to the customer including vat for his respective country

We have this custom developed, but to have this native would be much better. I would be more than happy if you can re-use this code to make it a native feature.

However OSS support isn't a thing at all for us honestly, I can't imagine anyone filing his taxes using the cs-cart data as end-data. To file our OSS taxes we just created a rate area per country and connected each rate area with our accounting software.

Regarding VIES verification:

This exemption is only valid if the shipping address it outside your own country. So even if the billing is a foreign country, but the shipping country is not, then VAT should be charged by default.

We got this custom developed as well by Simech Dev and I would be more than happy of our code became standard code in cs-cart if it improves development time.

The VAT that applies in the EU is that of the country of dispatch
In France the VAT is 20%, If an EU customer orders he pays 20% VAT unless he provides a valid VAT code
So if you display your prices including VAT, the VAT is that of your country
- we show the sales price to the customer including vat for his respective country
No
I am in France if I buy in Germany I pay German VAT
If the German buys in France he pays the French VAT
( Except VAT Code)
If I buy in the United Kingdom (Excluding EU) I buy excluding VAT and I pay import VAT French to customs

The VAT that applies in the EU is that of the country of dispatch
In France the VAT is 20%, If an EU customer orders he pays 20% VAT unless he provides a valid VAT code
So if you display your prices including VAT, the VAT is that of your country
- we show the sales price to the customer including vat for his respective country
No
I am in France if I buy in Germany I pay German VAT
If the German buys in France he pays the French VAT
( Except VAT Code)
If I buy in the United Kingdom (Excluding EU) I buy excluding VAT and I pay import VAT French to customs

Sorry but this is plain wrong. Have you even filed your OSS yet? I suspect you might be confused with the situation pre July 2021, where you were allowed to charge your local vat when exporting if you only exported small numbers (10k to 50k euro yearly for most countries, otherwise you were required to register for a local tax number in the respective destination country).

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-rules-rates/index_en.htm

VAT is charged and due in the EU country where the goods are consumed by the final consumer

  • GDPR: Ability to disable non-essential cookies and still browse the site.

Really glad to hear about this. We were planning on custom development for this, so this is great news! I would like to suggest something for this:

One of the requirements is

You must inform EU visitors of all cookies on your website and enable them to refuse or withdraw their consent as easily as they can give it

So we can't have those annoying click through menu's. However some websites solved this nicely by just making accept very attractive by giving a big button and refuse a plain text link. For example: https://www.coolblue.nl/en

This way the careless visitor goes for the accept option and people who really care can still refuse it with 1 click.

KYNIy6u.png

Gijoy is correct, since summer last year we have to pay country specific VAT in each country using the OSS system. What lulu says is incorrect.

Most EU stores would still like to see the same pricing though in each Euro country. So a product should cost for example 19.95 in Germany (incl. 19% vat) as well as France (incl 20% VAT). This is currently impossible in cs-cart and i'm really happy this will be fixed soon, but as gijoy explains this will not be perfect for every store - some will want different prices per country... there might even be some that want this setting to be different per location (for example, have the same price in Germany and France, but have a higher price in Hungary where the VAT is quite a bit higher but this is maybe something that makes things overcomplicated).

Concerning OSS, I don't know what cs-cart could do more then what ikoshkin has planned. The export of orders will be enough and should be easily imported into the accounting systems.

Firstly, thank you all for taking part in the discussion. I'll make sure to go through everything that's been discussed here.

----

Secondly

This is slightly off-topic, but the answer is "Yes". In 4.15.1, the Product Variations add-on will offer a setting that'll allow you to apply quantity discounts to all variations of the same product. With that setting, "green M T-shirt" and "blue L T-shirt" will count as a single variation for the purposes of quantity discounts.

The setting will affect both "variations as separate products" and "variations as a single product".

thanks :) appreciated

Gijoy is correct, since summer last year we have to pay country specific VAT in each country using the OSS system. What lulu says is incorrect.

Most EU stores would still like to see the same pricing though in each Euro country. So a product should cost for example 19.95 in Germany (incl. 19% vat) as well as France (incl 20% VAT). This is currently impossible in cs-cart and i'm really happy this will be fixed soon, but as gijoy explains this will not be perfect for every store - some will want different prices per country... there might even be some that want this setting to be different per location (for example, have the same price in Germany and France, but have a higher price in Hungary where the VAT is quite a bit higher but this is maybe something that makes things overcomplicated).

Concerning OSS, I don't know what cs-cart could do more then what ikoshkin has planned. The export of orders will be enough and should be easily imported into the accounting systems.

For this you can currently use multiple storefronts.

Sorry but this is plain wrong. Have you even filed your OSS yet? I suspect you might be confused with the situation pre July 2021, where you were allowed to charge your local vat when exporting if you only exported small numbers (10k to 50k euro yearly for most countries, otherwise you were required to register for a local tax number in the respective destination country).

https://europa.eu/youreurope/business/taxation/vat/vat-rules-rates/index_en.htm

I do very little export sales which may explain this
But lately I bought from a German site, they charge German VAT
I bought in the United Kingdom (outside the EU) and in this case the customs asked me for the French VAT
I have the impression that many sites are not according to the new rules
I'm part of it if I understand correctly
Lulu

I do very little export sales which may explain this
But lately I bought from a German site, they charge German VAT
I bought in the United Kingdom (outside the EU) and in this case the customs asked me for the French VAT
I have the impression that many sites are not according to the new rules
I'm part of it if I understand correctly
Lulu

My guess is you bought something from a very small site, if you export less than €10.000 per year within EU (all countries combined) you are exempted from these rules. Otherwise the German site should have charged French vat.

I promised to update the topic from time to time, and provide more info on what we're doing. And as it happens, I had to tell about [url=https://forum.cs-cart.com/topic/65754-what-are-cookies-used-by-cs-cart-multivendor-by-default/?view=findpost&p=348530]cookie consent in 4.15.1[/url] in a separate topic. You can still discuss it here though.