Taxes and duties

Open Settings › Taxes and duties.

VAT registration

My business is registered for VAT is ticked for every store unless you untick it (the new store form asks it too, for a store in the EU). Ticked, your VAT number shows below it, from Company details; if you have not given one there, a link takes you there to add it.

Untick it if your business is not registered for VAT. A dialog says what changes and asks first. From then on new orders are charged no VAT: checkout, the order, its emails and the printed invoice show none, and the invoice says the seller is not registered for VAT. Your prices are what customers pay, whether you set them to include VAT or not. The rates and Selling across the EU are greyed and say why, and reverse charge and the VAT number field for businesses at checkout are off. Orders already placed keep the VAT they were charged. Tick it again (it asks too) to charge VAT on new orders.

Prices

How your prices treat tax:

• My prices include VAT: the price a shopper sees is what they pay. This is usual in the EU.
• Add VAT at checkout: VAT is added on top of your prices.

VAT rates

The rate of the country an order ships to applies to its products, its shipping and the cash on delivery fee (the fee is taxed as shipping is: inside it when your prices include VAT, added on top when they don’t).

For a store in the EU, all 27 EU countries are listed, each at its standard VAT rate from the European Commission’s list; the page says the day that list was last checked. Every EU country always has a rate, so no EU customer pays 0 % by accident. Change a country’s rate if you need another one: the row then shows the standard rate beside yours, and Use puts it back on the standard rate. A rate you set to 0 is kept, and the row says that orders there pay no VAT. A country you leave at its standard rate follows the list when Storeloom updates it.

Below them, under Other countries, are the rates you set for countries outside the EU. A country outside the EU without a rate is charged no tax. A store outside the EU has no EU list: a country there without a rate you set is charged no tax.

VAT is worked out line by line and rounded on each line, then added up, so an order’s VAT can differ by a cent from its total × the rate. The order, its emails, the customer’s order page and the printed invoice show the VAT by rate when an order has several (for example 20 % and 9 %), and the printed invoice gives each rate’s base and VAT as the lines add them up.

• To add a rate, choose the Country and the Rate (%), from 0 to 100 (a decimal comma works as a point: 9,5 is 9.5), then Add rate. Remove takes a country’s rate off the list; like every change here, it counts once you apply.
• For a store outside the EU that sells to EU countries without a rate, their standard EU VAT rates, from the European Commission’s list, are offered below the rates. Check them before you sell.

Apply in the bar at the top (it says Unsaved changes while something is not saved) applies the rates to new orders; orders already placed keep the taxes they were charged. If they cannot be applied, the reason shows at the top of the page and nothing changes.

States and provinces

States and provinces lists the United States and Canada, each with how many states or provinces you collect in, or Not set up. Manage opens the country’s page, where you say in which states or provinces you collect a tax of their own and at what rate, and, for the United States, see your sales into each state against where it expects you to register. Goods a state taxes differently, such as clothing or food, can have a rate of their own there under Reduced rates. See Taxes by state or province.

Reduced rates

Reduced rates gives a collection, or shipping, a rate of its own in a country, such as reduced VAT on books. Add reduced rate asks for what it applies to (Applies to), the Country and the Rate (%), and it counts at once, without the bar. For the United States and Canada it also asks for a State or province (The whole country at first): in one state, the rate takes the place of that state’s own tax there, such as clothing at 0 % in Pennsylvania, and counts only where you collect it. A product in several collections with their own rates pays the lowest. Remove asks first, then takes the rate away at once: new orders there pay the country’s own rate. Orders already placed keep the taxes they were charged.

Selling across the EU

Selling across the EU shows what you sold to consumers in other EU countries this year and last, against the €10,000 a year a business may sell before VAT is due in each customer’s country. It counts paid orders in euros, before VAT, without test orders and without businesses that paid no VAT under reverse charge. Change chooses how VAT is charged:

• Charge every EU customer my own country’s rate: for businesses under €10,000 a year in sales to other EU countries. Every EU order pays your country’s rate, and the rates page says so.
• Charge each customer’s own country’s rate: each EU order pays its country’s rate from the list above (yours where you changed it). Register for One Stop Shop with your tax office (or in each country you sell to) and declare it in one return. The One Stop Shop VAT number is optional; when you give it, it must be one of your own country.

Either way no EU order is charged 0 % unless you set 0 yourself. Stores that chose By the rates above before now charge each customer’s own country’s rate: the rates they set stay, and EU countries they had no rate for are charged the standard one.

Reduced rates still apply on top.

A store outside the EU has IOSS here instead: with an IOSS number (IM and ten digits), parcels to the EU worth up to €150 before shipping pay VAT at checkout in euros. Above that, or without the number, customers pay VAT when the parcel arrives.

You are responsible for charging the right VAT and for registering with your tax office. Storeloom does not register you.

VAT invoices

Issue VAT invoices when orders are paid gives each paid order a numbered invoice, and each refund a numbered credit note that names the invoice; a test order gets none. If you edit a paid order so it costs more, the customer’s payment of the difference gets a second invoice for just that amount, naming the first. A credit note never gives back more tax than the invoices charged, and a price you lower is on the invoice if the order was not paid yet. Numbers run without gaps; Change numbering opens a dialog for a prefix and the next number, for example when you move here from another system; the next number cannot go back over one already used. This needs your address and VAT number in Company details. If your business is not registered for VAT, it needs your address and company number instead: the invoice and the credit note name you by your company number, show no VAT and say the seller is not registered for VAT.

The printed invoice (an order’s Print › Invoice) lists the cash on delivery fee, shows the VAT as Including VAT under the total when your prices include it (or as VAT above the total when it is added), with each rate’s base and VAT, and gives the invoice’s number once one was issued.

What was issued never changes, even if you change the order, a price or your details later. Customers open theirs from their order page, and you open them from the order’s Payment card. They look like your Invoice document in Settings › Shipping and delivery. Orders paid before you switch this on get no invoice.

Invoices stay when a customer asks to be forgotten: tax law asks you to keep them.

Tax report

Analytics › Reports › Taxes collected shows the tax by country and rate for the dates you choose: the sales before tax and the tax of the orders placed in those dates, what refunds and lowered prices made in those dates gave back (whenever their orders were placed), and what is left to declare. So a month you have declared keeps its figures: a refund made later gives its tax back in the month of the refund. Download it as CSV. Ask your accountant to check it before you file from it.

Selling to businesses in other EU countries

Reverse charge, for businesses in another EU country with a valid VAT number, is switched on in Settings › Checkout. With prices that include VAT, the order keeps what the business paid: its products, shipping and fee without the VAT taken off, and the VAT removed is shown under the total.