Troubles w. multiple VAT rates

[multigeo]

Hi All,
I hope someone can help me onto the right track...

I'm working on a webshop that sells worldwide.
Base is J2.5.28 + VM2.6.14 + Rupostel OPC 2.0.274
Site is based within EU (Netherlands)

Since most buyers are from outside EU all prices should be shown without tax by default.
Only during checkout after customer has logged in or registered the country is known and proper VAT should be applied.
When VAT does apply then most goods are charged by VAT HIGH rate and some by VAT LOW rate.
There are also a good many products that not charged for VAT.
I tried different approaches, but so far did not get it completely right.

All examples and solutions I have seen so far work ok perhaps for sites with only one tax rate.
The standard solution uses the "general tax rules" option , which has the effect of applying both high and low rates, which is no good obviously.

The most promising approach so far:
We have set up 3 TAX rules: "high VAT" and "low VAT" and "no VAT".
High+Low-VAT are tied to the 26 EU countries, no-VAT is for "All countries"

There are 2 shopper groups: "Default shopper (NO VAT)", "EU shopper (pays VAT)"

Each product has a price set to: no VAT rule + Defaut shopper.
Products that need VAT have a second price: high or low VAT rule + EU shopper.

This scenario works reasonably well for pre-registered shoppers.
However when a new buyer registers and enters country (and possibly EU VAT no) the shopper group does not change and the cart does not get updated.
I do see shipping info being updated thru AJAX when country is changed.

Maybe I have conflicting settings, or I complete misunderstand the internal logic and sequence of events.
Maybe my approach is complete wrong.
If anybody can point me in the right direction that is very much appreciated.

Is there a code snippet available to have OPC change shopper group (and refresh) on the fly ? That might help force it.

Cheers,
André

[admin]

hello andre, i can help with the set up, ideally after 2nd january.

there is 2 aspects of the VM tax issue:
- tax display
- tax calculation

DISPLAY:
within OPC if you'd like to show all products without tax, i'd suggest to use "basePrice" for all displays within OPC + product details page (you can set up tax display per shopper group as well within VM). OPC for simplicity shows only the one type of the price selected in it's config (i can help customize the visibility of the price if needed)

some themes (*_german) update whole cart's html on ajax which also refreshes the product's item+subtotal price. this is slow and if you are doing b2b it would be more appropriate to keep the product price the same (without tax) and calculate only the subtotal+tax+total (this is default in US, or in B2B in EU)

CALCULATION
there is no real calculation done in OPC itself, it only shows the results of the calculation generated by VM. (except some very few exceptions where a percentual coupon discount has to be separated between two tax rates - i can help customize this).

Now, the question is whether your tax calculation (tax line, OR multiple tax lines -> if dynamic tax lines enabled in OPC) is proper or not (this is a result of the caculations)
OR
if the totals + tax is correct but you need to change the type of the product's price display

Best Regards, Stan

[multigeo]

Hi Stan,
Many thanks for quick reply.
Things are not quite normal here yet this early into the new year, so I did not respond sooner because I did not know if I would be able to spend any time today on this site.

I will first go over your suggestions and comments vs. the site and double check.
Play through some scenario's, etc.
I will also set up a super-user account for you if you want. Can you provide an email address to send the login data?

I think that the display and calculation of taxes is ok now, except for one (display) spot where I did not find the proper price field yet.
My main concern right now is the switching between shopper groups (and corresponding updating of the cart dispay) during the check-out process.
Does not mean that everything is already set up correctly though

Will keep you posted later today.

Cheers,
André

[multigeo]

Hi Stan,
To further on previous response...

I double checked everything and apart from errors my side things look reasonably good.
Display of price info is correct in most places.
Where it's not, that is outside of OPC, so no bother for you.

The only thing not working right now is the switching/assigning shopper group during the registration and check-out.
Don't know where to look for this.
Both the standard registration as well as the OPC leave a new shopper in the default shopper group regardless of country, VATno entereed or what.

The site is running on a dedicated VPS which is not yet accessible from the outside in a normal fashion.
It also runs on my test server at my office, but that is behind a slow ADSL line. @ http://multigeo.xs4all.nl/schouten2/
I need to pass relevant info to you via private email so you can access the site on the VPS and log into the back-end.

I will be on the road on Monday afternoon and Tuesday+Wednesday all day.
So if you need direct contact or chat then Thursday or Friday would be good days (or evenings, whichever you prefer ).

Your assistence is greatly appreciated and if there are costs involved please let me know.

Cheers,
André

[admin]

hello andre, i think the best way to fix this one would be to contact me directly via the email or live chat and i can fix this on your site directly.

to display multiple tax rates, i'd suggest to use the dynamic lines (at opc's tax and prices tab) that should be configured this way:


it's very important that you check if the tax works also when opc is disabled so you can rule out misconfiguration of the calculation plugins.

best regards, stan