Tax rule - removing VAT

Hi Bela,

I just stumbled in on this module because I'm also in need to have the VAT not calculated to certain customers. This module sounds promising to me so i dived into the issues to see what going on, and to see how 'live' the module is. (BTW perhaps this question should be moved to the support request section of this module).

FYI: Since I'm new to this module I don't know all ins-and-out of it (yet). What I do know is that EU tax law also says that the supplier of the goods has to verify the given VAT number is valid and that the number belongs to the client who buys the goods. (more on this can be found on http://www.eurinsol.eu/node/11 ).

In order to have this verification build into my shop/order process I'm thinking of creating a sort of business-account where customers can apply for. They have to fill in their VAT and company data. After verification I can grant them a role of EU-business-account-holder. It would be a nice thing if a module and/or tax rule can look into this status and based on the outcome can set the proper tax.

Curious of how developments will work out ;-)

Best,
VinceW

PS: For use of development of this module, I can provide source documentation on EU tax laws. Let me know when their is a need for it.

-=[ Your Information Matters ]=-

Hi VinceW,

I think this module will soon do what you need, I'm also thinking about contributing the option of not charging VAT if the EU VAT number of the buyer is verified. I'm not a php programmer but will try to get help or do it myself (beware). Anyone else interested? This is something important for EU merchants, so I guess it will get more attention soon.

To summarize the feature requirements:
In case the VAT number of the buyer is verified, automatically remove the VAT amount added by the tax rule (hopefully only one tax rule applies in the EU, so no selection is necessary).

cheers,
Bela

Actually, is there really no module that helps to set up such a conditional action in Drupal? I'm quite new to drupal...

any knows how to accomplish this? this is really important for EU merchants...

In an attempt to improve this module I came up with some rules that apply to VAT registration number, its validation against the web service, showing or not the field, requiring or not a business name etc. In the following rules you need to understand a bit of boolean logic to understand:

&& means AND
|| means OR
! means NOT.

I used also some variables:
BC = Billing Country
SC = Store Country
BComp = Billing Company is present
ES = Billing country is Spain (special exception rules)
EU = EU tax region
VAT Nr = is VAT Nr is present.

The rules:

Show VAT NR. Field
(BC == ES && SC == ES ) || (BC == EU && Bcomp)
Require VAT Nr
BC == ES && SC == ES
Require Bcomp
BC != ES && BC == EU && VAT Nr
EU webservice Validate Nr
Bcomp && BC == EU && VAT Nr

Does that seem OK? Please correct my rules and add your own according to your situation. Please don't touch the ES rules, they apply to my situation.

Reading this again I think that this module should closely tie in with with conditional actions to test for not only countries, but also provinces. In Spain there are provinces where no VAT is applied (Ceuta, Melilla, Canary Islands). In fact the whole rule set should be build up there so that we remain flexible for other tax situations.

How can these 'rules' be implemented?!

I still have the problem, that the VAT-ID is REQUIRED (!) to complete the checkout. This is totally wrong, because the VAT-ID is optional. There are EU-customers with no VAT they still must have the right to complete the checkout.