Hi Jason, I'd like to pick up on this. Background first: I am revisiting s2 as part of an evaluation for a project I'm embarking on (which may be the precursor of several other similar projects). It's targeted at customers in the UK (where I am based) and therefore I am butting my head against the dreaded EU-style sales tax that rejoices in the name of VAT ("Value Added Tax")
. Importantly, some of the similar future products may cross international boundaries, so I must be aware that some of these transactions will attract VAT and others won't.
So basically, I have 2 questions ...
1. What the customer sees when checking out.I have been trying out s2member Basic in the PayPal sandbox for my first (largely UK only) project and it works nicely, picking up my tax settings from PayPal.
But there's one thing I don't like about it: when you first get taken to PayPal, the left-hand side bar just shows you the "net" price i.e. exclusive of VAT. This makes perfect sense because without yet having any info from the purchaser as to their location, PayPal can't decide if tax should be added per my account's tax set up. Once they login or choose a location, it does add the tax if needed. All good.
The convention in the UK is to quote prices that include VAT. So although it does get added in once the purchase really gets in to full swing, I'd really prefer to have it included upfront, so that people are not seeing a price that starts out at £X, seems to drop to £Y, then goes back to £X (!) as they go through the checkout.
I conclude from what I have read in this thread that PayPalPro would allow that right ? In fact, if I have this right, it would absolutely require the vendor site to decide for itself, yes ?
And so this follows on to my next question, especially for the possible later international sales ...
2. S2member Pro & the application of sales tax/VAT.Back to a remark from bwold's query ...
bwold wrote:Hi all,
My client will be selling training videos online, using Specific Page access restrictions. Everything's working great, but PayPal is adding sales tax (they also sell the videos in DVD format, so the sales tax is appropriate there).
I may be wrong as to what bwold is saying, but it may be worth me trying to guess as it may help re my question below - you may know this anyway so please excuse me if I this is not news ...
DISCLAIMER: anybody else reading this thread, what follows is just my understanding - DON'T rely on my understanding for yourself, ask an expert !
From my dealings with the UK tax adminstrators, my understanding is that whether an online sale attracts VAT is dependent on at least these two things:
(a) The location of the buyer (and sometimes whether it's a "B2B" or "B2C" sale), and
(b) The type of product being sold.
So I think that the distinction being drawn by bwold is that some products his customer sells do attract VAT & others don't. For example, in the UK (AIUI) books and printed training materials do not generally attract VAT, but DVDs generally do ! So EU vendors may be selling more than one product from a site that shares a PayPal account with another (or even the same) site and because that PP a/c is configured to charge VAT, it gets put on everything - which may not be right. Hence the interest in a shortcode parameter which would allow some control over the correct application of the tax ...
So when you say ...
Jason Caldwell wrote:With s2Member Pro Forms,
s2Member Pro allows you to configure taxes inside your WordPress Dashboard for
all transaction types. With Standard PayPal "Buy Now" Buttons, taxes need to be configured inside your PayPal account instead.
(My emphasis)
... can I ask, with S2MemberPro ...
(a) Can we therefore set one product to be billed with tax, and one without if that's what's needed ?
(b) In terms of the location of the buyer, is there a way for us to determine this and to set it accordingly ? For example, is "country" on the checkout form and if so, is there a way of determining if it's in the EU (which may mean the sale would attract VAT) ?
I hope that all makes sense !
R.
