VAT System in Germany

[brm]

Hello everyone,

 

My company is young, 1 year old, and our costumers are mostly from Germany, from this year i we need to

add tax on products, but there is a problem...

 

Ill give my best and try to explain:

 

Tax in Germany on products that we sell is 19%, but for some stupid reason that i don't understand, when u sell products and charge customer for shipping, then calculation is different (19/119*product price) if we do some calculation that is around ~16% tax and not 19% anymore.

 

Anyone got the similar problem ? and how can i solve this ?

 

Also for example, we offer free shipping @ orders above 100Eur, in that case tax calculation is normal 19%.

 

German VAT System is pretty much complicate and i still don't understand some things.

 

Best Regards

[vekia]

btw. why not to post it direct to german subforum here? im convinced that you will find there answers faster than here, in english section

 

btw. whole european union vat system is #@!@#!!

[brm]

I dont speak German very well, if you would be so kind to move forum to German section please, so we can give a try to find out solution.

 

Cheers

[vekia]

ok, i sent message to my friend which is mod on german forum, hope that you will find solution for this

[brm]

Hello, i was impatient yesterday so was open similar thread there, but its quieter than a nuns love nest there.

Anyone got an idea how i can replace 12% tax with (19/119*product price), something like:

 

$vat = 19/119 * [order-total];

 

 

 

[stottycabanas]

Tax in Germany on products that we sell is 19%, but for some stupid reason that i don't understand, when u sell products and charge customer for shipping, then calculation is different (19/119*product price) if we do some calculation that is around ~16% tax and not 19% anymore.

 

Standard rate VAT in Germany is always 19%, whether you charge for shipping or not. 

The 19/119 is just a calculation to enable you to work out the amount of VAT that is included in a VAT inclusive price.

E.g. if the price is 500 euros including VAT, then the amount of VAT charged (on the original price of 420.17) is 19/119 x 500 = 79.83 euros.

 

Anyone got an idea how i can replace 12% tax with (19/119*product price)

 

I'm not sure what relevance 12% tax has.

Cheers, Dave

[eleazar]

Hey, if you don't stop these mean metaphors you will never again get any help in the German forum, son. It was New Year yesterday - what did you expect? Most of our monks and nuns were obviously feeling sick from last night's party.

Anyway, I won't cut you slack as vekia asked me to see to this.

 

As it doesn't become quite clear what exactly you mean it's not easy to answer your questions. How about you first have a look to the following tutorial on managing taxes and tax rules in PrestaShop and we're going to talk later?

 

http://www.hostknox.com/tutorials/prestashop/taxes

[brm]

Hello, cheers for quick response,

 

 

 

 

Standard rate VAT in Germany is always 19%, whether you charge for shipping or not. 

The 19/119 is just a calculation to enable you to work out the amount of VAT that is included in a VAT inclusive price.

E.g. if the price is 500 euros including VAT, then the amount of VAT charged (on the original price of 420.17) is 19/119 x 500 = 79.83 euros.

 

Cheers, Dave

 

 

in this case 19/119 x 500 = 79.83 isn't 19%

 

19% of 500 is 95 or my math is wrong, and i don't understand why is used 19/119* (~15,96%) in Germany for 19%

 

I was check Ebay invoices yesterday, and they have invoice calculation on system 19/119*netto product price

 

So basicly 19% on prestashop is useless for German marketplace or ?

 

My shop is currently offline until i solve this problem, because i don't wanna have problems with Finanzamt, and every day cost me

 

 

I'm not sure what relevance 12% tax has.

Cheers, Dave

 

 

19%, sorry, i was think to somehow replace 19% with 19/119*product

[eleazar]

 

 

Standard rate VAT in Germany is always 19%, whether you charge for shipping or not. 

The 19/119 is just a calculation to enable you to work out the amount of VAT that is included in a VAT inclusive price.

E.g. if the price is 500 euros including VAT, then the amount of VAT charged (on the original price of 420.17) is 19/119 x 500 = 79.83 euros.

 

 

I'm not sure what relevance 12% tax has.

Cheers, Dave

 

 

Nope, Dave. You're wrong. We have 2 tax rates in Germany, 19% and 7% (the latter e.g. on books, but on many other things too). And to make it even more complicated the shipping tax depends on the tax rate of the main cost - e.g. if the amount of 7 % products is greater than 19 % products the shipping tax is 7% and not 19%. An issue that Prestashop doesn't manage yet.

 

You need the overrides of the free German customization GC German to avoid such problems. And btw to avoid wrong tax calculations too because of Prestashops rounding errors.

[brm]

You need the overrides of the free German customization GC German to avoid such problems. And btw to avoid wrong tax calculations too because of Prestashops rounding errors.

 

trying it now, hope that gonna work without some major problems, cheers alot for this :*

 

i have downloaded yesterday http://www.silbersaiten.de/prestashop/en/germanext-family/125-germanext-version-04.html

but didn't wanted to experiment too much, will try now GC German

[eleazar]

Our posts overlapped, brm.

 

The wrong tax and price calculation of Prestashop everytime you have a greater amount of single products is a crucial issue that the Prestashop team didn't solve yet. I spend a lot of time on correspondence with a member of the developers team to explain this - and it seems they are aware of it now. (Well I hope so )

 

As you need a German adaption anyway, you should have a look at GC German too, I was involved in testing GC German as a beta and I know computations with this addon work like a charm.

Edited January 2, 2014 by eleazar (see edit history)

[stottycabanas]

in this case 19/119 x 500 = 79.83 isn't 19%

 

19% of 500 is 95 or my math is wrong, and i don't understand why is used 19/119* (~15,96%) in Germany for 19%

 

I was check Ebay invoices yesterday, and they have invoice calculation on system 19/119*netto product price

Hi brm, I don't think you've quite understood what I'm saying: VAT is not calculated on the price that already includes VAT. Trying to calculate 19% of the 500 in my example is meaningless.

Could you post a copy of an eBay invoice charging VAT at 19/119 of the net (i.e. tax exclusive) price - it sounds intriguing.

Thanks, Dave

[stottycabanas]

Nope, Dave. You're wrong. We have 2 tax rates in Germany, 19% and 7% (the latter e.g. on books, but on many other things too). And to make it even more complicated the shipping tax depends on the tax rate of the main cost - e.g. if the amount of 7 % products is greater than 19 % products the shipping tax is 7% and not 19%. An issue that Prestashop doesn't manage yet.

 

You need the overrides of the free German customization GC German to avoid such problems. And btw to avoid wrong tax calculations too because of Prestashops rounding errors.

Thanks Eleazar, I'm well aware that, as in all EU countries, there is more than one VAT rate in Germany. Hence the very first word of my post was 'Standard' to clarify which rate I was referring to, perhaps you missed that. However, I wasn't aware of how the standard or reduced rate gets applied to the shipping costs, thanks for enlightening me on that one.

And you're right, as highlighted elsewhere, there are indeed a few blips in PS's tax calculations.

Cheers, Dave

[eleazar]

I'd like to propose a correction:

 

On various occasions I considered in the forum - like here - that in Germany the tax on the shipping costs would be related to the respective principal amount. In mainly 7% products the tax it would be 7% for the shipping costs and vice versa. Too easy, folks! This is just half the truth!

 

I should have known better, because it doesn't fall out of the blue sky that Germany has the most complicated tax ​​laws of the world! The above is the case if the order contains either just 7 % products or just 19 % products.

Mixed orders in Germany are more complicated. According to our tax laws the tax on shipping has to be calculated proportionally to the tax on products - which means if the ratio of products to 7% and 19% is e.g. 60:40, then the tax on shipping is to 60/100 of shipping 7% and the remaining 40/100 is 19%. In such a case, the packing and shipping costs have to be devided in proportion to the values ​​of products with a tax of 19% and those with a tax of 7%. Accordingly, this has an impact on the net amount of shipping. (ref: UStAE, § 14.5, #21)

 

Just for the record: As far as I know Prestashop cannot handle this case!

[sgazeri]

Hello - it's year end and I'm compiling my documents and noticing this issue as well.  According to my accountant, to accurately reflect the tax on shipping, it would have to reflect the weighted average tax rate of the order.  However, I notice that most German webshops don't do this, because you would have to split the pre-Tax (netto) amount of the shipping between the 19% and the 7%.  

Most webshops apply the greater of the two during an order, but Prestashop (1.6.1) is not able to do this out of the gate, unfortuantely.

 

There's a second requirement as well that is not handled well by prestashop and it is the general sales reporting.  Prestashop cannot show me out of the gate what my total netto (pre-Tax) for 7% and 19% are within a single order.  If anyone in Germany has been able to solve these issues, I would love to hear about how you have accomodated these issues.