Not a small subject if you are talking Value Added Tax in the European Union.
There is no sensible way to store the current values of these other than a file/database. With an "application" to allow maintenance. There are/can be multiple VAT codes, with multiple VAT rates. They can change. All at once. Individually. Often at fairly short notice. Your national tax authority probably provide documentation aimed at the computerised processing of VAT. There will be specifics about how you must report to the customer, and how you must report to the tax authorities. There may be "rounding" rules. Remember, when a rate changes, you will have unpaid invoices/receipts for the previous rate (which applied up to the date of the new rate), and you will have historic data for various values for the various rates. There will be legal requirements for accurately recording this information for a statutory period of time. One thing is the capture/calculation of VAT, another is the accounting and payment to "the Revenue". This may involve electronic transmission of details of each transaction (current trend, perhaps) or based on agreements to streamline paper reporting. You may have a much simpler VAT regime, but it is only simplified by the number of codes (two in your case, VATable and non-VATable), you still have all the other stuff, I'm sure. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
