Hi Robert, First of all, please read/check following pages on the subject: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VAT_identification_number#European_Union_VAT_identification_numbers http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies/
The latter one provides the official EU statements on the subject and a page to verify IDs. According to that site they also provide a service to check IDs through SOAP. Re: tax authorities. Yes, I would suggest to create a tax authority for each country. I have done so. The reason for this was that each country has its own methodology to define the ID and thus each tax authority can have its own regex for ID validation. The fields you mentioned are on the tax authority page in accounting menu. See: https://demo-trunk.ofbiz.apache.org/accounting/control/EditTaxAuthority?taxAuthPartyId=USA_IRS&taxAuthGeoId=USA That is the first step. Both would be required to facilitate tax calculation and exemption. Secondly under the parties tab of the tax authority you can have the list of the customers See https://demo-trunk.ofbiz.apache.org/accounting/control/ListTaxAuthorityParties?taxAuthPartyId=USA_IRS&taxAuthGeoId=USA Re: your point 1. Remember: the burden of VAT ID validation is on your organisation and your organisation may be held liable when selling goods without VAT when you should have. So be careful with automatically assuming that VAT ID provided (by the customer) is correct. Also, VAT is (or at least should be) part of the total order amount. The total order amount stated the obligation of the customer to fulfil (pay) to come to a successful conclusion of the agreement between your organisation and your customer. Thus, when finalizing the order (in OFBiz) prepping it for payment through paypal (or any other payment mechanism), VAT (even if 0%) must be part of the total order amount. With pay more I guess you mean paypal transaction costs. If you mean total amount due, remember that customers can ask for tax return on foreign bought goods. Re: your point 2 It is basically a matter of timing. If and when the TAX ID is validated between the moments of ordering and delivery-invoicing you could process the order witn VAT exempted. If already invoiced, you get into another business process. Am I correct to assume that you are talking about resellers (or other businesses) as customers? If so, I would register (and provide process and functionality to validate) VAT ID when establishing the relationship. if VAT ID proves invalid, you just set the exempt flag on the party page of the tax authority to N. Basically the business rule is: if VAT ID is not empty and ExemptFlag is Y, then exempt VAT (charge 0%) If VAT ID is empty or ExemptFlag is N, then not exempt VAT (charge appropriate %) By the way, be sure that on all your invoices VAT IDs of both your organisation and your customer is stated. With kind regards, Pierre Smits
