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We’ve been looking at tech solutions for calculation / remittance. So far only found Avalara. I’d be surprised if PayPal, Stripe, and others won’t step into thi

by omfg 8y ago

We’ve been looking at tech solutions for calculation / remittance. So far only found Avalara. I’d be surprised if PayPal, Stripe, and others won’t step into this now that it’ll be fairly profitable.

ghaff 8y ago
Yeah, it seems like something the payment processors have to handle automagically in some manner. Otherwise, small online merchants are going to have no practical choice other than 1.) Selling through e.g. Amazon or 2.) Just ignoring the law.
jeffmould 8y ago
Stripe already recommends Avalara and a couple others: https://stripe.com/docs/orders/tax-integration https://stripe.com/docs/orders/tax-integration
- ghaff 8y ago
  That seems to only address calculating the tax however. Presumably the business is still expected to remit the tax collected to each tax jurisdiction as required plus whatever necessary paperwork.
  - jeffmould 8y ago
    Most of these services handle the filings and paperwork for you as well.
- jakejohnson 8y ago
  Keep in mind that Stripe only provides automated tax calculations for their Orders API (previously Relay) at this time. You'll have to use a sales tax API to handle calculations for subscriptions and one-off charges.
- Androider 8y ago
  It doesn't really work very well together at all unless you're using Stripe Orders for physical products. You can't make the Stripe checkout.js show taxes, and it's just a big pain to integrate the API. There's a big opportunity for Stripe here to make it really simple, I would be happy to pay extra to have them completely deal with it.
mgkimsal 8y ago
have been using taxjar.com with... ok results so far - they seem to only provide a sandbox/playground for 'pro' accounts ("call for pricing" - ugh).
- homero 8y ago
  Yeah I've never used a service that made me call or email and never will
- jakejohnson 8y ago
  You can sign up for a free trial with TaxJar right away without calling a sales rep, no CC required. Sandbox API environment is included for all plans, but marketed toward Plus plans. Once you log in, generate prod / sandbox keys from the account page.
  - mgkimsal 8y ago
    Nope. I've logged in. Registered. I'm a paying customer, using it in production, and there's no visible way to generate a sandbox key, except 'go to plus'. From their docs: https://developers.taxjar.com/api/reference/#sandbox-environment https://developers.taxjar.com/api/reference/#sandbox-environ... * Sandbox Environment TaxJar provides a sandbox environment for automated testing and development on all TaxJar Plus plans. After generating a sandbox API token, point your API client to the sandbox environment... There is no sandbox API available without 'plus'. Perhaps you had an earlier version and are grandfathered in?
rstupek 8y ago
We have used TaxCloud which handles paying each jurisdiction
tzs 8y ago
Besides Avalara, I'm aware of taxjar.com, taxify.co, taxamo.com. Avalara and Taxamo don't list prices on their sites as far as I managed to find. Googling turns up comments saying that Avalara is expensive. TaxJar and Taxify do list prices. For a small business (up to 1k transactions/month) is $17/month if you pay for a year up front ($19/month on month-to-month). A transaction is either giving them an order and having them figure the tax, or looking up a rate with their API. That will get you reports for each state, ready to file. If you want them to actually file for you, that costs more. If you have to file in all 45 states that have sales/use tax, with a monthly filing in each, it would come to $5000/year at TaxJar. Taxify is $47/month for up to 1k transactions, and it would be $14580 to have them handle filing under the same 45 state/monthly filing assumption.
- zzzmarcus 8y ago
  Avalara's pricing is here: https://www.avalara.com/trustfile/en/pricing.html https://www.avalara.com/trustfile/en/pricing.html
  - tzs 8y ago
    That looks like their tax filing product for ecommerce. The prices look pretty good, actually, at least compared to other others. A single filing seems to be about the same price as the others, but they have good discounts if you are filing in a lot of states which looks like Avalara might be a winner if you are dealing with many states. I don't see any pricing for their services for their services for determining how much tax you need to collect for a given transaction.
    - jakejohnson 8y ago
      Correct, that pricing is specific to TrustFile for reporting and filing. They have a separate product called AvaTax [1] for calculating sales tax. If you decide to speak with a sales rep for an all-inclusive package, be mindful of setup fees, cancellation fees, and annual contracts. [1] https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/avatax/avatax-pricing.html https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/ava...

by omfg 8y ago

ghaff 8y ago

Yeah, it seems like something the payment processors have to handle automagically in some manner. Otherwise, small online merchants are going to have no practical choice other than 1.) Selling through e.g. Amazon or 2.) Just ignoring the law.

jeffmould 8y ago

Stripe already recommends Avalara and a couple others: https://stripe.com/docs/orders/tax-integration https://stripe.com/docs/orders/tax-integration

ghaff 8y ago
That seems to only address calculating the tax however. Presumably the business is still expected to remit the tax collected to each tax jurisdiction as required plus whatever necessary paperwork.
- jeffmould 8y ago
  Most of these services handle the filings and paperwork for you as well.
jakejohnson 8y ago
Keep in mind that Stripe only provides automated tax calculations for their Orders API (previously Relay) at this time. You'll have to use a sales tax API to handle calculations for subscriptions and one-off charges.
Androider 8y ago
It doesn't really work very well together at all unless you're using Stripe Orders for physical products. You can't make the Stripe checkout.js show taxes, and it's just a big pain to integrate the API. There's a big opportunity for Stripe here to make it really simple, I would be happy to pay extra to have them completely deal with it.

mgkimsal 8y ago

have been using taxjar.com with... ok results so far - they seem to only provide a sandbox/playground for 'pro' accounts ("call for pricing" - ugh).

homero 8y ago
Yeah I've never used a service that made me call or email and never will
jakejohnson 8y ago
You can sign up for a free trial with TaxJar right away without calling a sales rep, no CC required. Sandbox API environment is included for all plans, but marketed toward Plus plans. Once you log in, generate prod / sandbox keys from the account page.
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  Nope. I've logged in. Registered. I'm a paying customer, using it in production, and there's no visible way to generate a sandbox key, except 'go to plus'. From their docs: https://developers.taxjar.com/api/reference/#sandbox-environment https://developers.taxjar.com/api/reference/#sandbox-environ... * Sandbox Environment TaxJar provides a sandbox environment for automated testing and development on all TaxJar Plus plans. After generating a sandbox API token, point your API client to the sandbox environment... There is no sandbox API available without 'plus'. Perhaps you had an earlier version and are grandfathered in?

rstupek 8y ago

We have used TaxCloud which handles paying each jurisdiction

tzs 8y ago

Besides Avalara, I'm aware of taxjar.com, taxify.co, taxamo.com. Avalara and Taxamo don't list prices on their sites as far as I managed to find. Googling turns up comments saying that Avalara is expensive. TaxJar and Taxify do list prices. For a small business (up to 1k transactions/month) is $17/month if you pay for a year up front ($19/month on month-to-month). A transaction is either giving them an order and having them figure the tax, or looking up a rate with their API. That will get you reports for each state, ready to file. If you want them to actually file for you, that costs more. If you have to file in all 45 states that have sales/use tax, with a monthly filing in each, it would come to $5000/year at TaxJar. Taxify is $47/month for up to 1k transactions, and it would be $14580 to have them handle filing under the same 45 state/monthly filing assumption.

zzzmarcus 8y ago
Avalara's pricing is here: https://www.avalara.com/trustfile/en/pricing.html https://www.avalara.com/trustfile/en/pricing.html
- tzs 8y ago
  That looks like their tax filing product for ecommerce. The prices look pretty good, actually, at least compared to other others. A single filing seems to be about the same price as the others, but they have good discounts if you are filing in a lot of states which looks like Avalara might be a winner if you are dealing with many states. I don't see any pricing for their services for their services for determining how much tax you need to collect for a given transaction.
  - jakejohnson 8y ago
    Correct, that pricing is specific to TrustFile for reporting and filing. They have a separate product called AvaTax [1] for calculating sales tax. If you decide to speak with a sales rep for an all-inclusive package, be mindful of setup fees, cancellation fees, and annual contracts. [1] https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/avatax/avatax-pricing.html https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/ava...