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> Does Kill Bill support taxes? > Kill Bill does not support taxes. Instead, we partner with Avalara to outsource tax compliance. Our AvaTax connector provides

> Does Kill Bill support taxes? > Kill Bill does not support taxes. Instead, we partner with Avalara to outsource tax compliance. Our AvaTax connector provides real-time and on-demand calculationsto prevent overcharging or undercharging tax. I expected as much. Handling taxes internationally is a major PITA and it changes all the time as politicians get new ideas how to make things even more complicated. I'm pretty sure that many SaaS companies are unknowingly not compliant with all the rules.

lazide 4y ago
Or as often, knowingly not compliant with the unknown, and unknowable (at their scale) rules
theturtletalks 4y ago
So you’re saying we need an open-source Avalara alternative. Countries could even send PRs to change tax rates on the fly.
- saddist0 4y ago
  It is much more than paying taxes. There is no standard API to pay taxes even if you can calculate the amount. A lot of countries require weird registrations on weird portals upon crossing different thresholds. A lot of countries have different financial year cycle. And.. this is just the tip of the iceburg.
- faeriechangling 4y ago
  No open source community has been able to convince enough programmers and tax lawyers to do such a supermassive amount of tedious and boring work for free. This is also an area where being 99.9% correct isn’t good enough and you’re working with thousands of insane clients who constantly change their APIs and specifications. You practically need to have a government or private business develop such a thing.
  - zouhair 4y ago
    > You practically need to have a government...develop such a thing. You just gave the answer. Gov tax agencies need to provide an API that devs can use.
    - eftychis 4y ago
      I mean you have issues with convincing the U.S. government to provide pre-filled easy-taxes for W-2(+401k contribution) employees. I would say that you would find even more pressure in other countries.
      - deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      - makeitdouble 4y ago
        Many countries have mildly successful open data initiatives, and they probably want taxes to be paid. The US lobbying situation is I think more of an outlier.
    - bigiain 4y ago
      Even if the pipe dream of getting all global governments to provide an API to determine taxes appropriately, there's almost certainly still a business niche aggregating and normalising all those APIs that Open Source probably won't scratch well enough to be able to rely on for tax compliance purposes. Just in the US there are more than 50 "gov tax agencies" (state and federal) that won't (without a very strong federal mandate) all use the same API. Now multiply that over all 200+ countries in the world, and try an imagine any open source dev (or team) writing and maintaining something that stays on top of all the individual "gov tax agencies" you might need to comply with? Hell, even if an open source project _did_ successfully create and set up a community to maintain that, I bet you could make a profitable business on top of it just by insuring/indemnifying enterprise customers who use your version of it as a SaaS offering. (Something Amazon could easily do...)
    - mekaman 4y ago
      At least the Finnish Tax Administration provides an API: https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/it_developer/tax-administration-interface-services/vero-api/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/it_developer/tax-administrat...
- jwr 4y ago
  > So you’re saying we need an open-source Avalara alternative The problem is not that Avalara costs money. The real issue is that most companies that claim to "deal with tax compliance issues" actually don't. I tried using some in the past, and none worked correctly for my region (EU/Poland). The second problem is that you can't really "outsource tax compliance", because there is no clear cutoff line that you can point to. Taking my region as an example, I need invoicing with not just correct rates, but also compliant SAF-T export (JPK Faktura) and soon an interface to the electronic invoicing system that is being built by the government (KSeF), and an export to some of the formats used by accounting companies. And compliant invoicing here (especially on VAT issues) is no joke. You really need this to be perfect. I run a B2B SaaS and I wish I could outsource all of my subscription billing and invoicing. It's causing me tons of pain. But I haven't found a way to do that. On a side note, I don't even consider doing B2C sales, because VAT compliance on those in the EU is such a nightmare.
  - frankjr 4y ago
    Have you looked into a reseller (Paddle being the most well known)? It wouldn't cut your tax fillings entirely but you would be dealing with a single entity, not every business individually.
    - jwr 4y ago
      Yes. But that puts an intermediary between me and my customers, which has many drawbacks. It's "Paddle" they will see on their invoices, not me, and it's "Paddle" that has a billing relationship, not my business.
      - frankjr 4y ago
        That's true but the question is whether it actually matters that much. I bought my iPhone from a third party seller and I still know I have a product from Apple. It's the same thing with these reseller invoices - your SaaS will be listed as the item you're buying. In case of Paddle, you can even put your logo on the invoice. Your company name will also be included in card charge statements. So it's not that bad but I understand where you're coming from.

lazide 4y ago

Or as often, knowingly not compliant with the unknown, and unknowable (at their scale) rules

theturtletalks 4y ago

So you’re saying we need an open-source Avalara alternative. Countries could even send PRs to change tax rates on the fly.

saddist0 4y ago
It is much more than paying taxes. There is no standard API to pay taxes even if you can calculate the amount. A lot of countries require weird registrations on weird portals upon crossing different thresholds. A lot of countries have different financial year cycle. And.. this is just the tip of the iceburg.
faeriechangling 4y ago
No open source community has been able to convince enough programmers and tax lawyers to do such a supermassive amount of tedious and boring work for free. This is also an area where being 99.9% correct isn’t good enough and you’re working with thousands of insane clients who constantly change their APIs and specifications. You practically need to have a government or private business develop such a thing.
- zouhair 4y ago
  > You practically need to have a government...develop such a thing. You just gave the answer. Gov tax agencies need to provide an API that devs can use.
  - eftychis 4y ago
    I mean you have issues with convincing the U.S. government to provide pre-filled easy-taxes for W-2(+401k contribution) employees. I would say that you would find even more pressure in other countries.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - makeitdouble 4y ago
      Many countries have mildly successful open data initiatives, and they probably want taxes to be paid. The US lobbying situation is I think more of an outlier.
  - bigiain 4y ago
    Even if the pipe dream of getting all global governments to provide an API to determine taxes appropriately, there's almost certainly still a business niche aggregating and normalising all those APIs that Open Source probably won't scratch well enough to be able to rely on for tax compliance purposes. Just in the US there are more than 50 "gov tax agencies" (state and federal) that won't (without a very strong federal mandate) all use the same API. Now multiply that over all 200+ countries in the world, and try an imagine any open source dev (or team) writing and maintaining something that stays on top of all the individual "gov tax agencies" you might need to comply with? Hell, even if an open source project _did_ successfully create and set up a community to maintain that, I bet you could make a profitable business on top of it just by insuring/indemnifying enterprise customers who use your version of it as a SaaS offering. (Something Amazon could easily do...)
  - mekaman 4y ago
    At least the Finnish Tax Administration provides an API: https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/it_developer/tax-administration-interface-services/vero-api/ https://www.vero.fi/en/About-us/it_developer/tax-administrat...
jwr 4y ago
> So you’re saying we need an open-source Avalara alternative The problem is not that Avalara costs money. The real issue is that most companies that claim to "deal with tax compliance issues" actually don't. I tried using some in the past, and none worked correctly for my region (EU/Poland). The second problem is that you can't really "outsource tax compliance", because there is no clear cutoff line that you can point to. Taking my region as an example, I need invoicing with not just correct rates, but also compliant SAF-T export (JPK Faktura) and soon an interface to the electronic invoicing system that is being built by the government (KSeF), and an export to some of the formats used by accounting companies. And compliant invoicing here (especially on VAT issues) is no joke. You really need this to be perfect. I run a B2B SaaS and I wish I could outsource all of my subscription billing and invoicing. It's causing me tons of pain. But I haven't found a way to do that. On a side note, I don't even consider doing B2C sales, because VAT compliance on those in the EU is such a nightmare.
- frankjr 4y ago
  Have you looked into a reseller (Paddle being the most well known)? It wouldn't cut your tax fillings entirely but you would be dealing with a single entity, not every business individually.
  - jwr 4y ago
    Yes. But that puts an intermediary between me and my customers, which has many drawbacks. It's "Paddle" they will see on their invoices, not me, and it's "Paddle" that has a billing relationship, not my business.
    - frankjr 4y ago
      That's true but the question is whether it actually matters that much. I bought my iPhone from a third party seller and I still know I have a product from Apple. It's the same thing with these reseller invoices - your SaaS will be listed as the item you're buying. In case of Paddle, you can even put your logo on the invoice. Your company name will also be included in card charge statements. So it's not that bad but I understand where you're coming from.