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> (I'm a billing engineering team leader with more than 25 years experience.) As a software engineer with >25 years of experience, now running my own SaaS busi

by jwr 4y ago

> (I'm a billing engineering team leader with more than 25 years experience.) As a software engineer with >25 years of experience, now running my own SaaS business and dealing with subscription billing, invoicing and tax issues: 1. I agree with everything you wrote. And more. Taxation introduces an entirely new level of complexity on top, and lawmakers design laws for humans, rarely thinking about automation. If you don't believe me, look into EU VAT rules, and enjoy the mess with GB/XI prefixes, the case of AX, and parts of ES that aren't really in the EU VAT zone, but look like they are. 2. The responses to your comment are typically dismissive and are to be expected from this forum. Usually the replies are from people who do not do the thing you do, but think that the thing you do is simple and have all kinds of opinions about it. I used to care more about replies, these days I just smile and move on.

doctor_eval 4y ago
1. Thanks! We were lucky that we dealt only with the (non-US) Asia/Pacific region, where all the tax regimes we encountered in the countries we operated were relatively simple, mostly straight percentages. But we did have to deal with tax system transitions in a couple of countries, and it was obvious to us that tax is one of those things that was quite arbitrary, could be changed overnight (which happened in Malaysia after an election), and needed to be factored out as its own domain. As I’ve been trying to argue, there are no “perfectly spherical cows” when it comes to billing… simplifying assumptions end up killing you slowly. 2. I think it’s often young people who haven’t encountered externally-imposed, non-negotiable complexity yet. I try to take it easy on them because I suspect I might have been like that once :)
wdb 4y ago
EU VAT aren’t too bad compared to the North American ones. But I grew up in the EU so it clicks more with me and dealt with foreign customers

by jwr 4y ago

doctor_eval 4y ago

1. Thanks! We were lucky that we dealt only with the (non-US) Asia/Pacific region, where all the tax regimes we encountered in the countries we operated were relatively simple, mostly straight percentages. But we did have to deal with tax system transitions in a couple of countries, and it was obvious to us that tax is one of those things that was quite arbitrary, could be changed overnight (which happened in Malaysia after an election), and needed to be factored out as its own domain. As I’ve been trying to argue, there are no “perfectly spherical cows” when it comes to billing… simplifying assumptions end up killing you slowly. 2. I think it’s often young people who haven’t encountered externally-imposed, non-negotiable complexity yet. I try to take it easy on them because I suspect I might have been like that once :)

wdb 4y ago

EU VAT aren’t too bad compared to the North American ones. But I grew up in the EU so it clicks more with me and dealt with foreign customers