Reflecting MDET

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At the beginning of 2013, a new federal-level excise tax was introduced for some medical devices. If you have clients that need to reflect this tax, make sure you’re doing the following:
1. Allow clients to pass a product tax code.
2. Allow clients to assign an Entity/Use Code (CustomerUsageType) to their customers.

The combination of product tax code and customer entity/use code allows your client to trigger specific rules in their company profile, and calculate this tax. If you’re using service version 13.1 or later, you can parse out this tax from your GetTaxResult as well – it will come across as a TaxDetail element with TaxType of Excise and JurisType of Country.

Updates to REST tax/get POST with 13.3. release

Some long-awaited additional parameters have been added to the tax/get POST request with the recent 13.3 release. These parameters are now available on both development and production for all clients using the REST API. With this update, the REST API is now in full best-practice parity with our SOAP API. For more information, see the tax/get POST documentation.

  • PosLaneCode
  • Client
  • BusinessIdentificationNo
  • TaxOverride

Global Certification

As we expand our global calculation capabilities, we’ve been talking about what’s required to create a truly compliant VAT calculation. Depending on your business requirements, you may want to think about global certification. We only have the G1 and G2 certification available right now, but we’ll be adding the tertiary address required for G3 certification soon!

Certified for AvaTax Global 1 (G1)

Global 1 certification includes functionality to calculate transaction tax (VAT) in the following use cases:

  1. Transaction originating in the United States shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
  2. Transaction originating in Canada shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
  3. Intra-country transaction for any country supported by AvaTax Calc service

Requirements:

  • GetTax request includes Country Code
  • GetTax request includes Currency Code

Certified for AvaTax Global 2 (G2)

Global 2 certification includes functionality to calculate transaction tax (VAT) in the following use cases:

  1. Transaction originating in an European Union (EU) country shipping to a non-EU country supported by the AvaTax Calc service
  2. Transaction originating in the United States shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
  3. Transaction originating in Canada shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
  4. Intra-country transaction for any country supported by AvaTax Calc service

Requirements:

  • GetTax request includes Business Identification Number (VAT registration ID)
  • GetTax request includes Country Code
  • GetTax request includes Currency Code

    Certified for AvaTax Global 3 (G3)

    Global 3 certification includes functionality to calculate transaction tax (VAT) in the following use cases:

    1. Transaction originating in an EU country shipping to an EU country
    2. Transaction originating in an EU country shipping to a non-EU country supported by the AvaTax Calc service
    3. Transaction originating in the United States shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
    4. Transaction originating in Canada shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
    5. Intra-country transaction for any country supported by AvaTax Calc service

    Requirements:

    • GetTax request includes Third Address records (supports triangulation)
    • GetTax request includes Business Identification Number (VAT registration ID)
    • GetTax request includes Country Code
    • GetTax request includes Currency Code

Avalara Developer Workshop

Avalara’s first Developer Workshop is being held at our headquarters here on Bainbridge Island. We are hosting this event on Wednesday, March 27th, to help you get started or complete your integration to AvaTax, provide product overviews, present a detailed review of our API, and offer hands-on assistance with your integration.

Bainbridge Island is a 35 minute ferry commute from downtown Seattle. From the airport, take a taxi to Coleman Dock in downtown Seattle and take the Bainbridge Island ferry. It runs every 40 minutes from Seattle; visit the online schedule for details and visit here for fare information.

Bainbridge Island Workshop Agenda

10 am – Introductions
10:15 am - Avalara Product Overview
11:15 am - Break
11:30 am - Introduction to Avalara’s APIs
12:30 pm - Lunch
1:30 pm - SOAP and REST API In-Depth Session
2:30 pm - Hands-On Development Workshop with Avalara Engineers
6:00 pm - Dinner in Seattle with The Avalara Team

Please join us for a fun and productive day.  Register here!

Ember.js event at Pier 55

Avalara has been using Ember.js for six months now so we were proud to host the inaugural Seattle Ember.js Meetup last Thursday. In a meeting that tested the capacity of our new space on the water at Pier 55 in downtown Seattle we were honored to host Yehuda Katz and Tom Dale from the core Ember.js team in a presentation that lasted two hours. In Avalara tradition we rolled out the margarita machine for the participants and the conversations with the presenters lasted well into the night.

Yehuda and Tom delivered a wealth of information about the upcoming functionality in Ember and Ember-data and we’ve uploaded the talks and Q&A sessions to YouTube for all to enjoy. Continue reading →

Developing With Sales Tax: Should I Tax It?

This is the second of three posts aimed at giving developers a basic understanding of the complexities of sales tax.

Developing With Sales Tax:

  1. What’s The Rate?
  2. Should I Tax It?
  3. I Taxed It: Now What?

Before you apply a sales tax rate, you need to know the status of the seller, the product and the buyer.

In the previous post, we learned why you want to use geolocation to get an accurate tax rate. But getting the right tax rate doesn’t help you if you don’t know whether or not the rate applies to the transaction. There are three steps to determining whether to apply sales tax, and logically enough, they deal with the three primary objects in a transaction.

  1. Does the seller have a requirement to collect? (nexus)
  2. Is the product eligible for tax? (taxability)
  3. Is the buyer eligible for tax? (exempt status)

Continue reading →

REST API Makes AvaTax Integration Easy

With any third party integration two things are absolutely essential – an easy and reliable API platform, and knowledgeable, responsive tech staff to help with the integration.  I’m glad to say, Avalara’s AvaTax REST system provides both! -Early integrator

AvaTax gives you fast and up-to-date sales tax calculation based on geo-location (which kicks ZIP code calculation’s ass). So you get the most accurate sales tax calculation possible anywhere in the 11,000+ North American tax jurisdictions.

Our REST API provides the power of Avalara’s calculation engine to your application. Three advantages of using our REST API, which supports both JSON and XML message formats:

  • Quick and flexible interface
  • Code easily with query strings
  • No need for internal server

Here is a get sample:

https://rest.avalara.net/1.0/tax/47.627935,-122.51702/get.jsonp?saleamount=1

Here is the return:

AvaTaxResponse(/* json result */)

(see more documentation)

Easy as that. Plus this integration also allows your business to leverage our powerful Certificate and Return management tools. But this is not just about our REST API integration. This is about you and what you need from our service. Any comments or questions? Leave them below.

 

Developing With Sales Tax: What’s the Rate?

This is the first of three posts aimed at giving developers a basic understanding of options for implementing a sales tax solution.

Developing With Sales Tax:

  1. What’s The Rate?
  2. Should I Tax It?
  3. I Taxed It: Now What?

If you’re building or installing an application to process U.S. transactions, odds are that you’ll need to account for a sales tax rate.

At the minimum you’ll need to identify a target tax location, and then look up a rate for that location. Looking up rates is fairly simple. The tricky part can be finding the location. Here are the five ways it’s done, along with the ramifications for each. Continue reading →