Avalara Developer Network

Reflecting MDET

Anya Stettler — Tue, 07 May 2013 21:07:49 +0000

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

Anya Stettler — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 23:45:40 +0000

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

SSL Certificate Update

Anya Stettler — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 00:44:19 +0000

Until recently, our development server was using a COMODO SSL certificate. We just updated to a Verisign one to match our production servers – documentation has also been updated to reflect the new certificate.

Global Certification

Anya Stettler — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 21:07:07 +0000

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:

Transaction originating in the United States shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
Transaction originating in Canada shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
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:

Transaction originating in an European Union (EU) country shipping to a non-EU country supported by the AvaTax Calc service
Transaction originating in the United States shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
Transaction originating in Canada shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
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:

Transaction originating in an EU country shipping to an EU country
Transaction originating in an EU country shipping to a non-EU country supported by the AvaTax Calc service
Transaction originating in the United States shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
Transaction originating in Canada shipping to any country currently supported by AvaTax Calc service
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

Loke Uei Tan — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 22:51:18 +0000

Avalara’s first Developer Workshop is being held at our headquarters here on Bainbridge Island. We are hosting this event on Wednesday, March 27^th, 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

Ben Macfarlane — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 23:32:44 +0000

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.

We hope to host more events like this in our new space. In the meantime, if you’re an Ember developer that wants to deliver some big products that will be used by a lot of people, let us know.

Demo of AvaTax API

avalara — Mon, 16 Jul 2012 19:56:56 +0000

Anya Stettler, Avalara API Support Specialist

Watch API support specialist Anya Stettler show how to use our REST API to make a successful tax call to the Avalara service.

Developing With Sales Tax: Should I Tax It?

Steven Dunston — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 22:15:15 +0000

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

Developing With Sales Tax:

What’s The Rate?
Should I Tax It?
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.

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

The Seller (Nexus)

Typically, a seller has a requirement to collect sales tax if they have a physical presence in the state where the product will be delivered or used. This can include obvious presence such as offices or retail locations, and less obvious presences such as affiliate programs or data centers.

The Product (Taxability)

There are more than 100,000 taxability rules in the US, and they inevitably lead to designations that can get a bit silly — whether a bagel is toasted (taxable), whether lavender buds are for sachets (taxable) or muffins (not taxable), and the list goes on.

Product taxability can also be affected by enterprise zones and tax holidays. Enterprise zones are set up to encourage certain kinds of shopping in certain places, while tax holidays encourage shopping on certain dates.

The Buyer (Exempt Status)

Sales tax is a consumption tax charged to the end consumer, which means that resellers are typically exempt from paying sales tax. Charities and other non-profits are also typically exempt from paying sales tax on purchases.

A buyer with an exemption must have an exemption certificate from the state of record, and your tax system will need to record their status if you want to avoid some uncomfortable questions from your friendly state auditor.

The Calculation

If any of the three components of a transaction are ineligible, then the tax rate is zero:

The seller must be required to collect in that state
The product must be taxable in that jurisdiction
The buyer must not have exempt status

Only then should sales tax be charged.

The good news is that Avatax can automate all of this for you. And our APIs make it easy to add sales tax automation to your application.

REST API Makes AvaTax Integration Easy

will.frei — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 16:49:54 +0000

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.

Learn about our SOAP framework.

Developing With Sales Tax: What’s the Rate?

Steven Dunston — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:50:32 +0000

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:

What’s The Rate?
Should I Tax It?
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.

1. Five digit ZIP Code

What’s Good About It

Most businesses are probably calculating sales tax rates by ZIP Code. A five-digit ZIP Code is the simplest part of an address to use for a calculation. If you have a customer address, you have (or can look up) a five digit ZIP Code. There are about 42,000 ZIP Codes in the US, and most locations have a ZIP Code.

Five-digit ZIP Code tax tables are readily available. You can download them from individual state department of revenue websites, or buy them from various providers. You can even find free tax tables! The simplest way to add sales tax rates to an application is to use a lookup table such as this.

What’s Not Good Enough

ZIP Codes don’t align neatly with tax jurisdictions. Why? Because that’s not what they are for. ZIP Codes are created by the Federal Government to deliver mail. Sales tax is levied by local and regional governments, and so there is no necessary correlation between boundaries of ZIP Codes and boundaries of tax jurisdictions. A ZIP Code doesn’t help you to find city or county or other boundaries, making it difficult to decipher the layers of tax from counties, cities and other entities.

ZIP Code tables are inaccurate, and tend to show the highest possible rate for that ZIP Code. That can lead to a competitive disadvantage because you may be overcharging your customers by 3% or more.

2. ZIP+4

In 1983, the U.S. Postal Service introduced extended ZIP Codes with an extra four digits.

What’s Good About It

Some ZIP+4 (or nine-digit) ZIP Codes represent single buildings, PO Boxes or mailing entities, which is of limited use for sales tax calculation. But others can narrow down to individual city blocks or neighborhoods, which can be more accurate for sales tax calculation than a five-digit zip.

What’s Not Good Enough

A nine-digit zip brings complexity and cost without bringing clarity. The data costs more than the five-digit version. You may not have the +4 part of the ZIP Code for much of your contact database, which means you will need to do manual address verification.

While nine-digit ZIP Codes are more complex and costly, and require you to have better address data, you still won’t have city, county and other taxing authority information.

3. ZIP Plus County, City (ZIP CC)

What’s Good About It
This is ZIP Code plus information about city and county boundaries, which can help create a more accurate rate match. Tax rates are more likely to align with city or county boundaries than with ZIP Codes.

What’s Not Good Enough
In order to take advantage of the greater accuracy, ZIP CC files may require a human to select a location from a picklist. This can complicate your user interface and make ordering or invoicing less efficient. It may not always be obvious at first glance which rate is correct, requiring further research or guessing.

Even with county and city information and human intervention, you will still be missing tax zones representing metro, stadium, tourism and other sales taxes.

4. Street Address Table

This solution divides the map into block-level sections by street address ranges.

What’s Good About It
Unlike other table-based solutions, Street Address Tables can be fairly accurate, at least for destinations where you have a known street address.

What’s Not Good Enough
These tables are huge, consisting of millions of records, which dramatically increases the cost. And they are out of date even before they are published.

Street Addresses don’t help you in situations where you don’t have an address. Digital goods or deliveries to off-the-grid locations like construction sites, rural cell towers, and ranches are a few examples.

5. Geolocation

Now we’re talking. This method takes latitude/longitude and places it precisely within the geometry of a particular tax zone.

What’s Good About It
Geolocation creates unparalleled accuracy without requiring a database of millions of addresses. You don’t even need an address: A lat/long and a quick web service call will suffice to produce an accurate tax rate.

What’s Not Good Enough
Geolocation can get you the perfect rate, but it can’t tell you whether or not you should apply the rate to a given transaction. For that, stay tuned for Developing With Sales Tax: Should I Tax It?, where we discuss nexus (seller’s status), taxability (product’s status) and exemptions (buyer’s status).