Make Tax ID Field Optional

No it is not possible. because invoice wil not be valid without this information. You may simply switchs bill to address off at all. Just turn invoicing off in global Emerald configuration.

Hi, None of my subscribers are businesses and all are in the UK, therefore they do not have to enter a Tax ID, however I do need to issue them an invoice to show that they have paid their child's scout membership fee and for what period. However, the Tax ID field is a mandatory field and so am geeting paretnts ringing me that they cannot complete their payment due to this mandatory field.

Can you either make this field optional, or like in Akeeba Subscriptions it only aks for the Tax ID if they say they are a business by checing user type field (business/personal).

Thanks

Agree with chamberfc.

My personal experience with my own purchases on other sites etc. is similar. Often there is a checkbox/selectbox which asks for the "type of user". The conditional VAT-ID# field shows up accordingly.

IMHO, a site can have different types of users/clients. They should have a choice. Turning OFF the global option is not a good solution.

Another use case for subscriptions are local! clubs. In general, the site owner is not a "business", it is a "public association". Club members could be private persons or businesses! They don´t get or need a real invoice + VAT... but they need a proof of purchase / receipt! So, this would need the billing feature turned ON.

BTW, I have also a special case for my own situation! I am a freelancer/artist. I am not a classic business, although I have to write my own invoices plus VAT. But I do not have a VAT-ID#!!! Just a common tax number. For instance, if I purchase something online, I often have to select "private person/individiual" because I can't supply a valid VAT#. Actually this is wrong: I do not get an exposed VAT amount for my purchases... and I can't make a proper pre-tax deduction! How to deal with such a case!?

Working on it.

Sergey Working on it.

Cool! :)

While doing this thing I have a question. Why user cannot simply enter N/A into tax ID field if it is not required?

Sergey While doing this thing I have a question. Why user cannot simply enter N/A into tax ID field if it is not required?

Good point and question! I asked it to myself in many different situations.

My own experiences were always to enter a correct formatted and valid number. If it was not complient to my country number scheme... I had to leave it empty.

Or I was forced to select and change the previous "user type".

Most likely the user-type has an impact on the VAT display and calculation. I think I have seen different calcualtions and final price display in the past. Some purchases included the VAT in the total price, some seem to exclude it, and only add it "on top" if I provided my ID. Maybe that also depends on the website price display?! I think there is also a special handling inside EU countries, if vendor and customer are inside EU. Not sure what effect it has on the actual invoice display and exposed VAT.

IMHO, the VAT should be exposed and displayed in any case. No matter if the customer has a VAT-ID# or not. At the end, the customer is either able to use that information (deduction) or he is not.

(But I could be wrong... I am not sure about the price display rules for different countries. I mean, before purchase! This might be a problem, too. At least we would need a *hint on the plans page and prices)

This not about calculation. Calculation is done acording to tax rules. Depending on coutries etc..

The quesion is what if tax_id always required. But user can enter n/a into field?

Sergey The quesion is what if tax_id always required. But user can enter n/a into field?

I understood, but I think there are countries and laws where you have a dependency and relation between ALL displays. "Calculation" might not be the right term, I mean the overall display locations. And any factors that may have an impact on it.

(For sure, I don't have enough knowledge in this area! Just can speak about my own experiences on different sites.)

N/A

You mean an exact input of "n/a" ? Personally, I find it to complicated and it might need an additional description. I guess, people with no VAT-ID# will run into the "required" error message, before they know what to enter.

Any other options?

• Is your billing and invoice output different if I enter something or not?
• Is there a real validation per country?
• Could it be empty?
  (if empty set a default automatically i.e. n/a, [language constant])
• What about a conditional display, as mentioned earlier?
  (actually not my favorite for my personal profession/user type, but Seblod.com does it this way. Recently they asked for location/country and also for individual/company. Not final, because I have issues after that changes in my profile: Can't access older invoices incl. free/ 0-EUR stuff. Strange, going to ask support for clarification...)

pepperstreet What about a conditional display, as mentioned earlier?
(actually not my favorite for my personal profession/user type, but Seblod.com does it this way. Recently they asked for location/country and also for individual/company. Not final, because I have issues after that changes in my profile: Can't access older invoices incl. free/ 0-EUR stuff. Strange, going to ask support for clarification...)

BTW, here are screenshots of the Seblod profile -> edit Billing information

The Entity/user type selectbox is required. It shows/hides the VAT-ID# field. I could enter anything in there! But I don't know, if there is a different result on the invoices... (can't access them anymore)

Unfortunately, my expereince is that some people ae just not bright enough to enter "NA" inside they ring or email me syaing they cannot do it because they do not have a Tax Id, whilst others will enter NA or something similar.

Leson - never underestimate how inept or unthinking some users can be.

What if we simply insert N/A as default value of the field?

Although I already made tax_id optional.

Sergey What if we simply insert N/A as default value of the field?

Although I already made tax_id optional.

Still not sure if this is a final and legal solution.

BTW, I found the following Info box on another Joomla dev site... actually the short description I was looking for ;) and which I could not describe in my previous comment:

"Prices shown without VAT. For European customers, the EU requires to charge VAT to downloadable purchases by non-business consumers located in the EU. Business customers are able to waive VAT charges by providing a valid VAT ID at time of purchase."

Is this still valid? If yes, then we would display the price WITHOUT VAT on plans page. Then I ask the purchaser if he is a private person or business. If private/EU the bill has to include the price + VAT amount. If business the user might waive the VAT! (does it mean he still can see the VAT on the bill? But he does not have to pay it, right?)

Some special cases...

e.g. Germany

Prices have to include VAT. You have to show the end-price to (private) end-users. Then Emerald might have two ways to show plan prices:

• Dynamically (show different prices based on user's location)
• Fixed (Same price for every user. Invoice with dynamic subtraction of individual VAT amounts)

e.g. Italy

Recently I have read about a special rule for private customers from Italy. They have to enter their private TAX-ID. Obviously this is not the usual business VAT-ID# and it might have a total different number scheme. Final question: Should we really use the same tax# field and label for both user types?

Welcome to the Jungle ;)

Hi Sergey,

Before uploading the latest version of Emerald, can you tell me where is the new setting of tax id optional? If I update the version and if I dont change anything in the settings, would it cause any error on my site?

I have not yet updated Emerald on the site. So it is not yet there. I wanted to finish custom fields first. But this parameter will be in Emerald global parameters.

I'm about to purchase this - it looks like it has everything I need. Is this option enabled in the current version available for purchase?

quarterstaff I'm about to purchase this - it looks like it has everything I need. Is this option enabled in the current version available for purchase?

Ша you are asking for Tax ID optiona, then yes it is there.