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Ask HN: How do you handle VAT / Sales Tax accounting as B2C SaaS?

97 points throw_1VJ51pMb | 1 comments | 08 Mar 25 08:57 UTC | HN request time: 0.31s | source

Hey! I run a B2C SaaS and I use Stripe for all of my sales (subscriptions).

I am looking to learn how others handle their VAT / Sales Tax filing.

I know that the standard answer would be to use Paddle / LemonSqueezy / Polar.sh, but I already have a lot of subscribers on Stripe which makes quick migration non-trivial.

I am especially looking for some reliable accounting companies / accountants that can register and file Sales Tax across US, UK, Canada, Australia, etc. (It does not have to be a global solution).

It's my understanding that solutions like Stripe Tax, Alavara, Quaderno, etc. only help collect the necessary data (which I consider the easier part, at least for digital goods), but do not handle the registration & filing (though I've learned that Quaderno will support filing Sales Tax in the US on your behalf soon).

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Some jurisdictions are relatively easy to handle (for example, one can handle whole EU by uploading a simple CSV [1] once a quarter and the CSV is easy to generate from Stripe's records).

But unfortunately there are tons of others that are much more complicated and scattered -- for example, due to the economic nexus laws in the US, I now have to file Sales Tax in each individual state where I am over the threshold (and many states have thresholds in low hundreds of transactions, so it's not hard to reach).

[1]: https://www.elster.de/bportal/helpGlobal?themaGlobal=osseust_import

[2]: If you do not feel comfortable commenting here, you can also reach out at z2qmk@pekoi.com (temporary email)

1. foxylad ◴[12 Mar 25 01:49 UTC] No.43339181[source]▶
We rolled our own VAT/GST handling. We use Stripe to bill the total amount, and generate our own invoices so we can break out the tax as an item. Doing our own tax and invoices means we're not locked in to Stripe, which is pretty good but will enshittify when they have enough of us in thrall. It also means you can do bank transfers which many customers prefer.

VAT/GST handling is not that complicated*, and our system spits out the numbers to fill in UK, AU, NZ and CA tax returns, which can all be done online.

*Except Canada... HERE BE DRAGONS! Each of the 13 provinces/territories has different rates and rules, despite the optimistically named "harmonised sales tax" (HST).