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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: 0s | 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)

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bfstein ◴[11 Mar 25 23:12 UTC] No.43338122[source]▶
We use Sphere ( https://www.getsphere.com ), and it’s the only good solution I know of for international VAT that handles everything end-to-end (registration, calculation, filing, and remittance).

We use Stripe Billing, and we actually use Anrok for US sales tax compliance. They’re solid domestically, but they don’t do international registration, filing, and remittance; they only do calculation.

There are also firms like VAT IT (vatcompliance.com) that can do this if you want to work with a more traditional service provider.

replies(2): >>43338447 #>>43339663 #
1. pqvst ◴[12 Mar 25 03:22 UTC] No.43339663[source]▶
Sphere looks quite promising, and I haven't come across them before. Their coverage looks pretty good as well, and pricing sounds reasonable. It looks like they have a Stripe integration. Is that something you're using?