RE: [ubl-psc] Taxes

["Duvekot, Kees" <kduvekot@Wehkamp.nl>]

Jon,

quick answer from me (I'm on holiday)

on part 1:
TaxCategory also has the TierRange etc because the TaxCategoryType is also used outside of TaxSubtotal
see: http://www.schemacentral.com/sc/ubl21/t-cac_TaxCategoryType.html (based on UBL 2.1 PRD2)
Used By
    Element cac:ApplicableTaxCategory 
    Element cac:ClassifiedTaxCategory
    Element cac:TaxCategory

The ClassifiedTaxCategory is used to identify the type of Tax that would apply to a certain item when sold. So there you also need to be able to specify possible tax percentages/rages/tiers etc .. .without having a TaxSubtotal to hold the actual tax amounts.

So in most cases you do not specify the percentage etc at the TaxSubtotal level but under the TaxCategory (because that is where it is usually attached to). You could replicate them again under TaxSubtotal, but there is no need for that duplication as far as I can see.You could argue that they can be removed under TaxSubtotalType ... but I am not sure if that is possible from a backwards compatibility point of view or from other types of implementations. (they were added on UBL 2.0)

on part 2:
On a invoice, for example purposes, you can have 0-n TaxTotals at the " header"  level. But each TaxTotal at the header level should only applies to one specific TaxScheme. (allthough this is not mandated in the structure). In Europe there is usually only one specific TaxScheme (VAT) unless you start going into excise related tax for Petrol, Tobacco etc which I have no knowledge about. In the USA it is more common to have more TaxScheme's. You could have 2 scheme's that might apply to a invoice, State and county/city tax etc for example. Now you could even argue that there is not one single EU TaxScheme, but 27 EU Tax Schemes (one per member state) 

Each TaxScheme determines various categories of tax (High Rate, Low Rate, etc etc) so if you have various items that apply to different categories, or on one invoice you invoice multiple deliveries to multiple locations that determine different rates, you will have multiple TaxSubtotals (Remember, tax is usually determine based on WHAT you deliver WHERE to WHO and also FROM where). And to make things even more complex one item can have multiple TaxCategories based on where it is sold/delivered etc. (some Items that are classified as Low rate VAT in one EU country can be High Rate VAT in an other.) To get some idea about the complex structure around tax categories have a look at this EU document: http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/resources/documents/taxation/vat/how_vat_works/rates/vat_rates_en.pdf

What you should also take into account is that TaxTotals can appear at various levels in a UBL document. If there are TaxTotals at a lower level then the TaxTotal at level n should be the sum of the TaxTotals of level n+1. (at least .. that is what I think should be the case) But because TaxTotals are not a mandatory items you could also only specify them at the very lowest level and not at any higher level at all. Or only at some intermediate level, or a mix of everything. But this all depends on the rules for applying tax on subtotals for each TaxScheme. (in some countries you can do rounding at the lowest level, in other you can not do rounding at the lowest level but only at the highest level)

And because all these totals do not have to be used, you can also not always " just" apply the percentage to the Taxable amounts at every level because it might be that the TaxableAmount is a sum of other TaxableAmounts at lower level in the UBL structure. And the same goes for TaxAmount, that could also be calculated at a lower level, rounded there, and then summarized at a higher level. And due to rounding you might end up with different amounts. I would guess the TaxEvidenceIndicator could be used to show if this TaxTotal was for summary purpose only, or if it was a real calculated TaxTotal. But not sure if that would be "correct".

I am not an full blow UBL tax expert but what I do know is that UBL and taxes are complex and that there is no "one correct way"  to populate the tax related structures. And that is the reason why so many things might look duplicated. So each group of trading partners need to determine how they are going to use this setup and ALL agree on that. Otherwise it might be difficult to correctly interpret the tax parts of UBL documents. So that is how I interpreted this setup. I suspect other people will have different views.

Kees
(from the south of France)
________________________________________
Van: ubl-psc@lists.oasis-open.org [ubl-psc@lists.oasis-open.org] namens Jon Bosak [bosak@pinax.com]
Verzonden: vrijdag 17 augustus 2012 23:34
To: ubl-psc@lists.oasis-open.org
Onderwerp: [ubl-psc] Taxes

Hello PSC,

I need some help figuring out the definitions relating to taxes.  Here's
what appears to be the structure of TaxTotal, leaving out some
unnecessary details (the number 1 indicates exactly one required):

    TaxTotal
       TaxSubtotal (0..n)
          TaxAmount (1)
          ...
          Percent
          ...
          TierRange
          TierRatePercent
          TaxCategory (1)
             ...
             TierRange
             TierRatePercent
             TaxScheme (1)
                ... scheme info ...

1. TierRange and TierRatePercent under TaxSubtotal appear to be
redundant, since these same items will also necessarily appear in
TaxSubtotal under the required TaxCategory.  What am I missing here?

2. There is exactly one TaxCategory and one TaxScheme for each
TaxSubtotal (which has exactly one TaxAmount).  I'm trying to interpret
TaxAmount in TaxSubtotal as the number you get by applying the tax rate
(Percent) to a given amount after categorizing the given amount in its
TaxCategory within the given TaxScheme.  In other words, only one
TaxCategory in each TaxScheme should apply to the given amount.  But I'm
having trouble reconciling this picture with the definition of TaxTotal
as "Information about a total amount of a particular type of tax" when
TaxTotal is (presumably) the total of its 0..n TaxSubtotals, and I'm
also having trouble with the definition of TaxAmount in TaxTotal as "The
total tax amount for particular tax scheme e.g. VAT; the sum of each of
the tax subtotals for each tax category within the tax scheme", which
seems to be saying that TaxSubtotal is the sum of multiple TaxCategories
within one TaxScheme.  I'd appreciate it if someone could describe the
relationship between total, subtotal, category, and scheme more clearly
than I've been able to figure out thus far.

Jon

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