Brazil - Taxes

[Lucio Assis]

Taxes in Brazil are not explicitly applied to a sale like in most other countries. You have the product's price and that's it.

Best regards

[Matthieu Biart]

Hi Lucio!

Could you please tell us which taxes apply to whom? And how they are computed.
Are they both computed from the original tax excluded price? Are they compounded?

Moreover, where taxes can apply? On product, shipping costs, wrapping costs, ...?

Thank you in advance.

[Lucio Assis]

Hi there Matthieu!

Let me explain it more thoroughly:

All sales are subject to a tax called ICMS and some are subject to another called IPI. The point I wanted to make was that they're embedded in the price you pay when you buy something at a store. Technically, the one who pays the ICMS and IPI is the store owner. They'll typically have an information system (usually some shelf software) that will calculate how much ICMS and how much IPI they owe based on their sales and they'll pay it monthly; it's a relationship between the state and the store.
Economically speaking, the value will actually be paid by those who are buying the goods, since the prices have it embedded.

In both regular and online stores, you never see things like this:

Price: 5.00
Tax: 0.30
Shipping: 1.00
--
Total: 6.30

It would be along these lines instead:

Price: 5.30
Shipping: 1.00
--
Total: 6.30

Bottom line: brazilian prestashoppers usually get along by turning off taxes and localizing strings like "(tax incl.)" to empty strings. A simpler way to get rid of tax-related labels would be welcome, though.

Please let me know if this isn't clear or if you have any questions
Lucio

[Matthieu Biart]

That's really clear now.
Thank you for the explanation and the easy understanding exemple.

Just one last question. Does this situation apply also to all other prices, such as shipping cost, wrapping cost, ...?

[JosefPrado]

Hi,

Here is my 2 cents

The taxation in Brazil is one os the most complex existing.

There are diferent taxes for diferent kind of products and services.

Everything we pay have taxes, but everything is already included.

For intance, egarding you question for shipping.

When I say that the iten cost 5.30 + 1 for shipping, inside that "1" is inclusded the tax that the carrier needs to pay. they charge us an amount including the taxes.

Basicaly, we never know how much we are paying in taxes, unless we got the invoince in the end and look into it

When you buy a coke, you pay like R$ 2,00 and that is it. The store pays ICMS of 18% of these R$ 2,00 to the goverment.

Regards,

Josef

[Lucio Assis]

@Matthieu: Yes, same thing for all other prices. Sorry I didn't answer before, I went out in vacation.

Regards
Lucio

[Matthieu Biart]

Thank you both of you for the explanations.

Now, what about invoice requirements?
Do you need any modification on the PrestaShop current system? On the current order process?

[Lucio Assis]

Ah, invoice is a great subject:


1. An invoice would be used as a confirmation for the customer: that the order was placed and all the details are correct, like shipment/billing address provided, payment method, shipping method, what you bought, for how much, S&H;and grand total. It wouldn't be a legal device in any way, which I understand it can be in other places, for example: the invoice would be a document that legally ties you to the commitment to actually pay the seller -- correct me if I'm wrong. In Brazil, the seller will separately create a document called the Nota Fiscal ('fiscal note') that contains all the client's and the order's details and this is where the financial/legal liability is in. This document is always copied so that there is the original and two copies: the original is shipped to the client together with the goods and is also used by the carrier (you have to provide the fiscal note of a good you're transporting if asked). One of the other copies is for the seller and the last one is for the government. This document contains enough details of the company and of the goods being shipped to allow for tax calculation to be done by anyone who's interested (your accountant and the government, most probably).


2. The fact that invoice numbers start with an "IN" is annoying at times. Would be nice if you could specify a prefix via language file, maybe in pdf.php.


3. Bit more general question: could an invoice contain many orders? The real question is: why do you have an invoice number and also an order number?


4. Product description shouldn't have "Pre-Tax Total" column, only Description, Reference, Unit Price, Qty, Total.


5. Summary shouldn't present "Total products (tax excl.)" and "Total products (tax incl.)", but only one field "Total products", together with the existing "Total shipping", and then there's the Grand Total, called "Total with Tax". As long as this last one is always the grand total, i.e., products + shipping - applicable discounts, vouchers etc, this line can just be translated not to be "Total with Tax" but "Grand Total" instead.


6. We hardly ever, or never, capitalize entire last names (or any other name, for that matter) as I notice the invoice does.


Regarding the order process, I'll take a deeper look to see if I can come up with something specific to Brazil. As I look now, I don't have anything to say about it, but I'm likely to find something in looking closer.

Regards
Lucio

[Gabriel Paladino]

For additional explanation based on the invoice document made by Lucio would like to make one point about the number 3.

I use with my customers invoices PDF, just to control. So I set all stats to make available the PDF and the numbers of invoices being equal to the number of orders.