When German online retailers in the USA sell on the American amazon.com marketplace, the German tax advisor wonders how to import the Amazon USA revenues into his Datev. We have the solution.
Amazon USA in German accounting
What's rekindling gold-rush sentiment among online retailers is making many a tax accountant cringe. Amazon is offering increasingly easy ways for online retailers to sell in the U.S. market. Now it's not simply that the goods are sent from Germany directly to the end customer in the US, that would take far too long. The online retailer therefore delivers its goods in large batches to the Amazon warehouses in the USA and uses the fullfilment, which is also known in Germany.
Fiscally speaking...
the whole thing is relatively clear. The profit is taxed in Germany according to the world income principle. From the point of view of sales tax, this must be paid in the USA if there is a so-called "nexus", i.e. a sufficient local presence. This can be achieved, for example, by using a Thrid Party Fullfilment. This usually applies to those who use Amazon FBA in the USA. Whether the online retailer ultimately has to pay sales tax there or not must be clarified by a tax consultant or an American CPA.
There is a whole range of laws governing sales tax in the USA because, unlike in Germany, each state lays down its own laws. One searches in vain for a uniform law at the state level. In addition, there are local laws where cities or municipalities declare exceptions. The sales tax rates in the USA are different in each state. All in all, it looks worse than it is.
VAT registration in the USA
In order not to get lost in the law jungle, there are a number of great tools that make the life of the online merchant easier. Quickbooks or Taxjar offer good and easy ways to calculate and pay taxes correctly. If you have made your own experiences with tools, please post it in the comments.
The German accounting
Perhaps we as a tax office have just resigned ourselves to the fact that we are now inundated with thousands and thousands of accounting lines, wildly offsetting fee items against the disbursement sum and in the end everything only fits together by the skin of our teeth.
However, we may already be using AccountOne and can slay the accounting monster with an import and export. But now the USA is coming too! Sales in another country, on another continent, in another currency and with many other tax rates. Whoever finds himself in the above illustration is not quite so wrong.
The currency is basically US dollars, the tax rates are hard to beat in number and inventiveness, and even if everything looks similar to Germany, everything is different.
Something missing
Those who already deal with online merchants who also sell in the USA will quickly notice that an important feature is missing at Amazon.com. The VAT transaction report, which is very popular in this country. What we think should be named the unword of the year is a report developed specifically for Europe. We are looking for this in vain at the American Sellercentral. So there is only one thing left to do... We gather all the information from the different data sources (orders, shipments, payout reports, etc.).
AccountOne fills the gap
When we started developing AccountOne, VAT transaction reporting was still in its infancy and was not a reliable partner for determining accounting data. That's why we focused on building our own data from the start. This helped not only to fill in missing data, but also to improve the quality of the data in the long term. Looking across the pond, we are happy about this development today. It was a much rockier road, but we are pleased to offer an interface from the American Sellercentral to the German accounting system on the basis of this.
All beginnings are difficult
We are currently in an above-average successful beta phase. As usual with our European solution, the data is retrieved via MWS tokens and further processed in the system. By means of assignment to revenue and person accounts, the transfer to accounting can take place. The result is an individual booking of all revenues and fees that matches the amount of the payment. Here too, after the initial setup, an almost self-sufficient accounting process is possible.
Which marketplaces are supported?
Currently, AccountOne supports the following American marketplaces in addition to the European Amazon marketplaces:
- amazon.com (USA)
- amazon.mx (Mexico)
- amazon.ca (Canada)
The solution to get the revenues from the American online trade into the German accounting can be tested free of charge for 30 days.
