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Stripe vs MoRs: How do you handle international VAT filings?
Hi!
We were having a discussion today about using MoRs and Stripe. I'm not a fan of MoRs, as you are not the actual seller.
However, they do offer incredible benefits when it comes to administration.
How does this work out for those who use Stripe (which are many indie hackers)?
We were having a discussion today about using MoRs and Stripe. I'm not a fan of MoRs, as you are not the actual seller.
However, they do offer incredible benefits when it comes to administration.
How does this work out for those who use Stripe (which are many indie hackers)?
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I'm wondering about this as well - I saw Stripe has some tax offering now, maybe this covers it? stripe.com/tax
Stripe Tax collects the taxes for you but you still have to remit them yourself.
MoRs relieve that bureaucracy from you by also remitting them to the relevant authorities.
They’ll obviously charge you for that comfort though.
What @julianrubisch says @ben, I too use Stripe Tax. It's fairly easy with US, EU and UK, especially B2B where most of it is reverse charged.
But I was mainly wondering how others do this with countries outside these areas and B2C, as those rules are more strict it seems.
Got it. I had the same question as some of my ideas are B2C.
Dumb question, but I've never dealt with international ecom - when you say remit them myself, that means I need to log into some tax website for wherever my customers are located and pay the amount due at the end of the calendar year? If so, seems like a headache, maybe a minor one if whatever country is owed taxes has a good website.
...I'm probably getting way ahead of myself. I don't even have any customers yet so it's time to build vs. concering myself with taxes. I also already work with a CPA, maybe he can do that for me if I ever end up selling to international customers heh
Basically yes. In the EU it’s quite easy but I‘d not want the hassle of doing this for every singular other country 😅
So if not B2B I’d always opt for NOT having those sorts of headaches.
That said, MoRs like Paddle are typically more strict regarding the companies they do business for. There’s a screening process involved, etc etc
MoR’s take on more risks, so they also have stricter requirements than a payment provider such as Stripe.
I know of at least one instance where an indie maker randomly got their MoR account suspended with no recourse. This can also happen at Stripe, but it seems less likely.
As for accounting, you probably want to hire a professional for this anyway (it’s not your core business), so you can let them take care of it all.
Yup, my accountant takes care of it indeed. It's just something I was wondering about as it might be cheaper to have an MOR instead of letting my account take care of it.
But in my case, my clients are just Europe and US (and UK) so it's still fairly easy to take care of.
Maybe off-topic but a friend of mine uses lemon squeezy exactly for that issue. It's a bit expensive tho; docs.lemonsqueezy.com/help/pa…