Stripe Tax Filing Currency

Four currencies on one Stripe sale

Take a US shop that prices its products in US dollars, settles to a US dollar bank account, and is registered for VAT in Norway. On a sale to a customer in Oslo, the integration currency is USD because that is the currency of the Price. The settlement currency is USD. The filing currency is NOK, because that is what the Norwegian Tax Administration collects. If the customer pays in NOK, NOK is also the presentment currency.

Stripe Tax calculates in the integration currency first. The tax_amount on that sale is a dollar figure. The filing_tax_amount is the same tax restated in kroner, and filing_exchange_rate is the rate Stripe used to get from one to the other.

If you price in the filing currency instead, for example by selling to Norway from a NOK price, Stripe's conversion condition is not met and the two sets of columns describe the same currency. That is the simplest way to make the export and the return speak the same language.

Which columns carry it, and when they are blank

The itemized export has five filing columns: filing_currency, filing_exchange_rate, filing_tax_amount, filing_taxable_amount and filing_non_taxable_amount. Stripe defines filing_exchange_rate as the rate used to convert the currency column to the tax authority's local filing currency, so each filing amount is the plain amount on the same row converted at that rate.

The summarized export has filing_currency and a filing version of each total: filing_total_sales, filing_total_taxable_sales, filing_total_nontaxable_sales, filing_total_tax_collected, filing_total_sales_refunded, filing_total_tax_refunded, filing_total_taxable_refunded and filing_tax_payable. It has no exchange rate column. Each row adds up transactions that may each have been converted at a different rate, so to see the rates you need the itemized export.

The blanks follow the taxability reason. Stripe says filing_currency may be empty for not_supported, not_subject_to_tax and not_collecting rows, that filing_exchange_rate is not guaranteed to be set for those rows, and that the filing amounts are empty whenever filing_currency is empty. A sum of filing_tax_amount is unaffected, since those rows carry no tax. A sum of filing_taxable_amount or filing_non_taxable_amount will leave them out, so total sales built from the filing columns can come in lower than the same total built from the plain columns.

When the tax authority wants a different rate

Stripe's rate is a rate from the time of each sale. Tax authorities write their own conversion rules for returns, and they do not all agree with that.

The European Commission's One Stop Shop guidance says the return "should be made out in euro" in general, and that "if the supplies have been made in other currencies, the taxable person or his intermediary shall, for the purposes of completing the VAT return, use the exchange rate as published by the European Central Bank on the last date of the tax period." For a business that prices in US dollars, that is one rate per quarter, not one per sale, so the euro figures in Stripe's filing columns are not the figures that rule asks for.

Norway and New Zealand give a choice. The Norwegian Tax Administration's VOEC guidelines let a seller convert the VAT payable at the point of sale, on the last day of the period, or when filing, using a rate from Norwegian Customs, Norges Bank, another central bank or a foreign exchange data provider. Inland Revenue in New Zealand allows the time of supply, the last day of the taxable period, or the filing date. Both say that once you pick a method other than converting at the time of the sale, you keep it for 24 months unless the authority agrees otherwise.

Stripe's conversion resembles the time-of-sale option, but Stripe's documentation describes its source only as available exchange rates. Whether that source qualifies under a given authority's list is a question for your accountant. Where the rule calls for a different rate or date, convert the plain tax_amount and taxable amounts yourself at the required rate. Do not re-convert figures that Stripe has already converted.

Why the return and the books still disagree

A US QuickBooks company keeps its books in US dollars. Foreign tax collected on a dollar-priced sale reaches the liability account as a dollar amount, and nothing about the filing currency changes that. The return, though, is filed and paid in the authority's currency.

Say a quarter's Norwegian VAT comes to NOK 10,000 on the return, and the dollar amounts carried for those sales total US$950. If the payment of NOK 10,000 costs US$980 when you make it, the liability account clears by US$950 and the extra US$30 is a currency loss. It belongs in whichever account your accountant uses for exchange differences, not back in the tax liability.

That difference exists whichever rate Stripe used for its filing columns. The filing currency tells you what to put on the return. The bank tells you what the return cost. Your books need both numbers.