Question

Why does GB in-app subscription results in 12.17% tax_percentage (VAT) from webhook?

  • 13 March 2023
  • 1 reply
  • 69 views

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Hi,

We’re seeing events from the Revenue Cat webhook whilst in Sandbox mode (before go-live) where a subscription or renewal flows through with 12.17% `tax_percentage`. Can anyone explain why that might be? I would expect 20% VAT? Is it something we’ve misconfigured or am I missing something?

Example webhook event here:

{
"api_version": "1.0",
"event": {
"aliases": [
"9e2090e4-11cc-4ff8-8f0f-281eb9e6b84d",
"$RCAnonymousID:7610af8f52924950b428cd4d313823f2"
],
"app_id": "app790cf74d0c",
"app_user_id": "9e2090e4-11cc-4ff8-8f0f-281eb9e6b84d",
"commission_percentage": 0.3,
"country_code": "GB",
"currency": "GBP",
"entitlement_id": null,
"entitlement_ids": [
"Pro"
],
"environment": "SANDBOX",
"event_timestamp_ms": 1678382003118,
"expiration_at_ms": 1678382162000,
"id": "6D453662-6B23-47EE-97B4-7856431CA391",
"is_family_share": false,
"is_trial_conversion": false,
"offer_code": null,
"original_app_user_id": "$RCAnonymousID:7610af8f52924950b428cd4d313823f2",
"original_transaction_id": "2000000253163431",
"period_type": "NORMAL",
"presented_offering_id": "default",
"price": 11.837,
"price_in_purchased_currency": 9.99,
"product_id": "oscil8_umg_staging_1month",
"purchased_at_ms": 1678381862000,
"store": "APP_STORE",
"subscriber_attributes": {
"$attConsentStatus": {
"updated_at_ms": 1674161971463,
"value": "restricted"
}
},
"takehome_percentage": 0.7,
"tax_percentage": 0.1217,
"transaction_id": "2000000293715660",
"type": "RENEWAL"
}
}

 

Thanks,

 

Dan


1 reply

Userlevel 1
Badge +2

Hi Dan! Happy to clarify. The tax_percentage field is expressed as a portion of the gross price, but for App Store transactions VAT is only applied to the post-commission price, so the percentage of your gross price that Apple takes out for taxes will not equal the VAT rate in a given country.

In addition, in the UK a Digital Sales Tax (DST) of 2% is applied to Apple’s commission, which is also included in the tax_percentage.

In this example:

  • The 9.99 purchase price in GBP has a 30% commission deducted (3.00), yielding 6.99
  • The commission that Apple yields from this (3.00) has a 2% Digital Sales Tax (DST) deducted, which deducts an additional 0.06
  • The remaining purchase price of 6.93 has a 20% VAT applied, which deducts an additional 1.16 ((6.93 / (1 + 20%)) * 20%)
  • 1.16 + 0.06 = 1.22, or tax_percentage = 0.1217 without my rounding

Let me know if that all makes sense or if you have any additional questions!

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