Tax Rules by Jurisdiction

Every billing entity belongs to a jurisdiction, and that jurisdiction decides what its documents have to say. Runnit keeps those requirements as dated rules rather than as code, so a rule that changes is a new dated row and not a rewrite of what your old invoices said.

Reading the rules needs finance:view_invoices or finance:manage_settings. Confirming a rule and changing tax settings need finance:manage_settings. Recalculating a draft’s tax needs finance:draft_invoices.

What a rule covers

For a country, and where it matters a region, Runnit holds the title a tax invoice must carry, the fields it must show, the thresholds that add more fields, which date counts as the tax point, whether the tax total has to be shown in a local currency, the statement a reverse charged supply must print, whether self-billing is permitted and what it must say, mileage and per diem rates, and the e-invoicing profile the country expects.

Each rule carries the date it takes effect. Runnit reads the rule that was in force on the document’s own date, so issuing an invoice in September and correcting one from August use different rules if the law changed between them.

Verified rules, and unverified ones

A rule is verified when Runnit has taken it from a primary source, or unverified when it has not. An unverified rule is not a warning badge. If a document actually relies on one, issuing is refused until an administrator confirms it.

State	What it means	What to do
Unverified	The rule in force says so, and nobody has confirmed it	Confirm it, in Finance setup or from the invoice that is blocked
Missing	The jurisdiction has no rule for something the document needs	There is nothing to rely on. Runnit names what is missing
Superseded	You confirmed a rule, and the rule in force has since changed	Confirm the rule that is in force now
Not yet effective	The only rule for this exists but starts after the document’s date	It cannot be relied on for this document

A rule is only judged when the document actually consulted it, so a jurisdiction with no self-billing rules never fails an ordinary invoice.

Confirming binds to that exact rule: the row, the date it took effect, and its contents. Change any of the three and the confirmation stops applying and Runnit asks again. Confirmations are never deleted, only superseded, so the record of who confirmed what and when survives the change.

Note

Australian and British mandatory field rules ship verified. For New Zealand, the United States and the European Union, an administrator confirms the mandatory field rule before a billing entity there issues an invoice. Runnit lists exactly which rules are unmet for a billing entity, so the fix is to read that list and confirm what is on it.

What a rule change does, and what it leaves alone

Confirming or reconciling rules revalidates your drafts, so a draft that was blocked becomes issuable and a draft that has fallen behind a new rule says so.

Issued documents are left exactly as they are. Every issued invoice froze the rules it was issued under, and a rule that changes in September never rewrites what an August invoice said.

European Union member states

A member state’s own rules are read first. Where a member state has no rule of its own for something, the European Union rule applies in its place.

Inheritance is per rule, not a merge, and a member state’s own rule always wins whatever date the European rule carries. The United Kingdom is not a member state and inherits nothing.

Per-country overrides for individual member states are not seeded, and no national e-invoicing mandate date drives behaviour today.

The United Kingdom

Two British rules are worth knowing because they can refuse an issue.

The tax point is normally the supply date, except that the invoice date replaces it when the invoice is issued within fourteen days of the supply. An invoice issued before the supply is its own tax point. Runnit works that out and freezes the answer on the document.

The VAT total must be shown in sterling, even on an invoice priced in another currency. Where the tax is not zero and Runnit has no valuation for it, the issue is refused rather than printing a blank.

Reverse charge, zero rating and exemptions

An invoice between two businesses in the same tax area, across a border, is reverse charged. That happens whether or not you have configured the statement it must carry, and a missing statement refuses the issue rather than quietly treating the supply as zero rated. A supply outside the tax area is an export, which is a different treatment again.

Each treatment carries its category and, where the law needs one, its exemption reason, on the document and in the e-invoice.

Note

A customer’s tax number is stored and shown as you entered it. Where a reverse charged supply requires one, Runnit states the requirement and warns when it is missing. Checking the number against a registry, such as VIES, is done outside Runnit.

Mileage and per diem rates

Mileage and per diem rates belong to your organisation, carry the date they take effect, and carry their own verified flag. Adding a rate closes the one it supersedes, so two rates are never in force on the same day, and a second rate starting on the same day is refused with a message.

An unverified or missing rate is never used quietly: a claim that needs one is refused and says which. See Expenses.

Automated sales tax

A billing entity has a tax calculation mode, and it is off for every entity by default.

Mode	What happens at issue
Off	Runnit never asks a tax service. Tax comes from the rates on the lines
Optional	The calculation is used when it is usable, otherwise the configured rates are used and the document records which basis it used
Required	Issuing is refused when the calculation is missing, expired, out of date or disagrees with the tax on the draft

The calculation runs against the draft before it is issued, never during the issue itself. Any edit to the draft supersedes it, because the answer no longer describes the document. At issue, the answer is either frozen onto the document or refused, and the document says which basis its tax came from, so a client reading it can tell an automated rate stack from a rate somebody typed.

Note

Optional and required both use a tax calculation service configured for your deployment. With the mode off, tax comes from the rates on your lines.

Next step

Draft and issue against these rules: Invoices, or send an issued invoice as structured data with E-Invoicing.

Self-billing checks the rule currently in force against your recorded confirmation. Changed wording or a different effective version needs fresh confirmation when the replacement is unverified. The check happens when you review eligibility or issue a document.

Review invoice evidence

Before issue, complete the seller details, line descriptions, supply dates and required rule confirmations shown in the invoice review. Where a sterling VAT total is required, a foreign-currency invoice also needs the recorded sterling valuation. Missing required evidence blocks issue; issued documents keep their recorded tax values. See Invoicing for the issue flow.