Erroneous bait & switch price for upgrade to MLO ver 5!

[Yodee]

I have been an avid user-cum-evangelist of MLO for a very long time.  I received an email giving away a coupon code that should have entitled me to a discount for upgrade from version 4.4.8 to version 5.x

However, when I proceed to place my order, I found that the price was inflated by 19.56%.  Upgrade landing page quotes effective price of $29.95, but the checkout page suddenly has effective price of $35.34  

Please see screenshots below:

   

An email to support team brought in response that difference is due to GST applicable in our country (India).

However, this doesn't hold ground.  Unless MLO Developers have GST registration in India (and they file GST Returns in India), they cannot be charging GST from us.  If they do intend to charge GST, then it needs provisioning of GST Invoice from them to us, so we can get input tax credit here.

My specific questions to MLO Support has still not elicited any response, despite having sent two reminders ever since I heard last from them last week.

Inasmuch as I love MLO, I guess my questions deserve a proper response.   Hoping as I write this email.

Regards

Yodee

[Grant]

Yeah, this has to do with the pay system MLO contracted... in Europe we also end up paying 21% sales tax (although its not itemized in the bill), which indeed, is not correct, unless MLO part of the European Union, which I think is not the case.  

[Jan Thomä]

Guys, it's really very simple. MLO has contracted a payment provider which handles all their payment for them (Digital River, IIRC). The payment provider takes care of collecting and paying sales tax for MLO. If you sell to a EU citizen you need to collect VAT/GST according to the country where that citizen lives in (e.g. in Germany it's 19%, in Denmark it's 25%, etc.). So the payment provider is a registered EU business and as such collects the tax and pays it to the country where the EU citizen is living. I would assume that this works in a similar fashion for non-EU countries like India. This is how things are usually handled with end customers. If you sell to a business, you can apply the reverse charge procedure where you issue an invoice without VAT/GST and you need to collect the Tax-ID of the business you are selling to. Then you print "reverse charge" on the invoice and that business (as identified by the Tax-ID) is responsible itself for paying the VAT/GST to the country they are registered in. In many countries businesses themselves can deduct this VAT/GST from their own tax so they effectively don't have to pay VAT/GST. 

So if you're a business enter your Tax-ID in the Digital River form (they ask for this IIRC) and you will pay no VAT/GST and then handle the taxation side on your end in your country. If you're not a business you will have to pay VAT/GST everything else would very likely be tax evasion which can get you in various amounts of trouble depending on the country you live in. 

I agree that it's unfortunate that the price listed on their home page is without tax, but since the effective price depends on the country you live in and your status as being or not being a business (plus any country specific taxation rules) they cannot reasonably print a final price to you until you are into the ordering process and they have all the information they need to come up with the effective price. This is just a side product of how taxation works and IMHO not a bait & switch tactic.

[Daniel Sekera]

Extremely well said.

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[Yogesh Dhingra]

​Thanks. Your reply definitely helps.​

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[Alyona (MLO Support)]

Thank you very much for such a comprehensive response. That's all true - our payment provider is obliged to charge VAT/GST from the end user and since the tax rate differs depending on the country, the total amount is only visible during checkout.