Avalara helps sellers to manage cross-border treaty, trade restrictions

June 23, 2021: The provider of cloud-based tax compliance automation, Avalara, today announced new capabilities being added to its cross-border solution: Trade Treaty Support and Trade Restrictions Management.

These new features enable businesses to take advantage of preferred treaty rates in their landed cost calculations and to avoid selling items to countries where there are restrictions with customs regulations.

Sanjay Parthasarathy, chief product officer at Avalara, said, “Cross-border commerce will continue to be a critical growth area for businesses to reach new customers and to stay competitive, but it comes with its own share of compliance complexity. Our cross-border trade treaty and restrictions capabilities provide global businesses with a competitive edge by equipping them with the insights needed to deliver a superior customer experience, improve efficiencies, and avoid shipment delays.”

Kevin Permenter, research manager, IDC, said, “As more commerce takes place online, e-commerce is enabling sellers of any size to reach customers internationally. When it comes to cross-border commerce, tools that enable retailers to easily account for applicable treaties and trade restrictions can save money and minimize shipping disruptions.”

Cross-border trade treaty support
Trade treaties are formal agreements between two or more countries that make it easier to trade between each other by reducing tariffs, quotas, and other trade restrictions. For businesses, assembling and maintaining content related to treaties spanning multiple international jurisdictions is time-consuming and resource-intensive. Avalara has extended its tax content coverage to include trade treaty tariff rates from around the world, which provides businesses selling across borders access to lower duty rates negotiated between nations as preferred rates. This enables cross-border retailers to:

•    Improve efficiency of maintaining preferential and punitive treaties. Reduce time and resources spent assembling and maintaining preferential and punitive treaties across multiple international jurisdictions.

•    Reduce costs and improve customer experience. Apply existing treaties to transactions to provide lower duty and/or tax rates for customers and help reduce customer churn with improved pricing.

•    Access treaty information across regions. Cross-Border Trade Treaty Support is currently available for Canada, Mexico, and the United States, as well as for countries in the European Union and United Kingdom.

•    Apply treaties to AvaTax Cross-Border transactions. Cross-Border Trade Treaty Support is available as a feature of Avalara AvaTax Cross-Border.

Trade restrictions management
Trade Restrictions Management helps international sellers know what government restrictions are in place when selling goods across borders. This enables cross-border retailers to:

•    Drive efficiencies. Focus their efforts in countries where products don’t have trade complexity concerns allowing them to streamline Harmonized System (HS) code classification, language translation, and calculation of duties and taxes.

•    Avoid additional costs. Advanced knowledge of soft restrictions can help avoid added costs related to orders restricted at the border such as clearing complex products, securing licenses, and reversing shipping charges for uncleared goods.

•    Enhance customer experience. Prevent shipments from being delayed at customs by understanding hard and soft restrictions prior to the transaction to deliver a seamless purchasing experience.

•    Access trade restriction information across regions. Trade Restrictions Management currently supports Canada, China, Germany, Japan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Additional trade corridors are actively being added.

•    Incorporate trade restrictions into your cross-border portfolio. Businesses can use Trade Restrictions Management as a standalone solution with or without HS codes.