Frequently Asked Questions & Answers for Businesses
Is it legal to apply no tax to donations generated through our web shop?
Yes. Donations are collected as items in transit. According to §4 (3) of the Austrian VAT Act, these amounts are not considered part of the remuneration and are therefore not included in the VAT assessment basis.
In addition, Art. 79 point (c) of the EU VAT Directive indicates that no VAT should be charged on genuine transitory items throughout the EU.
Is it permissible to put the donation on one invoice together with taxable amounts?
Yes, that is permitted. It must be clearly stated on the invoice that the donation is to be forwarded to TreeMates. The amount should be shown separately from the payment under the gross amount of the order.
A legally compliant formulation for this would be “Donation to TreeMates”, for example.
Does the donation involve an exchange of services between our web shop and the end customer?
No. If the invoice clearly shows that it is a donation to TreeMates, there is no exchange of services between the web shop and the end customer.
What do we do if an order is cancelled or returned?
Order cancelled: We recommend that you do not send the donation via the TreeMates API until the order has been completed. If an order is cancelled before completion, no donation will be made to us and the amount already collected can be returned to the customer.
Order returned: If an order is returned to you and the donation via the TreeMates API has already been made, you only have to return the value of the order to the customer. If a customer also wants the donation refunded, they must contact TreeMates directly.
How does the accounting of the collected donations work between the web shop and the organization?
On the first of the following month, your business will receive a list of the “tree orders” received via the TreeMates API for the current month and an invoice for the amount to be transferred. This amount must then be transferred to our donation account.
Our donation account:
Steiermärkische Bank u. Sparkassen AG
IBAN: AT98 2081 5000 4313 0780
BIC: STSPAT2GXXX
Is documentation available for developers?
Yes. The documentation describes our TreeMates API and contains instructions and downloads of our latest plug-ins for various shop systems.
For which shop systems does TreeMates offer plug-ins?
We currently offer plug-ins for the following shop systems:
WordPress WooCommerce, Shopware 5, Magento 1.9, Magento 2
If your shop system is not included, please send us an email.