Determined at the point of sale, in the buyer’s country.
Cross-border selling turns tax from an annual chore into a per-transaction decision: which country, which rate, whether the buyer’s VAT number shifts the liability, whether a threshold has just been crossed. That decision is made when the sale happens, on the sale, and it is recorded with the sale.
What is determined, per transaction
Every one of these changes the number on the invoice, so every one is decided at issue time rather than reconstructed later.
EU VAT and OSS — Destination VAT on consumer sales, with the reverse charge where a validated business VAT number shifts the liability, and OSS treatment for cross-border EU supplies.
US sales tax and nexus — State-level rates with economic-nexus thresholds tracked as they are approached, not discovered after they are crossed.
Buyer status and evidence — VAT-number validation and the location evidence the determination rests on, stored with the transaction so the answer can be defended later.
Refusal over guessing — Where the facts are insufficient to determine correctly, the engine refuses the sale rather than guessing a rate. A wrong rate is a liability that surfaces at audit; a refused sale surfaces immediately.
Who carries it depends on the mode
On Managed, Lernaura is the merchant of record: the registrations, the filings and the tax liability in the buyer’s country are ours. You get one payout and one number.
On Direct, the registrations, the returns and the liability are yours — that is what staying seller of record means. The determination and the rendering stay ours regardless, because getting the rate wrong harms you whoever the authority pursues.
On the documents
The determination is rendered onto the invoice under the right seller identity, with a sequential number an auditor will accept, and delivered through the channel the buyer’s country expects — Peppol, NemHandel or OIOUBL where that applies.
Where it sits
Tax is decided at the sale and travels with the document from there.