I am using the API to create a Customer Portal Session, with the flow_data.type set to subscription_update_confirm (API docs).
Everything works fine, except the prices are displayed without taxes, which is incorrect.
In the example below, the customer is upgrading from a “PLUS 50” subscription to a “PLUS 100” one.
1190,00 € is the price tax excluded, there should be a mention of +22% (Italy VAT), the correct price charged should be 1451,80 €.
All operations are shown tax excluded, but this is wrong, we have to charge (add) the VAT and display it to the customer.
In the dashboard, the product prices are correctly set.
When generating checkout sessions for first-time buyers, the taxes are correctly displayed (added to the final price to pay), and so are the prices previews in the dashboard.
I couldn’t find an option in the docs regarding the display of taxes.
Nothing in the portal configuration either about taxes.
Am I doing something wrong?
So the issue seems to be for users who have already an active subscription, and at the time of the initial subscription did not provide the postal code and the country.
This behaviour is not retro-compatible : even after updating the user’s postal code and country, the VAT is not shown ; retro-compatiblity at large is a big issue with most of Stripe.
It is understandable in some cases, where historic accounting data has to be preserved, but it seems that the dev team at Stripe applies it too strictly and automatically to every single API item.
I think this is a too severe restriction from Stripe: there are many use cases for not blocking the user from subscribing by asking right away their address details, especially for Saas products.
Many product designers aim to reduce or eliminate friction to user engagement and/or conversion, and asking the user’s postal code and country when subscribing to an online-only service really seems to be overkill.
I understand that the country of origin is necessary to calculate the proper taxes to display to the user, but the fact that even after updating an existing user, the VAT is still not displayed in the subscription update dialog, should be considered a bug.
