A merchant of record platform takes on the legal responsibility for worldwide sales tax and VAT, sparing digital product and SaaS teams from building a tax function. The trade-off is a higher effective rate, less control, and platform-side compliance review. This article explains how MoR differs from acquiring and tax tools, and compares the main platforms with the self-built route.
On the same payment platform, a China-based seller and a European seller may have access to different features, different fund paths and different tax obligations. This article separates the differences into entity eligibility, fund repatriation and tax liability, then gives concrete guidance for China-based users, global users and five business models.
Once cross-border collection works, tax is the next problem. VAT, sales tax, and customs duty follow entirely different rules, the EU offers OSS and IOSS, the US applies economic nexus thresholds, and post-Brexit the UK runs its own regime. This article breaks the question down by what you sell, to whom, and where, then compares the MoR and self-built routes.