Product taxonomy

An assignment contains the association between a product class and product. A product class groups products that are similar from a VAT perspective. A product class is also an entity of eClear's product taxonomy, an ordered set of product classes.

eClear's product taxonomy extends publicly available product taxonomies that are used in customs processes. Currently eClear's taxonomy contains the customs taxonomies of the European Union (TARIC), Switzerland (TARES) and the United Kingdom(UKGT). A product class is identified by its code (a variable length string of digits) and the customs taxonomy that it belongs to. For example, 01 TARIC identifies a (root) product class that is part of the customs taxonomy of the European Union (TARIC). This product class groups products that are "Live Animals; Animal Products" and can be divided into "Live horses, asses, mules and hinnies" (code 0101) and "Live bovine animals" (code 0102). Both product classes can be further subdivided and so on until an end node is reached. The TARIC and UKGT can have a maximum of 10 digits and the TARES a maximum of 8 digits.

eClear has extended these publicly available taxonomies by its own product classes referred to as eClearCodes. This extension is neccessary to be able to differentiate VAT treatment in all supported countries. An eClearCode is always a child of a regular product class and its code always starts with the code of its parent. For example, the code 0201100021-80-007 identifies an eClearCode and it is the child of the product class identified by code 0201100021 which is part of the TARIC taxonomy.