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AWS just changed my default currency?

36 points by brody_hamer ↗ HN
AWS suddenly changed all of my aws accounts (I manage several) from USD to CAD. This change was made without any warning.

I receved my usual monthly email: "Amazon Web Services Billing Statement Available / Relevé de facture Amazon Web Services disponible", which indicated that the payment would be processed in CAD, with an asteriks indicating: "* You have asked for this invoice to be processed in CAD. For more information visit https://aws.amazon.com/billing/faqs/#payment_currency"

When I log into my AWS account to change my default current back to USD, I am not able to. My only payment option in the dropdown list is CAD.

15 comments

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bombcar
Are you or your billing address located in Canada?
xaerise
my first question when i read the post
brody_hamer
Sorry, Yes. These account have a canadian billing address. I was made aware of tax-related changes (that AWS would begin charging me the appropriate canadian sales tax) some months ago, but there was absolutely no mention of an upcoming change in currency.
sudhirj
The Canadian sales tax can’t be applied in USD, though. If a country is applying taxes all invoices and taxes will need to be calculated in the currency of the country applying the tax.
brody_hamer
Interesting... because DigitalOcean definitely applies canadian sales tax, and charges me in USD.
bombcar
They may be doing the currency conversion as a "last step" which AWS doesn't want to handle.

Can you get a card on your US source of funds that converts to CAD for you? There may be a currency exchange fee, but some (Amex maybe?) have very good rates.

pjc50
.. why do you, a Canadian, with a billing address in Canada, want to pay Amazon in USD instead of CAD?
brody_hamer
I'd like to save on the currency conversion fees.

I have a number of US clients paying me in USD, so I already have USD accounts to receive and store that income.

It feels a bit wasteful to convert those dollars to CAD (and incur a ~1.5% from my bank), in order to pay an AWS bill that was originally drafted in USD, and then converted to CAD by AWS (with an additional 1.5% fee charged by AWS).

throw4206969
This happened to me as well, I have a ticket out from a week ago.

You cant change to USD because AWS canada doesnt support USD for credit cards. And you cant change to AWS Inc (usa) because when you try to remove your canadian billing address it says AWS Inc doesnt support CAD.

sudhirj
If you have a billing address in country X and country X mandates that all invoices paid by customers in country X must have certain taxes applied and remitted, AWS will set up a subsidiary in that country, bill in the locally currency, and remit taxes.
sudhirj
Can’t really be any other way, country X will usually stipulate that all taxes be remitted in the local currency. So they’ll have to be calculated in that currency, therefore invoices in that currency.
quesomaster9000
> So they’ll have to be calculated in that currency

Yes.

> therefore invoices in that currency.

No, the value of the foreign currency in the local currency at the tax date of the invoice is used to calculate the applicable local taxes. It's 100% A-OK for a Canadian company to invoice its Canadian customers in USD (or EUR) and pay taxes in CAD using GAAP rules for currency valuation (e.g. using the daily published interbank rates).

Many accounting or billing packages just do it the simple & dumb way though, so you end up with situations like the OP's.

brody_hamer
That's interesting.. Because DigitalOcean also has a Canadian subsidiary, collects HST (sales tax) and charges me in USD.

And an FAQ provided by AWS indicates:

> Invoices will be issued in CAD or USD based on the customer’s preference.

(From: https://aws.amazon.com/legal/AWSCA/)

hiram112
Wonder if this has anything to do with Canada tightening its control of their citizens' banks accounts and money flows between the US, etc. which was, of course, done under the excuse of "dangerous" trucker protests.

The promise of the internet allowing the free flow of information and knowledge has been crushed in the last decade as the tech monopolies have consolidated their control and happily work with local governments to ensure their own citizens are monitored and limited to only "approved" content - can't have nasty disinformation spreading, of course.

But even more insidious is the way that capital is still able to traverse the globe without issue - their corporate headquarters are moved to PO Boxes in tax shelters like the Caymans and Cyprus, they take advantage of wage and currency arbitrage by easily importing endless waves of lower waged workers from the developing world while simultaneously moving their manufacturing and service jobs the other way, while gobbling up resources and real estate at opportune times of currency fluctuations.

Meanwhile, the average pleb can't even take advantage of the same currency and wage arbitrage e.g. buying a digital movie or game or cloud services from another jurisdiction over a VPN. Or living overseas in a country with a lower cost of living (thus being able to purchase a home, start a family, etc) while working remotely for a company at 1st world salary.