Sales Tax

[mkent]

I am trying to setup the Tax Zones for California. It looks like I have 2 options.

1.) Setup zones in AC, but since the ZipCode section will only aloow 255 characters, thsi would cause me to setup and maintain approx 50 zones for California.

2.) Use an online realtime service like Avalar Sales Tax. (Which is VERY expensive).

My question is, can I create a SQL table with the Zipcode and Tax% and lookup the taxes from that SQL table?

thanks

[Logan Rhodehamel]

I think something like this could be done quite easily by implementing a custom tax provider. It would be an intermediate task for a developer. We publish the tax provider interface as part of our developer documentation:

http://wiki.ablecommerce.com/index.php/ ... x_Provider

If you created a custom table with all the zip codes and corresponding tax rates, you could then create a custom tax provider that performs the lookup and calculation. This way your modification would be insulated against software upgrades.

[mkent]

thanks alot Logan, just know that this is possible has made my day

[ZLA]

I am not familiar with the tax zone rules in California but just in case my situation in Missouri is similar, you may want to look at this post: viewtopic.php?f=42&t=11341. If you situation is similar you may want to contact your accountant and see if you just need a single California rate rather than the individual zip code rates.

[jmestep]

Logan,
Would creating a custom tax provider be a good solution for the merchant who had 639 able tax rules and it was causing such a slowdown adding products to the basket?

[ZLA]

1.) Setup zones in AC, but since the ZipCode section will only aloow 255 characters, thsi would cause me to setup and maintain approx 50 zones for California.

I haven't tried the following but it seems like you might be able to just remove the MaxLength value from PostalCodeFilter in http://localhost/StorkGifts/Admin/Shipp ... pZone.aspx and change the database's field definition to nvarchar(max). Since the datatype is a string and assuming no sql stored procedures are involved, it should flow through the system without problems. If that works, you just need to create the csv zipcode value. You might also have to re-apply the database field change and value after any future AC upgrades.

I don't know if parsing a string 12000 characters long would degrade performance too much but I wouldn't think so.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

Postal code filters can be regular expressions. I have presented draft documentation for inclusion on the help website. In the meantime, I posted it on the wiki.

http://wiki.ablecommerce.com/index.php/ ... n_Matching

This could help cut down on the length of the zipcodes. But in my mind, you are going to get much better performance by implementing a zipcode lookup table. In fact, depending on the number of codes, you could almost cache the entire lookup table in memory and avoid the database completely.

Whether a custom provider would help someone with 639 tax rules, I can't say. It depends on why they need that many rules and whether there is a simpler way to calculate the applied tax rate. If it's something were you can do a simple lookup on a certain field, then yes there are probably gains to be made by creating a custom provider. Remember our tax rules have to calculate a large number of possibilities. But for a particular merchant some of the rules are already known (e.g. you only need to calculate for a particular state). That means the code can be much more specific and efficient.

[sdlong02]

I am trying to setup the Tax Zones for California. It looks like I have 2 options.

1.) Setup zones in AC, but since the ZipCode section will only aloow 255 characters, thsi would cause me to setup and maintain approx 50 zones for California.

2.) Use an online realtime service like Avalar Sales Tax. (Which is VERY expensive).

My question is, can I create a SQL table with the Zipcode and Tax% and lookup the taxes from that SQL table?

thanks

I've done alot of research and contacted the CA BOE several times to figure out how to apply tax rates to our sales. I've seen several different tales on how taxes should be charged, including from Avalar, however after speaking to the BoE and reading the documentation, you only need to worry about 2 tax rates. Your own city's tax rate and the state-wide tax rate.

As usual the problem with calculating tax by ZipCode is that ZipCode's span across city/tax zones so it's possible a ZipCode is applicable to both tax rates.

[mkent]

LT - when you said you only need to worry about 2 tax rates. Your own city's tax rate and the state-wide tax rate. I'm in Texas so we are trying to figure out what to actual charge because we have presence in CA.

Currently, I have made the change that CAPTAIN suggested and it is working OK, but I wouild rather not maintain all these rates manually , but the answer may be that I do not need to charge all these rates.

[mkent]

OK - so I need to calculate by the COUNTY. What is the solution?

[sdlong02]

OK - so I need to calculate by the COUNTY. What is the solution?

As far as I know, since Able is only capable of filtering by ZIP, your only perfect solution is a 3rd party tax provider.

For your presence in CA, I'm assuming this is a warehouse location or store front which encompasses your company into CA nexus, I believe this means you charge the county tax of the location of said warehouse/store when purchases are made inside the same county and use the state-wide tax for any purchases outside of said county.

P.S. You're naming us by our forum rank not our actual nicks

[jmestep]

You could possibly have customer select the county from a drop down box if they are in a particular state. Then have tax rules for each of the counties and do a lookup to that rule from the selected value.

[ZLA]

Another option may be to use an approximate sales tax and push the reconciliation to your sales tax reporting. I believe the legal requirements are to pay sales tax to the state, not a legal requirement to collect it. So say you have two rates that are not very different. If you just charge the lower one, you can still pay the state the correct amounts based on your actual sales figures.

If the difference isn't too great, it could be cheaper than paying for a third party solution. Just a thought.

[sdlong02]

Also I may have mentioned it as a county in previous post, but there are tax variations within counties.

For ex. my city is still considered a part of LA County, but I have local city taxes that are added on top of the state-wide tax. A neighbouring city still in the same county, may not have the same city taxes as me and run at a lower/higher tax rate.

Using what Judy suggested, depending on the location of your warehouse - you can use a check on the address to look for the buyer's CITY, if it matches the city your business is located in, use city's tax rate, if not, all else use the state-wide tax.

[crockettdunn]

I see I'm jumping in here a couple years after this forum was last active. Has a standard preferred method emerged for handling a single zip with multiple tax zones? Approximation and post-sale accounting reconciliation? 3rd party service? State offered solution?

My client is in AL.

[Logan Rhodehamel]

It seems your best option would be to go with a third party service. We've integrated AvaTax in the later 7x line - I think 7.0.4 and above? This provides you with calculation services as well as more robust reporting and accounting.

Unfortunately Alabama isn't into the streamlined sales tax group yet - seems like they are working that direction. As such I don't see an easy way to calculate them from a state offered solution yet. If there is one and I just didn't find it, one other possibility is to integrate the calculator into AbleCommerce. That will provide you with the calculation service but post-sale accounting and reports will be limited to the tools within our own software.

Hope that helps.