- Overivew
- Creating a Tax Region
- Priority
- Region Types
- Selecting Countries
- Entering Zip Codes
- Selecting States
- Setting Country for Zip Code Lookup
- Troubleshooting
Overview
Creating a tax region is the first step to automatically charging tax. Once you've setup a tax region, you will then be able to create a tax rate and apply it to the region. Multiple regions can be created. This article contains detailed explanations of the settings within the Tax Region Edit screen.
Note: If you use a 3rd party tax program such as Avalara for sales tax, the system will use that instead of the built in Tax Regions / Rates.
Creating a Tax Region
To create a tax region, navigate to Settings > Payments and Taxes > Tax Regions. Once there, click New:
Once you click new, the Edit Tax Region screen will be displayed:
For an explanation of each setting, continue reading.
Priority
Priority tells the cart which tax region to use in situations where the customer's zip or postal code is within two or more tax regions. A common setup is to have a region for an entire state, and another region for specific zip codes that have different tax rate than the rest of the state. In this situation, its possible for a customer's zip code to match both regions -- setting a higher priority on the more specific zip code region will ensure the right region and tax are calculated. If you only have on tax region, feel free to leave priority on its default setting.
Region Types
There's two region types:
- Country: tax rates applied to a region of this type will apply to the entire country or countries selected.
- Zip Code: tax rates applied to a region of this type will only apply to specific zip (or postal) codes OR to a specific state(s). Country for zip code lookup must be selected when using this region type (at the bottom after selecting zip code region type).
Selecting Countries
For country regions, countries can be selected. To select multiple countries, hold control while clicking a selection -- This will allow multiple selections to be highlighted. The region will apply to all the countries selected. A block of countries can be selected by shift+clicking.
Entering Zip Codes
Zip code regions have a text box for entering zip codes. If zip or postal codes are entered into this box, the region will only apply to these zip codes. Enter zip codes to make the region only apply to the specified zips, do not pick a state (you can limit the country these apply to below).
Separate by pressing [enter].
Selecting States
Zip code regions also allow for the selection of one or more states. To select multiple states, hold down the CTRL key and click on the state. To select a block of states, select the first state, hold down the SHIFT key and click the last state. The tax region will apply to all the states selected.
Setting Country for Zip Code Lookup
This setting must be set for zip code regions even if not using specific zip codes. Select the country that matches the states or zips entered above.
Troubleshooting
Wrong tax rate being applied? Check each region's priority. More specific regions should usually have a higher priority.
No tax rates being applied? Make sure a tax region is setup and verify that a tax rate is applied to the region. Confirm that the shipping zip code is within the tax region. Make sure customer or product are not flagged as "non tax".