Florida's weird sales tax system

[evalguy]

According to Florida (where I'm located), the sales tax rate to be charged to a customer is equal to the base rate plus a surtax rate which depends on the county the products will be shipped to. Well, the customer does not enter their county, so they sent me a chart where I can lookup the couties for each zip code.

 

What's worse is that the tax is not computed based on the total amount of the sale multiplied by the total sales tax rate, but rather is based on the whole dollar amount times that total sales tax rate, but then I also have to add the sales tax for the part less than a dollar, which has to be looked-up on a chart (which they also sent me). There is a note they made about stating that multiplying the whole thing by the base rate could result in being a penny or two off, and I'd be subject to penalties for this. Arrrggghhh!!! Honestly, here I would prefer to add on 2 cents out of my pocket and pay them, rather than deal with implementing lookup-tables for the whole-vs-less-than-dollar part.

 

Also, sales tax needs to be charged on shipping if I don't offer them an option to pickup the package (which I don't).

 

I'm sure that there must be some of you here who are in Florida -- how did you handle this?

 

Thanks.

[Guest]

have a look here:

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,2046

http://www.oscommerce.com/community/contributions,4939

[evalguy]

Wow, that was easier that I expected. Works well so far. Thanks.