Shipping and Billing

[designcraft]

Hello,

I have one tax rate, 5.5%. This tax rate is for only the state of WI. So if a customer purchases something and they live in Wisconsin the tax should be charged, correct? I noticed that when the billing address is from another state and the shipping address is in Wisconsin, tax is charged and when the shipping address is not in Wisconsin then the tax is not charged. Shouldn't the tax be based on the billing address not shipping?

 

Confused. A little advice?

[TcRobert]

I'm facing the exact same problem, and just tried to post the same thing, but for some reason my post didn't go live... here's a quote of what I was going to post:

 

The web site / online store is based in Michigan. If a customer from Michigan purchases and item and it is shipped to a Michigan address (both billing and shipping addresses are in Michigan), it charges tax just fine. If both the shipping and billing addresses are outside the state, then it doesn't charge tax. So far, so good... right?

 

The problem: When somebody (billing address) is in Michigan, but they are shipping out of state (shipping address) -- it won't charge them tax! :blink:

 

Is there any way that I can fix this? It seems to work fine except for those few people who are in Michigan (billing addy) but ship outside the state (shipping addy).

 

Thanks so much!!!

 

Robert

 

P.S. The cart version is "osCommerce 2.2-MS2"

[cleveland-jay]

I've been playing with taxes in the order class among others trying to get sales taxes by county working properly. It's based off the contribution for New York surtaxes by county.

 

In any event, these questions are more for your state tax office than here. At least until you get an answer from that tax office. For instance, here in Ohio, my state tax office says that if I ship an item in-state, then the tax to be applied is the purchaser's county rate, unless I'm billing that customer at an out-of-state address when no sales tax is to be applied. If that same customer picks it up in my brick-and-mortar store, then my store's county rate applies, even if I'm mailing the bill to them either in-state or out-of-state.

 

Now, the kickers that sales taxes the biggest nightmare. Ohio is doing away with destination based sales taxes and reverting to origin taxes as of January 1, 2009. So, all my county based work goes away in 6 months. Second, we have the option for local delivery via our truck and not utilizing a common carrier. If we deliver an order, our delivery charges are taxable, but if we ship an order via UPS, Fedex, etc., it is not. As far as I know, that problem stays forever and does not disappear in January. And the big kicker that was on CNN last night, is that effective June 1, New York is demanding sales taxes from everybody selling an item in their state regardless of where YOU are. Lots of people are lining up against this in court as its a violation of Federal law, but you never know what a court will rule. We may all be adding New York rates if our store is US-based.

 

You need to list the possibilities for shipping/billing/delivery and go over each case for sales taxes with either your accountants and/or state tax office. Then, you make the code in the store match that logic. That's what I'm doing now.

--

Jay