newbie tax question

[frobscottle]

I'm sorry if I'm being stupid.

 

I've been configuring my install and I'm just about ready to go live, but I can't get the sales tax to work. I followed the instructions at http://wiki.oscommerce.com/docsAdminTaxSetup

as best I could, but they don't seem to be quite accurate, and in any case it's not working. What I need is to charge CA residents 7.75% and everyone else nothing. Is there any more documentation or does anyone have any ideas? I'm stumped.

 

Thanks,

 

Ernie Frobscottle

[jonesboy]

You're not being stupid. I am having the same problem. The store is adding the single state sales tax to all orders.

 

So, as I search through all the posts ... if anyone knows a quick answer, I would also appreciate it!

[jonesboy]

Ahhh.... my problem was spelling the state out ... duhhhhh.

 

Here is an excellent step by step I found on the forums posted by Ripper.

 

In admin, under Locations/Taxes, click on "Tax Zones"

 

 

-Click on the "new zone" button. In the Zone Name: input field I enter "CA"

-For Description I enter "California". Click on "insert"

-After you click insert, you will see CA show up in the list. You think you're done, but not quite!

-Click on the "CA" (or whatever name you have!) in the list and you will see the heading say "Geographical Zones / CA"

Here you see a "new zone" button again. Click on it!

Now you get to select a geographical zone. From Country, I Select United States

From Region, Select California. Click "update"

A few more steps to go! Now under "Locations/Taxes" click on "Tax Rates"

Click on "new tax rate" button

Select "Taxable Goods" from the Tax Class Title drop down menu

From the Zone menu, select CA (or whatever zone you created)

In the Tax Rate field enter the tax percentage

In the Description, enter the description, e.g. "California Sales Tax"

 

Now you're done!

[jkmccabe]

Not quite done yet. California has 34 separate tax amounts by county. I'm trying to set up the County Sales Tax Modification with limited success. So, here's a really, really stupid question: If one doesn't own MySQL's "phpAdmin," how does one open the database file (or even find it)? :huh:

[frobscottle]

I'm still having no luck with the tax thing. Anybody?

 

Re the MySQL tables, my web hosting company has a control panel which allows you to directly manipulate the tables. Not for novices, but very useful. Your hosting people may offer the same thing. If not, you might want to consider moving to one that does. Or you can ask your host to do a specific task for you. If you have no experience with RDBMS's, do not go messing about with the tables. It's an easy way to lose or mess up your data.

 

My two cents,

 

Ernie

[frobscottle]

Here's another weird thing that may or may not matter. When a customer creates an account, there's a place for her name, address, post code and country, but nothing for (US) state. The state never shows up in the address. The more I think about it, the more that does not sound right. How can the cart know how much to charge?

 

Ernie

[frobscottle]

I found what was wrong. Basically I was having a problem because I was being STUPID. I didn't have the right value in the following admin setting: config, customer information, state.

 

Sorry,

 

Ernie