Paypal Express Tax on Shipping

[DBB1]

I have an issue or two with the ZC/Paypal Express integration:

I've been testing my new site out with live card transactions. While ZC manages everything just fine, I noticed that the Paypal order summary was not adding sales tax to the shipping amount. Even though the order total was correct, the shipping tax amount was added in as part of the shipping cost, while the tax amount for the order was based only on the item. For example, on a $1.00 test item where shipping was $6.45:

Test Item Amount: $1.00
State Sales Tax (8.25%): $0.08
Shipping: $6.98
Total: $8.06

As you can see, the $0.53 that is the 8.25% tax on the $6.45 shipping was added in to the delivery cost, and not the order tax amount.

I saw a post Dr. Byte answered from a couple of years ago for the same issue, but they never identified a fix, only what was happening.

I have Paypal Express configured to calculate tax on shipping, and my built-in UPS, USPS, and add-on FedEx modules are all set as Taxable items. What else am I missing?

Issue Part Two: To compound things, I put the ZC Paypal setting to debug mode, and configured Paypal to authorize-only while I was poking around my system testing and looking for a cause for all this. While doing this, I got a batch of debug emails from what looks like might be my first customer! While I'm tickled pink that someone found my site, her account shows up in Admin, but it looks like the order was either not completed or never made it in. No record of anything shows in Paypal yet (or does Paypal debug mode prevent true ordering?), so maybe she just abandoned her cart; I'm not sure yet how to determine that, but I don't want to foul up what might be my first order...

While this is all pretty comical, any help on the shipping tax (and possible order thoughts) would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
-DBB1

[DrByte]

Zen Cart version?
List of addons?
PHP Version?

[DBB1]

Zen Cart version?
List of addons?
PHP Version?

Zen Cart: v1.3.9h

PHP: v5.2.14

Add-ons:
- Image Handler v2
- Easy Populate v1.2.5.4
- MAP Pricing v1.1
- Super Orders v20-1.3.9
- CK Editor v3.2.1a
- Column Divider Pro v0-4
- Fual Slimbox v0-1-5
- Numinix Categories Center Box
- jQuery Cycle Slideshow
- Numinix FedEx Module v1.4.5.2

[DrByte]

I have an issue or two with the ZC/Paypal Express integration:

I've been testing my new site out with live card transactions. While ZC manages everything just fine, I noticed that the Paypal order summary was not adding sales tax to the shipping amount. Even though the order total was correct, the shipping tax amount was added in as part of the shipping cost, while the tax amount for the order was based only on the item. For example, on a $1.00 test item where shipping was $6.45:

Test Item Amount: $1.00
State Sales Tax (8.25%): $0.08
Shipping: $6.98
Total: $8.06

As you can see, the $0.53 that is the 8.25% tax on the $6.45 shipping was added in to the delivery cost, and not the order tax amount.

A common question I must ask in order to diagnose something that I cannot replicate here is:
What exact steps would I need to follow to set up the same scenario on *my* site, starting from a brand new clean fresh uncustomized install, with demo products, and all default settings set to USD, tax-not-included-in-pricing, Florida-only tax, default shipping modules, default payment modules, default order total settings, etc. What do I have to set up to make the problem happen for me?
Once I have that then I can diagnose the problem and hopefully a solution.

I saw a post Dr. Byte answered from a couple of years ago for the same issue, but they never identified a fix, only what was happening.

It would be helpful if you could point me to that post. I don't recall the exact scenario. If it's really the same issue I would have expected to have fixed it

Issue Part Two: To compound things, I put the ZC Paypal setting to debug mode, and configured Paypal to authorize-only while I was poking around my system testing and looking for a cause for all this. While doing this, I got a batch of debug emails from what looks like might be my first customer! While I'm tickled pink that someone found my site, her account shows up in Admin, but it looks like the order was either not completed or never made it in. No record of anything shows in Paypal yet (or does Paypal debug mode prevent true ordering?), so maybe she just abandoned her cart; I'm not sure yet how to determine that, but I don't want to foul up what might be my first order...

Debug mode doesn't prevent customers from buying.
If payment was never submitted, then the customer has abandoned the purchase, whether by choice, or after encountering an error either on your site or at PayPal.

[DBB1]

Thanks again for replying, Dr. Byte.

It would be helpful if you could point me to that post. I don't recall the exact scenario. If it's really the same issue I would have expected to have fixed it

Took me a while to find it again, but that post is here. The problem described is exactly what I'm seeing; the tax on shipping is being added onto the shipping cost.

As far as the other request, I've been documenting all my CSS/PHP changes, graphics work, custom template install, and every little tweak, etc. and am up to 30 some odd pages. I understand where you're coming from, but recreating my site seems like a pretty tall order...

Problem is, when I first realized I needed to charge tax on shipping and found/set the option in my PayPal account and ZC config, I thought it was working fine. But on a couple of subsequent tests, it seemed to revert back to what I described earlier. The only other thing I changed between the time I thought it worked, to the time it 'reverted' was moving the ZC PayPal option to 'authorize' from 'final sale.'

I tried to do additional testing with live cards, thinking the problem may be based on actual shipping options (ground, express, etc.), but PayPal is now giving me those dreaded "card you entered cannot be used for this payment" and "transaction cannot be completed because it is associated with a different PayPal account" messages - I've apparently gotten all my cards now tied to PayPal, and something is cross-ways between my Zen Cart test accounts and PayPal. Maddening...

-DBB1

[DrByte]

Took me a while to find it again, but that post is here. The problem described is exactly what I'm seeing; the tax on shipping is being added onto the shipping cost.

Yes, that's by design.
PayPal doesn't allow for a means to submit the amount of shipping tax as a separate line item like it does for products. As such, we back out the shipping tax from the tax subtotal and apply it to the shipping amount directly.

[DBB1]

Yes, that's by design.
PayPal doesn't allow for a means to submit the amount of shipping tax as a separate line item like it does for products. As such, we back out the shipping tax from the tax subtotal and apply it to the shipping amount directly.

So, by setting the Merchant's PayPal account to charge tax on shipping indicates that PayPal is actually doing the math on their end to break it out properly, based on the tax rate used in their configuration.

This would tend to indicate then, that my issue is on the PayPal side, and not in the ZC integration? The person I got at PayPal indicated that the issue was in the cart integration... I'll try them again.

Bottom line, I would be collecting the proper amount to cover my state's tax requirement, but seeing shipping amounts during the checkout process change during the payment portion would be fairly disconcerting to a shopper, I would think.

Thanks, Dr. Byte.

[DBB1]

I don't know, something seems to be fouled up on the ZC side. The steps for ordering using PayPal Express seem to be out of whack:

1- Item placed in cart, and proceed to checkout.
2- Select PayPal button without registering (as if new customer)
3- Am taken to PayPal Express site to enter card or log in (I choose to enter card info without logging in, and select "Review Payment")
4- At this point, I'm prompted that I have a PayPal account. I choose to "Continue without logging in."
5- PayPal then shows me the order summary, with no tax, and no shipping - just the line item I'm checking out.
6- Clicking "continue" at this point takes me back to the ZC shipping option screen ("Step 1 of 3 - Delivery Information").
7- I select a shipping method and click continue, and I get the ZC order summary page ("Step 2 of 3 - Payment Information:"

Sub-Total: $1.00
United States Postal Service (Parcel Post (4 - 7 days)): $4.90
State Tax (8.25%): $0.49
Total: $6.39

So the figures are correct, here. If I continue, I'm taken to the ZC "Step 3 of 3 Order Confirmation" page. Confirming completes the order, and PayPal processes the transaction - I'm not getting any indication of shipping on the PayPal page (let alone shipping tax) in this scenario.

It appears that the process is out of sequence. I would think I would get to choose shipping method before getting sent out to PayPal's order summary - Step 6 should occur before step 2, I would think.

What's going on?

[DrByte]

So, by setting the Merchant's PayPal account to charge tax on shipping indicates that PayPal is actually doing the math on their end to break it out properly, based on the tax rate used in their configuration.

This would tend to indicate then, that my issue is on the PayPal side, and not in the ZC integration?

Correct. You CANNOT have PayPal set up to calculate taxes or shipping if you want to use Website Payments Standard to submit your payment transactions from an online store.
You'd have to either turn off all those options OR just have your store use Express Checkout instead.

It appears that the process is out of sequence. I would think I would get to choose shipping method before getting sent out to PayPal's order summary - Step 6 should occur before step 2, I would think.

No, that's exactly how PayPal designed the Express Checkout Shortcut option to work. You select your final shipping and coupon details on the store site after first logging in to PayPal.
Customers still get to choose their options as usual.
Their account is not charged until they confirm the order at the end.
If you absolutely cannot live with that logic and you're 1000% convinced that your customers can't, then turn off the EC Shortcut button in your store preferences. Then your customers will be forced to create an account on your store before they can checkout, and they will only ever see any payment options, including PayPal, AFTER they get to the checkout_payment page.

[DBB1]

Correct. You CANNOT have PayPal set up to calculate taxes or shipping if you want to use Website Payments Standard to submit your payment transactions from an online store.
You'd have to either turn off all those options OR just have your store use Express Checkout instead.

I'm only using Express Checkout, so I should expect PayPal to reflect proper tax on shipping then, correct?

PayPal doesn't allow for a means to submit the amount of shipping tax as a separate line item like it does for products. As such, we back out the shipping tax from the tax subtotal and apply it to the shipping amount directly.

Upon re-reading, this comment confuses me... So if ZC passes PayPal a single shipping value that contains shipping tax, and if PayPal doesn't know to split this back out so as to display it properly, it would also mean that - if my PayPal Express account were configured to calculate tax on shipping - I should be seeing not only the shipping rate Zen Cart has passed to PP (which contains shipping tax), but also PP's shipping tax as calculated against the ZC shipping amount. This , means I would have collected 2x the shipping tax. Wouldn't it?

Does PayPal Express Checkout ever show the proper shipping tax on any of the PP pages or emails for other ZC users, or am I back to thinking it's just my site with the issue?