Attribute not taxable on taxable Product

Hi Zenners -

We are using Zen Cart v1.5.4 and have a question that I haven't found an answer to.

It is for a music shop. The instruments are taxable products, as are additional items offered as attributes (music stand, music book). But we also have a mandatory Insurance attribute that should not be counted when calculating tax.


Hope that this makes sense. I want to set up the Insurance attribute to NOT be a taxable amount while the other attributes and item itself are taxable.

Thanks in advance!

An out-of-the-box Zen Cart doesn't distinguish between taxable and non-taxable attributes. If an attribute is associated with a product that's taxable, then the attribute is taxable.

As a possibility, you could reduce the price of the Insurance attribute assuming that it will be taxed, bringing the price to the full value. Of course, that won't cover the case where you sell out-of-state and tax doesn't apply (unless CA requires tax to be collected regardless).

I don't recall which plugn(s), but another path could be inclusion of a non-removable product that is not taxed, has no weight, etc... With applicable information provided before adding to the cart.

We ended up building an order total module to accomplish this. The dollar amount is added to the total for the product but the insurance attribute amount isn't taxed even when the product and other attributes that are attached to the product are taxable. If anyone is interested in knowing what we did, I'll add it later.