Quote Originally Posted by j_boo View Post
Is this correct? Is there an easier way? Does everyone do this?
Yes that is correct, if you want to charge tax specifically by county.
No, not everyone does this, its just one option to try and make sure you are charging the correct tax, some people charge tax by zip code only, its not as accurate but its better than simply applying one tax for the whole state. The mod is specifically designed so that you choose what method works best for your state and situation. You can charge by zip, by city, by suburb (aka - address 2), you can set up the counties or not. Its up to you.

If you had it set up by zip code or city and are happy with it then you dont have to change it to the county zones, its only a suggestion (I included it in the readme because its one of the questions I get asked the most and its far to lengthy a process to keep explaining.)

Quote Originally Posted by j_boo View Post
This is more work than anyone should have to do as far as getting taxes going. I can't see everyone that sells in CA going thru all this work! There's got to be a better way.
Better ways? There are other ways, there are tax services that charge monthly fees to calculate the sales tax for you (similar to the shipping mods to calculate shipping costs). But they are not free, far from it. There are also other eCommerce systems available some of the hosted ones have built in sales tax options to calculate tax for you, but these are never free (at least none that I am aware of). Frankly, for a free open source system, zen cart has one of the most detailed sales tax options available among all the carts I have looked at, including ones that are not free.

I can see you are frustrated, its one of the reasons I wrote the mod in the first place. CA has one of the most complicated sales taxes out there, so do TX and NY among others, which is why you will find entire threads here and on eCommerce boards all over the web dedicated to sales tax issues. Frankly the best resource you have is your fellow CA business owners, they are all struggling with the same issues you are.

There are several other threads in this forum discussing CA sales taxes, one of them may offer a different approach for you, but I can't stress enough the need for caution, especially when taking what seems to be an easy solution, check with your taxing authority directly to be sure you are doing things correctly, after all YOU are the one that will have to deal with the government if you get audited. I'm pretty sure "someone on the internet told me I could do it this way", isn't going to get you out of trouble if you do get audited.

Unfortunately, the states simply don't care whether or not you are a small business with limited resources. The tax laws are what they are and states want what they want. Supposedly several of the states are trying to "streamline" the way this is done, but frankly they have accomplished little to nothing.


Quote Originally Posted by j_boo View Post
Also, the Local Sales Tax page is too wide. It was much better before. I have a 22" monitor and it's 2.5 widths wide.
I'm afraid I'm not seeing this, I have only 17" monitor but things appear correctly for me. Its most likely a bi-product of large data field, the mod was never really designed for the long entries.
I need a screen shot of the page to offer a correction or fix.



LadyHLG