Charge state tax even when you're out of state

[csmith]

I'm sure this has already been answered... but I can't figure out how to word it in a search to find it myself.

Live in state of Tennessee. Set up Zen-Cart to charge appropriate sales tax. Works great for me... of course I live in Tennessee.

People ordering from outside the state are also getting charged Tennessee tax when they shouldn't. I feel like I'm missing the obvious.

Any suggestions?

[timcfi]

I have just the opposite problem. I have a brick & mortar store and need to have Iowa sales tax applied always, but when customers from out of state buy something, it doesn't charge sales tax! How do I fix this? I've already set the tax basis to Store, but it doesn't appear to be doing this. Help!

[DrByte]

If you set up tax zones properly, taxes will be applied as configured.

There are many forum discussions on the topic of tax configuration, and some FAQ articles.
https://www.zen-cart.com/tutorials/index.php?article=76

[timcfi]

I read 'em all. I don't see what I'm missing.
All sales are in-store, no shipping ever.
When customers' home addresses are out of state, it doesn't charge tax, even though I've set the tax base to Store.

[DrByte]

I read 'em all. I don't see what I'm missing.
All sales are in-store, no shipping ever.
When customers' home addresses are out of state, it doesn't charge tax, even though I've set the tax base to Store.

So, what exactly have you configured for your Zone Definitions? and your Tax Rates?

[DrByte]

I'm sure this has already been answered... but I can't figure out how to word it in a search to find it myself.

Live in state of Tennessee. Set up Zen-Cart to charge appropriate sales tax. Works great for me... of course I live in Tennessee.

People ordering from outside the state are also getting charged Tennessee tax when they shouldn't. I feel like I'm missing the obvious.

Any suggestions?

csmith's problem is that they've not properly defined their Tennessee zone to be limited to Tennessee, and it's actually referring to the entire country.

[timcfi]

How do I define my state to NOT be limited to just that state? I want everyone to pay my state tax, because we're physically located here (Iowa) with 6% sales tax. People living in Illinois were not getting charged any sales tax.

[DrByte]

How do I define my state to NOT be limited to just that state? I want everyone to pay my state tax, because we're physically located here (Iowa) with 6% sales tax. People living in Illinois were not getting charged any sales tax.

First, I hope you've verified with your tax accountant that you're supposed to be charging tax to out-of-state customers.

Second, to change the scope of the zone being taxed, simply add the additional states to the list of states encompassed therein.
ie: Admin->Locations/Taxes->Zone Definitions->Choose your zone.
Click Define
Select the appropriate combination of states to be taxed by that zone definition/class/rate combination (which you can review in Admin->locations/taxes->tax rates)

[timcfi]

We're a bricks 'n mortar company, using ZC for billing. Therefore, all customers pay sales tax at our state rate, no matter where they come from. I didn't think I would need to set up every zone in the world in order to have them pay at the store location rate. I thought that when I set the Basis of Product Tax to Store, it would do exactly that.. Is this not true? If I'm doing something wrong, help!
Thanks for your patience.

[Kim]

I thought that when I set the Basis of Product Tax to Store, it would do exactly that.. Is this not true?

Zen Cart was not designed to be used as a POS system. We are happy you are using it that way, but the principals used to sell online are slightly different than your brick and mortar. The purpose of the "store tax basis: was to cover the situation when *either* the shipping or the billing address matches the tax zone of the store.

So - you either have to set every possible tax zone or do some custom coding to make one of the customer addresses match the store zone.