California Tax Rates

[MMN Maniac]

Based on the location or the type of product or the customer?

based on the location of the customer. If s/he's in NY, i'm obligated to charge sales tax

BTW, someone mentioned that u wrote a plugin/mod to make the Login | Home | my Account bar appear in a sidebox instead, but I can't find it under downloads (only found a related one by a "Jose Antonio Suarez" - is that it?)

Thanks Kim!

~MMN Maniac

[Kim]

http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/faq.php?faq=zone_tax_cfg FAQ on setting up taxes.

[clanmesa]

California has a state tax - 6%, a combined state and local tax of 1%, a county tax of .25%, and then one or two of approximately 84 different districts collect their taxes. If you are in California selling your product to Californians, you collect the applicable sales tax in the district in which the sale took place - the customer's district, not yours.

When you file your sales tax return, you have to break down your sales by state, state & local, county, and district. It is not enough to charge an aggregate amount, because the form has you put the total amount of sales in EACH district. Even though each county generally counts as a district, some cities and localities within those districts are their own districts, and you collect tax for them, too.

When it comes to collecting sales taxes, the California State Board of Equalization makes the collection arm of the IRS look like a bunch of fluffy teddy bears. DO NOT CROSS THEM. Their philosophy is that you have a fiduciary responsibility to remand on a timely basis the taxes you collect on the state's behalf. The state has no qualms whatsoever about going in and seizing the funds in your checking accounts until they are satisfied they have all that's coming to them. No 30-day notices like the IRS gives you.

Certain products and services may or may not be taxable. The state has publications, including audit manuals (they *love* to audit people), that will explain in a way you can barely understand what is taxable or not.

If you are tempted to ignore them and do what you want...I don't suggest it, especially since all sorts of national, state, and local agencies are sharing financial information with each other. If they don't know now, they probably will later, then you'll have penalties and interest tacked on.

I'm not an accountant, although I do the bookkeeping and taxes for my business, I've been an A/P and full-charge bookkeeper, and I've sailed through my accounting class. I don't work for the state. I'm not a tax attorney. I've been on the wrong side of the BOE, and it's a place I never want to visit again.

***Now, based on the above, is the Zen Cart sales tax module up to the requirements of the state?***

[TinaS]

I helped install and create a clothing / custom embroidery shop web site using Zen last year. They are here in California. I am also ( I should say WAS a ) book keeper full charge with my degree for 15 years.

I do remember that our zen cart was set to charge the tax based on location in California, though we only had it set up for either 7.25% or 7.75% it did work the way it was supposed to.

Unfortunately that site thought they outgrew zen and they went to a commercial application for their site, and the last version of zen I had installed and running was 1.2.7 (I think) and I really don't remember how we set it up - we may bave paid someone to mod Zen.


So I know that it IS possible - unfortunately I cannot for sure tell you how

[clanmesa]

How would I find out? I seriously need it to at least separately track sales in each sales tax district.