Local Sales Tax Mod (with admin!) for testing

[Twbeebe]

I'm sorry the mod doesn't do quite what you were looking for, we all seem to be struggling for different solutions to the same problem.

The simple truth is there simply is no way for the cart to know what county a person is in based only on the zip code. Some people choose to tax by zip anyway since its the best they can do under the circumstances, and for some its not a problem.

In Wisconsin I set up each county as a separate zone with separate taxes rather than a single WI zone, and that has worked just fine.

I think the best we can hope for is that the developers at some point will add "county" as one of the permanent address options. Until then we are left with mods and work arounds.

LadyHLG

Hello All,

I recently discovered a bug in the core files that has now been corrected. In Admin, the customer file said 'Suburb', externally the SIgn-Up area said 'Address 2'. I changed the labels on both of those to state "County" so that when a customer is filling in the form, that line description is described as"County - Calif Only". That gives me the field to be able to pull from. I am generating an Excel matrix for State/County/City(Zip) taxes. Once completed, it should be importable as a CSV, the County can be pulled from the redefined 'data field' suburb/address 2 ?

[Twbeebe]

Hello Lady HLG,

I have a new issue.. I needed to redo a scratch build reload of all files due to a failing mod. When I got back to yours, I ran-up the SQL patch and it saif that it 'Failed' ? Since I did not redo the exisiting databses through MyPHPadmin, I fugured it was complaining about it already being there ? I went in, deleted the xxx_tax_rates_local table, reran the SQL and it failed ? I am perplexes as to what to clean-up to complete the reinstall of your mod ? Help please ?

[LadyHLG]

Try opening the sql file and copying the sql statement and pasting it into the text field on the Install Sql Patches page rather than uploading the file. For some reason some people have issues with the sql file and some don't.
Let me know if that works.

LadyHLG

[amylynpace]

Hi all,

Thanks for this mod. I think it may be my salvation.

I swear I had it working last night but I must have changed something that broke it. Go figure.

Am I correct in the following?

- Local sales tax follows cart setting for whether tax is charged on billing or shipping address (I use shipping).

- Zone tax and local tax can include tax on shipping service. (I do)

- Local sales tax (.5%) should be compounded to zone tax? (5%) for a total tax of 5.5%

My zone tax appears as zero dollars but my local tax is correct. Have you run into this before? My zones are set up correctly. What would you look at to troubleshoot this?

Thanks
Amy

[amylynpace]

Nevermind. Problem was in the Zones Definition, as expected. I recreated it and it works now.

Thanks again
Amy

[LadyHLG]

I was just about to suggest checking over the zones. Glad you have it sorted out.

LadyHLG

[Twbeebe]

Try opening the sql file and copying the sql statement and pasting it into the text field on the Install Sql Patches page rather than uploading the file. For some reason some people have issues with the sql file and some don't.
Let me know if that works.

LadyHLG

Hello Lady HLG,

I tried the drop and pray, but my prayers weren't answered.

I rebuilt the table from scratch and all seems to be in order ? I do have some enlightening news for California stores.. I have compiled, from the latest Tax Tables, from the State Board of Equalization -AND- the US Post Office, a CSV that has the following; City, County, Zipcode and specific Tax Rate for each city/town(ship). Hopefully, you will be able to use it to do a final integration that will P/U on the Zipcode for the shipping address, and charge the tax accordingly ? There is 1545 towns in the CSV, some having only a single zip, many having multiple zip codes, still on a single line. I may need to cleanup the delimiters a little bit due to the fact that, by habit, I always put a space after a comma ? Let me know ? I feel that this will be a contribution to the cause, once you, or another contrib member, work out the fine details ? I also added an extra data line to your table called entry_suburb which matches the data field in the address_book, which seems to be where the 'Sign Up' customer information gets stored ? I will be your guinea pig, online or off. California is cracking down and the penalties are getting worse.

[LadyHLG]

I'm not sure I understand the point of the extra field for subburb. What are you using it for?

LadyHLG

[Twbeebe]

I'm not sure I understand the point of the extra field for subburb. What are you using it for?

LadyHLG

Initially when I started creating the Data file, I wasn't sure that I could get a tax rate for EACH city or township, so I was thinking that I could use the fallback Suburb field for the County tax rates that the township sat within to get closer to the true rate vs. the state base rate. Make sense ?

[LadyHLG]

Have you considered setting up zones for each county instead? That way you can tax by county and one other sub-division such as zip or city for those zips that span multiple counties.

Just another way to tackle the issue.

LadyHLG