VAT being calculated but not added to total?

[christopherw]

Done a fresh install of 1.3.9f, a couple of extra shipping (Royal Mail shipping files, as found on this forum) and the SecureTrading payment mod.

I've set up the UK Zones (as found on this forum) and set up a standard VAT zone with 17.5% VAT applied to all EU countries.

We got an order in this evening and I noticed that the price was too low - doing a test order, at every stage the price is calculated correctly (including VAT) - even at Step 3/3 at the checkout. However the final Total price DOES NOT include VAT, and this is the one presented to the customer as the final price.

I can't figure out why it might be doing this, but I've probably been staring at the screen too long. Can anybody shed some light on why this might be happening?

[christopherw]

I've just somewhat answered my own question... For some reason "Basis of Product Tax" in the My Store configuration section was set to Store instead of Shipping. Changing it to Shipping immediately showed the correct details on the final checkout page.

This appears to be a bug? Wilt if you read this, could you shed some light on why this happens?

I suppose it will be useful in the interim for anybody who has the same problem in future. What I don't understand is, why isn't the VAT not being added correctly to the Total amount if the option is set to Store in admin? Surely as the UK is in the EU, it should add the VAT to the final total irrespective...


I would appreciate any insight from more expert Zenners!

[wilt]

Hi,

Do you have the UK counties mod installed ?

i.e do UK counties show as an address option, for customers, when entering their addresses

[christopherw]

Hi Wilt,

yep, I added the UK zones as one of the first things. They're all defined as part of the UK and show up (to me) ok but I suspect you're going to correct me? ;)

[christopherw]

Hi,

Do you have the UK counties mod installed ?

i.e do UK counties show as an address option, for customers, when entering their addresses

As I previously responded, that's exactly how it's set up. Frustratingly I thought I'd bodged a workaround for this problem, but even with Basis of Product Tax & Shipping Tax both set to "Shipping" it's still not actually including the calculated VAT amount in the total before the customer is billed. This is driving me a bit mad.

[christopherw]

Just realised you said "do they show as an address option for customers" - ours is slightly different; customers can enter a county of their choice but the site will error trap and show the dropdown box with the "please choose from the dropdown" if they type it wrong. This also works in the Address Book once they're logged in.

Doing a bit more sleuthing, it appears that I'm half wrong, half right. I have VAT applied to the various modules and it seemed to be working fine to start with (we're VAT registered so that's all ok).. I'm using the zone rates for our courier offering and the Royal Mail shipping modules with updated pricing (manually entered by me!) - again, with.

With the Admin -> My Store tax settings set to Shipping, VAT calculation and charging behaves like you expect it to. How come it behaves like that though? Surely it should only calculate correctly given that VAT is calculated and charged based on the rate in the host country of the shop? (I'm marking this down to Zen Cart's US-centric behaviour if nothing else, unless you have a better understanding of why it behaves as it does :)

The VAT displayed is actually already included in the subtotal amounts for items and shipping, which has also been confusing me. It seems stupid but it's just not been "clicking", even though the prices for the goods and the courier-based zone shipping are clearly calculated including VAT on the invoice (it's just that the VAT is stated separately as well as included in subtotal items which was confusing me). This isn't how I'm used to seeing UK invoices, always the subtotal is excluding VAT, the VAT is then stated and the final total includes the VAT. Zen Cart displays the tax very oddly but I'm wondering if there's an option which can override this display preference somewhere and I've just not found it yet.

[crazycucumber]

This isn't how I'm used to seeing UK invoices, always the subtotal is excluding VAT, the VAT is then stated and the final total includes the VAT. Zen Cart displays the tax very oddly but I'm wondering if there's an option which can override this display preference somewhere and I've just not found it yet.

Did you find a work around for this , it confuses our customers too!