Super California Sales Tax Add-on

[wendyandmilo]

To all my fellow Californians:
I've modified two add-ons: one from mzimmers (zc forum poster) and the Order History Export mod (found in the official add-ons section) to make it easier to apply and record CA sales tax. These are the current rates found on the BOE website effective Oct 2010. I haven't included a db change file for the tax rates change effective April 1 yet. If there is enough of a response, I'll post the file later.

The required files in this add-on apply sales tax according to the billing city and on the invoices/order details, the tax is labeled according to county (since the BOE needs to know which counties to send the money to). Your bookeeper will love you for this. Example: Order from Granada Hills, CA --> Los Angeles County CA 9.75% Tax: $xx.xx on the tax line in the order.

The optional files are to export the following information into an excel spreadsheet: order #, date, customer name, address, county and rate, subtotal, tax, shipping and total. The possibilities for this are endless. You could easily sort the lines by alphabetizing the "County" column then use a function to total up how much tax was paid. Again, a bookeeper's heaven.

There are no core file modifications, but a new table will be added to your database.

**KNOWN BUGS**
1. In Super Orders 3.0, the tax does not get listed in the horizontal column of order details/invoice, however it is still in the vertical column with subtotal and shipping charges.
2. The same issue is found during checkout and in the customer’s account details. However, this is fixed by taking out a few lines of code. If this is an issue for you (ie you only tax in CA), let me know and I'll post the solution here.
3. The Export History page does *not* mark which orders have previously been downloaded; for the moment, simply take note of which order you left off with on the last download. This is my highest priority to fix.
4. The Export History exports all orders, not just CA. Not sure if this is a good thing or just annoying.

I hope to have time to work on the bugs soon, but since it does work and does the job just fine, I thought I'd post it here in case someone else wanted it in the meantime.

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This has only been tested with ZC 1.3.9h. I have no reason to believe that it won't work in older versions, but if there are issues, post them here and I'll try to help. Y'all can be the guinea pigs :)
This also works with the Tax Exempt Add-on.

Help yourself and let me know about issues!

[hliang]

I installed the CA Tax Rate table and at checkout process, the local CA tax rate was pickup correctly, however, the total order amount does not equal to the amount each line add up. Below is an example:
Sub-Total: $39.60
San Bernardino County CA 8.75% Tax: $3.47
United Parcel Service (Ground): $12.07
Total: $55.48

Obviously, the total sales amount should be $55.14 instead of $55.48. Do you know which part of the calculation went wrong?

[Kim]

Please post your module to the Free Addons section.

[wendyandmilo]

hliang,
Well, since the tax is calculated properly, I'm not sure. Can you tell me what *all* the settings are in your Order Totals? (Admin -> Modules -> Order Total).

Wendy

[hliang]

I have found several issues with this module.
1) When the low order fee module is Enabled. The cart total did not add the low order fee, example:
Sub-Total: $35.00
Low Order Fee : $3.00
Los Angeles County CA 9.75% Tax: $3.41
United Parcel Service (Ground): $10.21
Total: $48.62 (incorrect, suppose to be $51.62)

2) I have also implemented discount coupons. When this "Super CA sales tax" installed, the coupon will not be added into the total amount either. Example:

Sub-Total: $276.20
Discount Coupon: 58e54e5c16 : -$13.81
Los Angeles County CA 9.75% Tax: $26.93
United Parcel Service (Ground): $13.37
Total: $316.50 (incorrect, suppose to be $302.69)

I have tried to change the sort order under order total into many different ways, no luck.

If I set customer to tax exempt ALL (under edit Customers), means customer is a wholesaler, this calculation problem go away.

Finally, I have removed this MOD, the lower order fee and coupon discount are all working properly. I think this MOD is either not structured correctly, or it is conflict with "Customer Tax Exempt" module. They cannot be coexist.

I am going to install "Local Sales Tax Mod" to see if I can get better luck.

[wendyandmilo]

No, there is no conflict with the Tax Exempt Mod; it works fine for me.

I will try to re-create your issues tonight and see if I can find a solution!

Just out of curiosity, do you have the standard zen-cart tax module enabled or disabled?

[hliang]

Thanks for helping me researching out the problem. Yes, i have the standard zen-cart tax module enabled. I put the Super CA Sales Tax Add-on sort order smaller than Zen standard tax module.

I have tried to install the "Local Sales Tax Mod" as indicated in my last message. I got the same exact problem in calculating coupon and low order fee. So I had to remove it as well.

By removing both module and leave the standard tax on, the total all added up correctly. I just couldn't get either local tax mod to work with them.

[wendyandmilo]

hliang,
I know it is frustrating, but I suppose the good thing is that I am able to recreate the problem

I am working on finding a solution! I know what the problem is...it's just getting a good and proper fix for it. My site goes live on Monday, so I do have a lot of motivation to get this working.

If you'll bear with me for a few days longer, I will post what I find.

[hliang]

wendyandmilo, great to hear from you so quickly. Thanks in advance in posting the solution. Also, begin July 1, 2011, California will have a new tax rate table. Will you have time to post the new datasheet also?

[wendyandmilo]

hliang,
Yup, I have the new tax table all ready; I just have to package it up as an upgrade. It will be ready before July 1st. But first things first...

Still working on the fix