Local Sales Tax Mod (with admin!) for testing

[LadyHLG]

THIS DISCUSSION HAS BEEN RESUMED WITH A NEWER VERSION HERE:
http://www.zen-cart.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111782



I have been working on a new sales tax mod with built in admin interface for Zen 1.3.7

This is the first mod I have ever done so I am posting here to get some feed back for anyone brave enough to try it out. It has only been tested with an unmodified version of Zen 1.3.7, so I can make no assumptions on how it will behave with a modified version of the cart.

This mod does not overwrite any files and creates one new table for the database.

It allows for taxing based on zip code, city, or suburb(for those using the suburb field for counties) and could be expanded to tax based on other fields as well.
It is specifically designed to compound taxes to whatever zone taxes you already have set up. Which means you can apply multiple taxes to any zone based on different criteria.

One example of how to use this mod would be -
Set up a statewide sales tax for CA of 7% using the standard zencart zones method.
With the Local tax mod set up a .75% tax to apply to 94203 zip code
You could even add additional .5% sales tax to be applied to just the city of Sacramento.

So if someone in the state of CA purchases something for say $35.99
They would automatically be charged the 7% state wide tax of $2.52
If they lived in the 94203 zip code they would also be charged an additional $.27
AND if they lived in the City of Sacramento they would be charged an additional $.18

Finally, the mod uses the "Basis of Product Tax" option in the Admin -> My Store to determine whether to use the billing or shipping address to base the local tax on.

I hope others out there may find this useful.

LadyHLG

[ckuhl]

Anyone test this mod? I could see that this would replace the hack I made for county taxes which I am sure will not work with version 1.3.7.

[LadyHLG]

I have yet to hear anything from anyone, good or bad so if you do have a chance to test please let me know how it goes.
Thanks!
LadyHLG

[webomat]

I have yet to hear anything from anyone, good or bad so if you do have a chance to test please let me know how it goes.
Thanks!
LadyHLG

Wow, this sounds great!

I've downloaded it and will try to run it locally and test it over the weekend.

Thanks LadyHLG!

Cheers,

Becky

[LadyHLG]

Thanks Becky!
Let me know how it goes!!
LadyHLG

[gmoyle]

Ok, I cannot believe that I didn't find this until just now. I hacked one of the New York tax modes, and 1.3.7 broke it. I have not had time to fix it. This mod seems to be the nearly ideal solution.

I installed it (but have not configured it yet) and have but one suggestion. I saw an implementation of zip code tax in a paid solution that I really liked.

The use of a mask on the zip code so that you don't have to enter each and every zip code is an interesting option.

i.e. 895* would be used for all zip codes that start with 895.

I will let you know how the configuration goes later this week.

Thanks for the great work on this. The complete use of the override system witno core overwrites is FANTASTIC!

[LadyHLG]

Interesting, I had never thought of using a zip code mask! If time allows I will see if I can add implement that.
Thanks for the input and let me know how the testing goes.

LadyHLG

[gmoyle]

Well, I was very excited, but, there are some issues.

I realized why I was originally trying to to tax by county. In Nevada, you may have a zip code that crosses county lines, and the counties have different taxes.

89521 Washoe County Tax 7.375%: $xx.xx
89521 Storey County Tax 7.25%: $xx.xx

Which is problematic for this module as you can see, this is what I saw in my checkout.

So the only way to get around this as I can see is to capture the users county on account creation.....and, I only need to capture the users county if they are a resident of Nevada.

I have been down this road, and I am not skilled enough to code the needed changes to make this clean on my end. If you think that this module could acomodate these additions, that would be great. I could make a financial contribution? :)


Greg

[LadyHLG]

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

[seattleannie]

LadyHLG! This module works perfectly!! Thank you for doing such an excellent job. Easy install, easy configuration.

My only complaint is how hard it was for me to find it to download! Hope that powers that be here at Zen Cart will add it to their download area.

~anne