New York State Sales Tax-Best Practices?

[berchman]

Hi,
Running into an issue in figuring out best practices concerning accurate calculation of sales tax for a store based in New York State.

NYS calculates tax based on what county the item is being received in. It cannot be based on zip code because some zips run into 2 counties. Then to complicate things further there are some cities within counties that trump the tax rate of the county.

I have researched the forums and found LadyHLG's Local Sales Tax Mod which looks promising but is based on zip: http://tinyurl.com/289yuy

I have seen some other threads about interesting ways people are handling this but no 'holy grail' for those of us trying to accurately calculate sales tax based on county.

Does anyone know of a 'best-practice' for NYS or other 'county/city' tax calculation environments for ZC?

Any knowledge or experience would be greatly appreciated.

[gjh42]

I'm afraid that, until NYS makes their address-to-tax-rate lookup (http://www8.nystax.gov/STLR/stlrHome) accessible automatically, there is no completely accurate and automatic way of doing this in real time.

When I asked, the answer was essentially that they were considering implementing an API, but had no concrete plans.

[yellow1912]

Move to TX, where you can charge tax based on YOUR shipping out address.
lol.

[gjh42]

Maybe, if all NYS Zenners were to visit that page and give feedback requesting an API, they might begin to understand that it is important... You'd think they would want to encourage New York-based businesses.

[ReeFlippee]

Hi - I'm setting up my NYS online store and wondered what your solution ended up being?

Thanks!

[mlvbs]

I used this method from an old thread, and it worked well. When I was done, I had to uninstall and reinstall the ot_tax module. It takes a while to put in each county, but it's better than undercharging for tax. Make sure to make every zone code NY or shipping quotes won't work.

Well, I went over the edge yesterday and worked on putting the 80+ counties in Ohio in my Zen Cart. It appears to have worked! I am so pleased. Every one from Williams to Ashtabula is in there. I found out how to do it from the forum here but there (of course) is a catch. You follow the model from New York Sales Tax. NY put this (dreadful) tax into effect last year and since then Zen Cart has been responding. One couple wrote in and said to :

1. Create a zone for each of the counties/cities
2. create tax zones for each tax rate
3. create a zone definitions for each tax zone
4. Remove your state as a state by itself and replace with your state and your county.

Maybe the Zen Cart had changed slightly from that recipe so you had to do things in a slightly different order. Here is what I found:

So creating a zone is easy for each county but you have to keep each of the codes as OH (or whatever state you are doing). Otherwise the customer's address will be whatever code you put in and the post office won't deliver the package unless it has the proper state name. So Ashtabula County still has to be OH.

You have to set up the Zone Definitions next. This is when you set up the tax levels (6% sales tax, 6.25% sales tax, etc.).

Then you have to take each of the above tax rates, go to "Details" , choose "Insert" and put in each county at their level. So Ashtabula has to be defined as a 6.5% sales tax state, etc.

Then you have to define tax rates (drop down menu) you have to input the different levels again-->New Rate--->Taxable goods--->Zone--->The Rate (with no % just the numbers like "6.5")--> Description that you want your clients to see like "Your taxation without representation" or "Sales tax for your county 6.5%"). Do not fill in the priority area.

So, that's what I did and it seems to work. I can be from Cincinnati and "buy" something on my site and have it shipped to Williams county and get charged 7% sales tax which is what should happen.

If I am wrong about this in any way, please let me know.

[ReeFlippee]

Thanks! I really appreciate your help! I definitely don't want to charge a flat 7% statewide.

[ReeFlippee]

mlvbs - Can you tell me why you had to uninstall and reinstall the ot_tax module? I finished everything, but still need to test it. Yup, took awhile, but I'm glad I did it.

Thanks!

[mlvbs]

Sure - for some reason, when I was done entering the many, many tax rates for NYS, the shipping and tax disappeared from the order total page...I was at a total loss for what to do. My host provider actually had the idea to uninstall and reinstall the ot_tax module through the admin control panel. After doing that, everything worked. Who knows, it may not be an issue for you.

[ReeFlippee]

Can you explain how you reinstalled ot_tax module? Some counties aren't coming up with any tax description and the wrong tax %. Maybe I did something wrong, but I thought I'd try what you did first.

Thanks!