Bizarre Tax calculation

[satphone]

I have no idea what "breaking the law" has to do with my question.

I have never mentioned gift certificates, and am not really interested in them.

Can we please keep this on topic?

If you think the "sort order" is causing these bizarre calculations, can you please let me know what I should be checking? Remember I am a Newbie so it I may need quite a bit of concise information rather than a vague direction.

Your description of what "should" happen is what I want to happen. I just don't seem to find Zen Cart doing this.

Thank you.

[RodG]

I have no idea what "breaking the law" has to do with my question..

It means that I'm trying to keep you out of trouble. Is that so wrong of me?

I have never mentioned gift certificates, and am not really interested in them.
.

Gift Vouchers, Discount Coupons, Cash Discounts or adjustments are all considered the same thing by the ATO. There should be no GST component involved in anyway whatsoever.

Can we please keep this on topic?

I though it WAS on topic.

If you think the "sort order" is causing these bizarre calculations, can you please let me know what I should be checking?

The sort order determines how and when the various calculations are applied. If you weren't so keen to criticise my input you probably would have have picked up on this from the examples I gave.

Remember I am a Newbie so it I may need quite a bit of concise information rather than a vague direction.
Your description of what "should" happen is what I want to happen. I just don't seem to find Zen Cart doing this.

I've tried to help, but got lambasted. Give me one good reason why I should waste more time with you?

RodG

[satphone]

That's OK. I never felt I was in trouble. Thank you for being considerate.

I'm not new to business, or my obligations in Australian taxation law.

I am new to Zen Cart.

I'm just trying to find out why the store doesn't calculate discounts and GST correctly. Can you help?

ie. tax on $999 (tax inc.) + $10 (tax inc.) freight - $10 inc. discount - should equal $90.82

Pretty simple - tax payable is 1/11 of the amount of goods and services inc. tax (or 10% of the amount prior to tax.)

As mentioned, this is not what happens

Any help from the forum much appreciated.

[hfxracing]

ie. tax on $999 (tax inc.) + $10 (tax inc.) freight - $10 inc. discount - should equal $90.82

I think what he is trying to to tell you is that the shopping cart & to be correct by law should calculate as follows:
Price
Shipping
TAX (you must show customer you have tax in there)
Total
Discount

If you put the discount anywhere before you charge tax you would be applying it to the discount. When it should only be applied after tax.
I think that is what RodG is trying to tell you. I could be wrong.

[RodG]

I am new to Zen Cart.
I'm just trying to find out why the store doesn't calculate discounts and GST correctly. Can you help?

Yes.

Pretty simple - tax payable is 1/11 of the amount of goods and services inc. tax (or 10% of the amount prior to tax.)

No need to be condescending.

I'll probably regret this, but..... since the last thing I'd want to do is scare people away from the most versatile eCommerce system available..

module Sort order
-------------- ------------
ot_subtotal 100
ot_shipping 200
ot_tax 300
ot_xxxxxxx 400-900 (discounts, gift vouchers, low order fees, coupons, etc
ot_Total 999
------------------------

[balihr]

I'm not an Aussie so I won't go into legal matters because I don't know your laws (Rod is definitely more competent on that matter), but there is something I don't understand...

Why would the discount be calculated AFTER tax? I'm assuming we're talking about discount coupons, not vouchers. I prefer to compare that discount to a specials price (sale). Product is discounted and customer is paying less. Why do you need to pay tax on full price?
Let's say I setup a discount coupon to 50%. Product was $500, now is $250. I'm charging the customer $250. Shouldn't tax be $22.73 and net $227.27? If we calculate tax before discount, won't it be $45.45? (Besides, that's how Zen Cart is configured out of the box: calculate discount before tax).
Same thing here: product is $999 - $10 discount + $10 shipping --> total is $999 and tax should be $90.82

I agree that the calculations are totally weird - I remember I had the same problem 5-6 years ago with my own shop and had to rewrite the ot_coupon file to use my calculations. Maybe that was stupid and there's a better way to do it from the admin, but I couldn't figure it out and my bookkeeper never complained...
Unfortunately, I have no idea what I did back then (it was probably some redneck method ) - I'll check my archives later today to see if I can find the file (although I honestly doubt it, it's been almost 5 years since I shut that site down...).

[satphone]

I made the sort order change but there was more to it than that.

Now it's calculating the GST on the PRE discounted some, applying that and then applying the discount. This seems a very strange thing indeed. eg.

$100 sale, no discount = tax of $9.09
$100 sale with $50 discount = = tax of $9.09

In Australia GST is payable on the FINAL sale value.

[RodG]

I made the sort order change but there was more to it than that.

Now it's calculating the GST on the PRE discounted some, applying that and then applying the discount.

Isn't that what you wanted?

No? In that case, you need to re-order things once again.

module Sort order
-------------- ------------
ot_subtotal 100
ot_shipping 200
ot_xxxxxxx 300-800 (discounts, gift vouchers, low order fees, coupons, etc )
ot_tax 900
ot_Total 999
------------------------

For the ot_coupon module (which I'm *assuming* is what you are using for discounts) you need

Include Shipping
false

Include Tax
true

Re-calculate Tax
None

Tax Class
GST Taxable Goods

I'm pretty sure those settings will give the results you desire, but for reasons I can't explain, my notes for the ot_gv module hav slightly different settings.

Include Shipping
true

Include Tax
true

Re-calculate Tax
None

Tax Class
--none--

Credit including Tax
false

The common factor being that in both cases, Include Tax = true, and Re-calculate tax= None. (I suspect that the Tax Class setting is being ignored since the tax isn't being re-calculated).

Rgds
RodG