Local Sales Tax Mod - Support Thread

[robarb]

Hello, LadyHLG.

I absolutely love your local sales tax module and have it working with all 1700+ cities in California. But I have two questions...
1) If a customer enters their city name without proper capitalization, it doesn't get charged tax. I saw a fix on the old forum posting but it doesn't seem to work now. Any ideas?
2) Do you know of any way to correlate the zip code and city (or look up the city based on zip code) to make sure they are properly related?

Thanks again for an incredibly useful mod.

Rob

[LadyHLG]

Rob,
1. As far as my testing has shown the following should work to take care of the city capitalization issue.
At or about line 168:
Change: This

if($myfield == $value){

to this

if(strtolower($myfield) == strtolower($value)){

From what I have seen that works.
If it is not working for you then I will need a more specific example.

2. Unfortunately, the only way this can be done is with some kind of outside address verification, perhaps with the USPS.
I am almost positive the USPS offers this kind of online service but a mod would have be to be written to accomplish it (if there isn't one already, I haven't checked).

LadyHLG

[sugarhill]

I'm attaching the NY State local tax database, compatible with LadyHLG's Local Sales Tax add-on. It is current as of 8/25/09, and includes the MTA surcharge for applicable areas.

Installation: make sure you have the add-on enabled in "Modules - Order Total". Use "Locations/Taxes - Zone Definitions " to enable NY as a zone. Don't forget to double click on the little folder to the left and configure it for United States. If you have a red dot next to the name, you didn't do that step and it actually tells you that it's not configured.

YOU ARE NOT GOING TO CONFIGURE A TAX RATE. If you've done this right, you should have a yellow dot next to the name.

Use Tools - Install Sql Patches to install my database.

Troubleshooting:

If you don't see anything after this in "locations - Local Sales Taxes", there may be confusion about the table name. Go into your database using whatever your provider offers (MyPHP, etc.) and take a look at the tables in the database. You may have a table called "zen_tax_rate_local." BUT, you may ALSO have a table called "zen_zen_tax_rate_local"! If so, you need to check the zen_tax_rate_local and see if it actually contains anything. You can tell because if it's empty, it won't let you click on the "browse" button. If that's the case, here's what you do:

delete the zen_tax_rate_local table by clicking on it, then click on the Drop tab that's furthest to the right. If you don't see a "Drop" tab, you didn't click on the actual table name, so do that now.

Now, click on the zen_zen_tax_rate_local table, and click on the operations tab. Rename the table to zen_tax_rate_local. Bada bing! Now the rates should appear.

therealex, thanks for this table! Very useful to those of us developing in NYC...

As of Sept 1, 2009 the tax rates have changed. While I was updating the rates in the table, I also **slightly** improved the table to bring it more in line with NYS Dept of Taxation & Finance Publication 718 - tax rates by jurisdiction code. I combined all the county labels for NYC by renaming Kings, Queens, etc to 'New York City' and also added in the city exceptions to the county rates as outlined in Pub 718 (such as "Ithaca City Tax").

Since zip codes to not accurately define cities and tax jurisdictions, I make no warranty or claims as to the accuracy of your NYS Sales Tax returns based on this table. The only way to be 100% accurate is to use the NYS Sales Tax Jurisdiction and Rate Lookup (located here: http://www8.nystax.gov/STLR/stlrHome). However, they provide no API, so you can't do the lookup programmatically at the time of online sale.

This updated table is meant to replace your zen_tax_rates_local table via a complete INSERT, which means you should backup(EXPORT) and DROP your table first. Then just IMPORT the new table from the .sql file you downloaded and unzipped.
Here's the updated table (enjoy!):

[robarb]

Rob,
1. As far as my testing has shown the following should work to take care of the city capitalization issue.
At or about line 168:
Change: This

if($myfield == $value){

to this

if(strtolower($myfield) == strtolower($value)){

From what I have seen that works.
If it is not working for you then I will need a more specific example.

2. Unfortunately, the only way this can be done is with some kind of outside address verification, perhaps with the USPS.
I am almost positive the USPS offers this kind of online service but a mod would have be to be written to accomplish it (if there isn't one already, I haven't checked).

LadyHLG

Thanks very much for the quick response. I look forward to trying this and will report back.

Rob

[Old Cow]

How should I set up sales tax for Georgia?

• Georgia has about 160 counties.
• Each county has it's own sales tax rate (6-7%).
• The rate is determined by state tax (4%) and varies local taxes (3-4%).
• The rates can change throughout the year.
• A special issue applies to one city (Atlanta), which is located in one county (county sales tax), but charges another 1% city sales tax. This depends on the zip code (city-boundary) and not the city name itself. How can I make sure that Atlanta customer within/-out the city-boundary get charged correctly?

Do I have to create for each county a tax rate? How can I handle the special situation of Atlanta? Would be the Local Sales Tax Module the right choice?

[LadyHLG]

Old Cow,
Here is my suggestion as to how to set up your local tax for Georgia.

1. I would set up each county in Georgia as a zone (sorry this is a long process but it really is the best way). This doesn't actually require the Local Tax mod to do.
There are detailed instructions in the readme for the Local Tax Mod on how to do this. You could also check out the forums to see if anyone else has already done this for your state, it might save you some time.

2. Use the Local Tax Mod to set up the special Atlanta tax by zip code.

I hope that helps.
Let me know if you have any questions.

LadyHLG

[Old Cow]

Thank you. "Use the Local Tax Mod to set up the special Atlanta tax by zip code" seems to be very difficult (no tables available, only a Address Verification Look-up). Hopefully I find a source who went through this.

[LadyHLG]

Do you know how many zip codes in Atlanta are there to set up?

LadyHLG

[Old Cow]

I do not know yet. The only link on Georgia's website I found was to a zip folder, which contains an Office Access database with over 200,000 street addresses, but no zip codes. I better try to get more information. This looks very intense.

[LadyHLG]

Old Cow,
I wish I could offer some guidance here but I'm afraid there isn't much I can say other than to perhaps call your State Taxing authority and see what they say (is there a way to determine the Atlanta Tax via zip code or is this only by street address).

Good Luck!

LadyHLG