New York Sales Tax

Hi all,
New user here. I am sure this has been discussed before, but I cannot find it. In New York every county has a different sales tax rate and I need to charge tax based on where the item is being shipped to. Is there a module for this, and if not, how can I go about setting this up?

Thanks,
Joe

Joe,
I think if you check with NY State, they will tell you that you need to collect tax based on where the sale takes place from, not the destination. Your home county rate should be what you charge.

According to: http://www.tax.state.ny.us/pdf/publications/sales/pub750_804.pdf
page 20

"The point of delivery determines the combined rate to be collected on a sale."

This tells me that I have to collect the sales tax on the delivery point, not the point of sale.

Joe

That section refers to the sale being consumated in NYS or outside of NY. If you send goods or services within NY, you have to collect the tax for your county. Do you have the Tax forms completed yet? It will explain it for you on the forms. You can also call the 800#. They are very helpful. If you had a storefront, your taxes are based on where you make your sales from. When you pay the state sales tax, they don't request any info on where the sales took place. You should probably call them to set your mind at ease.

Yes I agree with Chez. The tax collected is the sales tax at the point of sale (your county)

Having to collect tax from the buyer's county is unreasonable, and could never be enforced.

i just got of the phone with a representative of NYS Tax dept
• Sales Tax Information Center 1-800-698-2909

He said
"Sales tax in NY is based upon where the consumer takes posession of the item
If you are shipping outside NY then NY sales tax does not apply.
If you are shipping with in NY state then tax applies depending on the county it was shipped to."

This makes everything that more complicated.

bobdog:

Yes I agree with Chez. The tax collected is the sales tax at the point of sale (your county)

Having to collect tax from the buyer's county is unreasonable, and could never be enforced.
Roughly twenty years ago, I had a sales tax permit in California. Since I usually generated less than $50 of tax per year I was downgraded from monthly to quarterly filing and then to yearly filing. And on the tax return form, for all intrastate sales you were required to apportion to each county the amount of each sale made to a buyer for whom the product was delivered or shipped to another point within the state. If you deliver at your store (i.e. the customer walks out with the item) then you collect tax for your local county. If you ship elsewhere in California outside your county, you're required to collect the collect tax for that region and apportion sales to that county (because some counties have higher tax rates than others, e.g. Los Angeles doesn't have a Contra Costa County Transit District tax.)

So it's not unreasonable, and the Franchise Tax Board could and did expect you to collect tax for the buyer's county, and that was decades ago before computers were commonly available.

Just FYI, I had a heavily modded install of OsCommerce 2.2 to which I had tried every available tax calc contribution -- couldn't work out the kinks. The best default solution, IMHO, is to set the New York tax rate to 7% (lowest common denominator) and bridge the gap yourself at tax time. I've been doing this for a couple of years now and since the vast majority of my orders come from out of state it isn't much of a hit to take, and only a few counties are at the high end.

To be strictly legal, you need to collect tax not just by county but by tax zone; there are at least a dozen municipalities, some very small, that report separately from their counties, and the boundaries are not always by zip code. The only completely accurate method would be a table of each address in the state :eek: or asking the customer what the tax rate is at his address and which zone he is in :no: .

Very small businesses can probably get away with being somewhat sloppy, but you never know when it will come back to bite you hard. The lowest-rate method is certainly safest. I know I don't like it when a seller from NYC asks for 8 5/8% while my local rate is 8% (too high already!)

Hi:

If you look at our site, we created a zone for each county/city in NYS (e.g. New York (Albany County). After that we created tax zones for for each of the tax rates. Then we created the zone definitions for each tax zone. Works very well, especially now that we have the dropdown box for states. If you use this method, don't forget to remove New York as a state. We then setup the tax to be calculated against the shipping address.

As part of a Massachusetts company that's been audited by the New York, I can tell you definitively that where you ship TO is the important thing. If you ship, the item changes hands at the receiving location. If it's picked up, then it's at the pick up location.

Most of our business was in Columbia county so we tried to get away with always reporting that percent in that county, but I gotta tell you, it didn't fly come audit time...

This somehow sounds like it makes perfect sence For the NYS tax issues

I was wondering, I am also in NY state, Rochester to be exact, and ths whole tax thing is kicking me in the but. it's driving me nuts.

I am setting up an ecommerce site for my sisters bookstore and she needs this to of course collect tax for each county or tax zone in NY plus the states of VA, FL, TX, IL, CA, CT, GA and OH as she is registered in each of these states to collect tax, but my main concern is the NY zones.

could I be so bold to ask if you if is possible to send me your sql of the tax stuff for NY, I would greatly apprecaite this.

I am using at present Zen Cart 1.3.6

Thank you!

ranger_lp:

Hi:

If you look at our site, we created a zone for each county/city in NYS (e.g. New York (Albany County). After that we created tax zones for for each of the tax rates. Then we created the zone definitions for each tax zone. Works very well, especially now that we have the dropdown box for states. If you use this method, don't forget to remove New York as a state. We then setup the tax to be calculated against the shipping address.

ranger_lp:

Hi:

If you look at our site, we created a zone for each county/city in NYS (e.g. New York (Albany County). After that we created tax zones for for each of the tax rates. Then we created the zone definitions for each tax zone. Works very well, especially now that we have the dropdown box for states. If you use this method, don't forget to remove New York as a state. We then setup the tax to be calculated against the shipping address.
Thank you this was the best info I have found for NYstate taxes. Thank you thank you. Thank you. However I need to know one thing how did you get your drop down boxes long enough to fit New York (cattaraugus County - all except)??? I can't find where to change that. Your help would be greatly appreciated.

As a new user of Zen Cart, how do you go about removing your state (in my case Ohio) from the list of states and replace it with the counties of your state? Where do I look for the list of states and how do I change it? Thanks.

This does not look like the same idea regarding Canadian tax setup, there you make the provinces sub zones under Canada. I was going to follow that model but read this thread, now I need to know how to eliminate Ohio and how to replace with the county names and rates.

15 minutes later...The Self Help Desk strikes again. For anyone else who wants to do this (or anyone who wants to tell me I was wrong and set me straight): I went into Zen Cart-->Location/Taxes-->Zones. At the end of the Zones (as part of United States) each state is listed. I eliminated Ohio and replaced it with Ohio-Hamilton County. Then I gave it a two letter abbreviation (it appears that 3 letter abbreviations are OK, too). Now I think I only have to define the tax rate for Hamilton County Ohio and repeat that for all of the counties in Ohio.

I hope I am right about this. If I am not, please feel free to come in and correct me.

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.

Since I am obsessed with Destination Sales Tax, here is another question. I did make up the zones and all that stuff above. However, when I am running my test cart, I am not getting charged tax for my fair county of Hamilton...I am not getting charged tax at all. Do I need to make each item either taxable or non taxable, or do I need to make my universal site taxable.

I am hesitant because only Ohioans will be charged taxes from Possets and they will be in the minority of my customers so I hesitate to say it's universally taxable (but I know that I have only put in tax rates for the Ohio Counties).

ONE MORE QUESTION: The Destination Sales Tax will not go into effect until after January 2008. If I want to put up my Zen Cart site now or a month from now, I was thinking that I would tell people to sign up as from Ohio (and get charged the 6.5%) but after the date the Destination Sales Tax comes into force, they have to re-up and designate their county or I can't serve them. Hate to be draconian about it but...the tax man is. Is that the best way to handle this? To enter another option of "Ohio---Tax 6.5%" ?

I suppose you could save all of your zone rate info and then reset the rate for every zone definition to the single current effective rate. On January 1st or whenever you could reenter the different destination rates. I would think that would only require changing a dozen fields or however many different rates there are. ...Hmm ok, maybe it would require changing 60 fields... still not horrible. Customers would already have their info in the proper form, and their rates would switch to the correct level at that point.

There are 80+ counties in Ohio. It was slow and painful putting them in. :yuck:All my alternative stink (that could be the epitaph on my tombstone, too, you know). But, that is one idea, yanking the possible choices for the customer but keeping the working mechanism behind the scenes. When the DST comes in, re-enter the choices (which would take a lot less time than the alternative) and let it rip.

My other question was: I did make up the zones and all that stuff above. However, when I am running my test cart, I am not getting charged tax for my fair county of Hamilton...I am not getting charged tax at all. Do I need to make each item either taxable or non taxable, or do I need to make my universal site taxable?

Obsessed, I am obsessed with the enormity of Destination Sales Tax.

Each product needs to be set as taxable or not in the product page. I could imagine all kinds of permutations of how the applicable rate is determined, but since I have so far avoided actually getting in and doing this job myself, I can't speak with authority on it. Guess I have to get to that soon...

My suggestion was not to change anything about the zones you have set up except the rate applied to each of them for now - hopefully just changing a dozen zone definitions from 6.0, 6.5, 6.75, 7.0, etc. to all read 6.5. It won't hurt anything for all the different zone definitions to have equal values for now.