New York Sales Tax

OK, great...thanks for letting me know the answer to this. Yea, the longer you can put this off, the better. Even better to vote on it, if they let you...they probably won't but you might live in a state that values the sanity of their e-tailers more than the Buckeye State does. I guess they figure that we are all nuts anyhow, so what difference does it make?

The only reason I have been able to put it off is because we're not processing sales on our site yet. NY has had the requirement for destination sales tax for decades. The sales tax report form is four pages long, crammed with spaces to fill in. They don't care if you do mail order or e-tail, they just want their money and information if you are based in NY.

Hi All,

I'm a NY State Zen Cart shop owner also trying to figure out a solution. One additional frustrating thing is that the NY State Tax folks obviously understand that this is an issue...they have created a calculator to assist in determining the total tax based on address.

However there is no API to access this, simply a web form so no way to leverage this in a module as far as I know. But obviously the information is there and able to be derived programmatically based on an address.

http://www7.nystax.gov/STLR/stlrHome

Until something is figured out, looks like it's lowest common denominator 7% for us.

-Don

fabienne:

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 :

2. Create a zone for each of the counties/cities

3. create tax zones for each tax rate

4. create a zone definitions for each tax zone

5. 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.

How does one know what county a city belongs to?

WHen the customer orders something, how does ZenCart know their address is within Ashtabula county?

The shopowner has to use their state sales tax reporting info to set everything up correctly.

The customer will be required to select a county/state combination when creating an account, not just the shop home state. This will be as accurate as people's willingness and ability to be truthful about their complete address.

ryoken99:

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.

I also called and also visited the local sales tax office and they told me the exact same thing.

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.

Thats not what the NYS sales tax office tells me

ranger_lp
Is this implementation still working for you?
I need to setup a NY state based taxing system and would like to know how its going.

I like the way that is set-up.

I've been working on it, but am having a problem somewhere. I'm putting in all of New Yorks 62 counties, but ran into a brick wall somewhere. I'm trying to insert a screen capture to explain better.

What am I missing ( or forfetting to do )?

Most entries are tagged in red...not configured. I thought I was doing the same thing to each, Obviously I'm not.

Thank-You for any help.

Man..what a head-ache.

hmmm, any updates on this?

Alright I got all my Zones for NYS All Counties, now I have to figure out what the Tax Rate is for each county..etc...gah..this is a pain...any ideas where I can find the tax rates?

Yes. I have it all figured out. If you need help...let me know.

We live close..sort of, So we could almost fix you up with a phone call.

baddco:

Yes. I have it all figured out. If you need help...let me know.

We live close..sort of, So we could almost fix you up with a phone call.

Great, you figured it out! we live close, thats cool!

If you can be descriptive on how you did this step by step I would appreciate greatly. I prefer us to converse over the forum as it will help other potential NYS merchants. Maybe it could be added as a tutorial :)

The zones and rates will be given in this form (ST-101 for annual filers - for last year). The zone rates and ids can change occasionally, so keep up with them.

This site (http://www.nystax.gov/nyshome/stidx.htm) is the official online source for NYS sales tax info.

gjh42:

The zones and rates will be given in this form (ST-101 for annual filers - for last year). The zone rates and ids can change occasionally, so keep up with them.

This site (http://www.nystax.gov/nyshome/stidx.htm) is the official online source for NYS sales tax info.

gah this is going to be fun....its kinda confusing...

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.

Hello, i followed your instructions but when i go to my cart i don't get the drop-down options for States so the individual county's can be selected. Is this something only the new version of Zen Cart has? I currently have the 1.3.7 version.

Thanks!
Michele

mw4kids:

Hello, i followed your instructions but when i go to my cart i don't get the drop-down options for States so the individual county's can be selected. Is this something only the new version of Zen Cart has? I currently have the 1.3.7 version.

Thanks!
Michele

I am having a similar problem you are having. I am good at following instructions, step by step, but its not working for some reaosn for me...

hi chris,

looks like i'm figuring it out...go to your Admin area...click on Customer Details> then click on 'State-Always display as pulldown?' and hit Edit and change to 'True', refresh you website page and it should now give you the state option.

good luck!
michele

i'm still working on figuring out the rest

This is how I worked it out...hope it works out in the end.

1. Go to Zones under your 'Locations/Taxes' heading, click on 'new zone'- insert the new zone you want, for ex., put in exactly 'New York (Albany County), then enter zone code 'ny' and country.
2. Go to 'Zone Definitions' click 'insert' then enter zone name exactly as above and description (i.e. local sales tax zone). then click under 'details' hit insert and select country & zone.
3. click on 'tax rates' click on 'new tax rate' select zone and inpute tax rate (as for setting 'priority' i'm stuck...not sure what it means)

If you can figure out the Priority thing, let me know.

michele