WA Retail Sales Tax is changing July 1 2008.

This is a big change from the Department of Revenue of Washington State. At this time we only have to charge sales tax based on the location of our business for any customer who lives in Washington state.

However starting July 1, 2008 we have to charge sale tax based on the location of the destination within Washington State.

Son I'm going to have to setup a zone for every city in Washington state, but even that is messed up. We live in the country and our sales tax is less than the sales tax in the city, but we have the same zip code the city does.

So how are we to determine how much tax to charge?

Why couldn't they just come up with a shipping tax? That one tax rate could have covered everything.

JP

Welcome to the world of sales tax nightmares ;) It's been like that in NY and some other states for decades (but I guess you know that).
I understand there is a move to offer online address/tax zone verification, with some states already supporting it. Let's hope Washington can implement that along with the picky requirements...
Of course, a simple statewide tax rate would save all kinds of administration/implementation hassle, but I can just see all the legislators agreeing to that!

birdoasis:

This is a big change from the Department of Revenue of Washington State. At this time we only have to charge sales tax based on the location of our business for any customer who lives in Washington state.

However starting July 1, 2008 we have to charge sale tax based on the location of the destination within Washington State.

Son I'm going to have to setup a zone for every city in Washington state, but even that is messed up. We live in the country and our sales tax is less than the sales tax in the city, but we have the same zip code the city does.

So how are we to determine how much tax to charge?

Why couldn't they just come up with a shipping tax? That one tax rate could have covered everything.

JP

Some good news out of it...

Source: http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/RetailSalesTax/DestinationBased/ImplementationFAQ.aspx

Q. What assistance is available?

A. The law allows certain taxpayers with less than $500,000 in Washington sales to receive up to a $1,000 credit for eligible costs or get two years of service from a certified service provider. See RCW 82.32.760 for additional taxpayer eligibility requirements.

Eligible costs under the credit include goods and services purchased and labor costs incurred for the purpose of complying with the new local sales sourcing rules. Examples of eligible costs include the purchase of new software or modification of existing software; the hiring of professionals such as accountants, consultants, or attorneys; the costs for the purchase or modification of equipment (including but not limited to cash registers and similar items); and payroll expenses. These costs must be incurred between July 1, 2007 and June 30, 2009 to be eligible. The credit can be claimed on the excise tax return starting with the July 2008 return.

Source: http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/RetailSalesTax/DestinationBased/ImplementationFAQ.aspx

Hello Zen cart creators. I am hoping by now that you have noticed that Washington state has changed their sales tax laws. Now more complicated! The new system described previously in this thread allows for 364 different sales tax rates depending on the location of the buyer. Washington state has created a lookup URL interface that looks fairly straightforward if only the code could be inserted in the proper place in Zen cart. I had a friend with some limited programming experience attempt to do this but his knowledge of PHP was limited and he was unable to determine how to proceed. He did indicate that a person with intimate working knowledge of the Zen cart such as one of the creators could probably accomplish this in 15 minutes. The Washington State website lookup is here: http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/RetailSalesTax/DestinationBased/ClientInterface.aspx

The advantage with using this is that the Zen cart program would not have to keep up with changes to Washington state tax rates but rather get the information directly from Washington state with the lookup table.

Please let us know if you have heard of this problem and plan to fix it for all of us in the upper left corner.

Bryan