In many U.S. states tax must be collected (any paid) in accordance with both the base state tax rate and zip code rates within the state. There may be several thousand custom tax rates within some states like California or New York. The eCommerce solution must be able to handle these various rates. The simple one tax rate per state does not work.
State tax + zip code zone tax (or whatever you call it) = total tax rate percentage.
In VM 1.1.x this was done through a hack which involved editing ps_checkout.php, adding or including an array of zip codes and tax rates, and making a change to the tax computation to add the zip code rate percentage to state rate to get total percent. This total percent rate gets used to compute the total tax.
The zip codes / rates can be stored in either a flat file or mysql table. This solution does not warrant making any frontend admin form changes only identifying the correct code and adding the change to include zip code tax. The store owner is responsible for updating the table or flat file. I can provide an import script, but I am not familiar with the VM 2.x code to make the calculation changes.
This hack will solve the urgent need. Who can help?
we developed this a year ago for vm1..1.x no one wanted it, we did not upgrade ot for 2.0 and maintaining the tax tables is a huge problem as every state has its own info and format
there is a company that does this, and maintains the tax tables per state. but it is not developed for virtuemart, they do have an api available though
try Carl Stefanelli
fed-tax.net
or
taxcloud.net
they may be able to help you
206-452-1686
his email is
cstefanelli@fed-tax.net
I can't imagine why no one wanted it unless I'm misunderstanding. In the U.S. if you are going to run an online shop your shop must be capable of collecting taxes per the state tax needs which are governed by zip codes (and regions and transit districts). I'd imagine that some shop owners may choose to not deal with it, legally, and perhaps collect the state tax only, but that is foolish. The risks are high.
Obtaining the tax tables is no big problem. For a non-VM shop we went to zip2tax.com/ and purchased the list for Colorado. I then wrote a fairly simple import script to import the zip codes and rates into the tax config tables. There is no need for any administration forms (for me), maybe for others who need an import function.
I can do the same for vm, import the spreadsheet into a zip code/rate table, but this will do no good at this time as VM2 is lacking the tax calculation to close the loop. Is this something you're familiar with?
we basically did the same thing, but the component had to work for all states, not just one, and at that time the available formats of the tax spreadsheets did not work for vm.
i was just sharing my experience, you also have to remember, no one wants a commercial component
one other factor, is that there is a benchmark sales threshold in some states, for instance you in some states you only have to do destination tax if sales are over 50k per month
one other consideration, in some states there are multiple levels of tax which we had taken into consideration
state sales tax
county sales tax
city sales tax
but this will do no good at this time as VM2 is lacking the tax calculation to close the loop. Is this something you're familiar with?
response: yes,. and is a huge problem
"no one wants a commercial component" - well, er, some of us feel compelled to follow the letter of the law and not incur the rath of big brother than constantly watch over our vigilent shoulders. And as well, the time I've wasted researching this solution is many times what it would cost for the component. I also feel this should be a core VM2 function, for what it's worth.
My first experience with VM was with 1.0.x. someone created the hack to work with US zip codes. much thanks there. For VM 1.1.+ there was similar need and still no core component. Not being VM framework skilled I was able to convert the 1.x hack to 1.1.+ (the core file containing computations being ps_checkout.php) such that it pulled the necessary data out of an array.
Destination tax benchmark???? OMG I never heard of this. Any chance you know which states are in that group. I could call the taxation department in Colorado to see if there is anything like that here. All things considered, a sales benchmark would make much sense. The paperwork to process miniscule sales is a time-waster. The other thing about paperwork is that some of these local municipalities also request that you register/file local returns for each zip. How heavenly!
You missed County in your list. Believe it or not there are cities in Colorado such as Erie that have a single zip code but are literally split into multiple counties. If you live in county #1 and zip 12345 you pay 5.3% + state base, but in county # 2 (across the street) you pay .4% + state base. So to really be a stickler the seller profile should also collect the county. I'm not suggesting this, just verbalizing.
What a mess!
your right about everything, call you state and find out what the benchmark is, most stores never get anywhere near that
Quote from: bobmeetin on November 29, 2012, 17:45:46 PM
I also feel this should be a core VM2 function, for what it's worth.
Why would the many thousands of users outside the US want to have US zip code data in their installation? It is already difficult to keep the install files small enough so that people can actually install VM on their shared hosts.
Interesting issue, though.
good point jenkinhill
virtuemart is a component that needs to fit the needs internationally
so, this justifies this tax functionality needs to be a installable component, the tax tables need to be updated on a regular basis, and handle all states appeal to the large US user base of virtuemart
I could initiate development again, but i need to have 20 people who will purchase it to justify development. the one we made for 1.x.x series was a component, and one file needed to be hacked. But the overhead for maintaining and formating the tax files for each state made it prohibitive. I don't know yet if we could make this into an installable component. I have to research
Here is the link to the 1.1.x hack: http://www.dottedi.biz/archives/746/. My involvement was making a few relatively simple changes to make it work with 1.1.x as it was originally created for 1.1.0. This hack did not involve creating a super program and incorporating US zip codes / zone into the vm package.
I'm not suggesting to make the program really smart and configure it to work with one of the API services that maintains all this information for a small fee and I'm not suggesting that you store US taxes as part of the core. It is the store owner's job to import the data. I have written simple scritps to do this.
zen-cart, magento, ixxocart and hundreds of other ecommerce programs already have the capacity to either import the tax rates into a table or grab the data from a flat file and do a calculation and presto display total tax.
Without this functionality many, many U.S. shop owners have to sin in how they do business. They have to do something kludgey to make it work.
Down the road it will get uglier as U.S. states implement the out of state taxes. Here is a link that discusses the future: http://blog.avalara.com/2012/09/10/are-you-ready-for-online-sales-tax/
Most of the horror is for the shop owner as he/she needs not only to collect taxes but also, to be legal, to register in a zillion municipalities for the privilege of doing business. We're not asking to solve this problem, just some background.
If I knew the framework and the tax calculation, I would:
1) create a simple, auxiliary table
mysql> select * from jos_aux_taxes;
+----+-------------+----------+
| id | postal_code | tax_rate |
+----+-------------+----------+
| 1 | 80000 | .92 |
| 2 | 80516 | 4.7 |
| 3 | 85000 | 3.8 |
| 4 | 87654 | 6.7 |
+----+-------------+----------+
4 rows in set (0.00 sec)
2) Change the tax computation
if ( $state == "CO" ) { grab the Colorado state entry, 2.9% }
if ( $state == "CO" and $zip == "85000" ) { grab the tax rate for 85000, 3.8% }
$tax_rate_percentage = $state_rate + $local_zip_rate;
$total_tax = $price * $tax_rate_percentage;
---------------------------
I'm sure you have more considerations, but that is the gut-level simple solution.
thats the idea
its the format of the state tax tables that is a problem, its not as easy as your example
we had an installable component that gave access to a centralized db on a dedicated server. All the tax tabels were kept and updated here, Then there were just a few lines of code that needed to be added to one of the core files
doing it was not the problem as what we had worked
its that there is no uniformity between the states and their tax tables, and tax rules. State tax tables are updated on average every three months, and not in a workable format. They each had to be reformatted each time. And they were not small. If i remember right there were over 500000 entries for California alone.
Again, I may be too simple-minded to act like I'm talking intelligently. When I purchased the tax rate file for Colorado 2 years ago (for ixxocart which was the only solution offering drop-shipping at the time) it came as a simple spreadsheet with a ton of fields including the aforementioned county which I'm ignoring here. Bottom line - I saved 2 fields, zip code and rate - maybe this is not enough for other states but it got us over the hump. It took a day to learn their table structure and write an import script, no they didn't include one, but saved probably 2 days administration plus errors. I think there were about 700 zone entries for Colorado.
Regarding the virtuemart hack, someone from California applied the fix about 4 years ago. He mentioned in his blog comment that there were over 4000 entries then. Maybe that has grown exponentially. In the case of Colorado, it's a problem, but fairly easy to solve and make you reasonably legal. You may at some point have to add one or more additional reserved fields to accommodate other situations. I'm just spitballing here, but perhaps provide some configurable functionality to allow store owners to define a tax calculation based upon their needs, rather than trying to research and guess what the needs are. Chances are that the simple Colorado scenario (maybe with counties) will meet the needs of 80% or so. But the other part, I don't know that you can be responsible for the variations in the spreadsheets. Like it or not, I tend to think that it would be store owner responsiblity to get the spreadsheet into a standard format that can be imported via a script.
Spam - many spam forms using one of several annoying variations of captcha. I like the idea of creating configurable spam traps which might be based on math, hidden fields, etc. Same idea with taxes.
The other problem with the current lack of functionality is time/effort/research is that VM / Joomla are out there for folks, inexperienced folks, to download/install/configure. It commonly isn't until well after the fact when you've already burned weeks into installing joomla, virtuemart, a favorite theme, some favored extensions, populated the cart and some core website pages, maybe configured the blog, then you go to enable taxes and the egg is dropped on your plate. Fedex is not available or taxes are not doable. That is a ton of time invested. Missing ingredients should be documented so that this waste is eliminated. Myself, having used vm 1.1+ in the past I knew of the original issue but never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined that this got lost in VM2.x+.
fedex is available, and paypalpro too
joomlacache.com
The long and short of this is that this program is no longer usable in the U.S. market. Aside from the hack that worked in 1.1.+ this is a major unresolved problem for U.S. customers. After several costly weeks and expense of setting up a shop with inventory and such I aborted and changed directions. I looked around, did some software evaluation and decided to switch to zen-cart. There is an off-the-shelf tax solution for zen-cart available using a service called Tax Cloud, www.taxcloud.net. It works. I tested it using various Colorado municipalities and it is correctly computed the taxes. I verified this by looking up the correct tax rates for these municipalities, zones, districts, zip codes everything. It successfully works down to the granularity of street addresses within the same zip code.
Quote from: bobmeetin on December 15, 2012, 17:33:55 PM
The long and short of this is that this program is no longer usable in the U.S. market. Aside from the hack that worked in 1.1.+ this is a major unresolved problem for U.S. customers. After several costly weeks and expense of setting up a shop with inventory and such I aborted and changed directions. I looked around, did some software evaluation and decided to switch to zen-cart. There is an off-the-shelf tax solution for zen-cart available using a service called Tax Cloud, www.taxcloud.net. It works. I tested it using various Colorado municipalities and it is correctly computed the taxes. I verified this by looking up the correct tax rates for these municipalities, zones, districts, zip codes everything. It successfully works down to the granularity of street addresses within the same zip code.
We are interested in adding this facility as an extension for US based users. Getting more information on this. Any input is welcome.
It is an extension for zen-cart. You download and install it in the zen-cart method, configure some address and other info in zc and set up some tax classes. You sign up for a taxcloud.net account, set up your business on taxcloud. The off-the-shelf procedures were rather lacking. I went back/forth with tc for about a week before I got the nuances in hand, got it calculating taxes, then calculating them correctly. If you get to that point I can help with the config.
VirtueMart 2.0.18 has an included VM Avalara Tax plugin - this appears to do exactly what you want with US local tax. The tutorial for use is on http://docs.virtuemart.net/tutorials/28-plugins-payment-shipment-and-others/75-configure-avatax
Hi,
Have successfully integrated the TaxCloud service into Vm 2.0 but would like to see what the interest is if I release this commercially.
As I understand it (although info on their site is very hard to come by unless you register - never a good sign) - that the new native Avalara Tax plugin that jenkinHill mentions above is a commercial "Software as a Service"
the info I found is here -
http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/article/10653455/2012-review-of-avalara-avatax-calc?page=2 (http://www.cpapracticeadvisor.com/article/10653455/2012-review-of-avalara-avatax-calc?page=2)
Quotecompanies with up to 700 transactions per year, the cost is $350. For higher volumes, such as up to 7,000 transactions annually, the cost is about $0.35 per transaction/lookup (about $2,400).
although have no idea how accurate this info is..
I assume TaxCloud is free - I am fully registered - the server is returning accurate tax values and address validation.
I will incl. a couple of screenshots below but at the moment I haven't bothered with Tax Exemption Certs, The TIC taxability code for the item in the cart, Notifying TaxCloud when a transaction has been authorized or Notifying TaxCloud when a transaction has been completed.
Will only continue with those if any interest is shown and then release it..
The integration is a standard installable joomla plugin - no hacks..
The taxcloud is set up as a normal Virtuemart tax rate (per bill) and the api goes off and verifies the client address and then returns the tax rate incl the shipping tax.
If the address won't verify the client is returned to the address dialog with a message.
(http://www.gjcwebdesign.com/vmconfig_taxcloud.png)
(http://www.gjcwebdesign.com/vm_taxcloud.png)
So - if anyone interested post here please.
Hi John
awesome, i had a total of 5 requests for the version we made in one years time, no one purchased ours.
i hope you fair better than we did with our version. there was just no interest and the few that contacted me, wanted for free
Hi Mike,
how are you? We seem to have lost contact somewhat! :(
Yes, as you say, very hard to judge the potential requirement of this.. been caught before with "desperately needed extensions" that as soon as you ask for some recompense for time spent they vanish... if only the ran their shops as a give away concern.. ;)
Will leave this for the moment and see if there are any responses before dev'ing further..
Regards and all good things!
I'm interested. I've used other stores and am just starting to run VirtueMart on my dev environment. I've been building stores for small businesses lately and Sales Tax by county (I'm in GA) has been a thorn in my side. If you can do this and keep it affordable, it works, and VirtueMart works out I will probably buy a copy with each build. I love open source and free like anyone but work is work and you deserve to get paid for it.
Hi fletch88,
The plugin is available but it's not on my downloads page till further feedback is returned... I will price it at €60 which includes live long updates...
If a few sell then I will continue the dev as the TaxCloud outfit is the "internet's only free sales tax processing service" and a service of The Federal Tax Authority,LLC (from their website) and all your taxes apparently can be reconciled thru their system..
I found the registration very simple and it does apparently do all it says on the tin.. but . you are the ONLY reply received so far...
Feel free to PM me if you need any further info..
Cheers
just an FYI
The Federal Tax Authority is not a government agency, its the name of there company only
Streamlined Sales Tax Governing Board which supposedly endorsed them also is not a government agency
do not be deceived, they have no IRS or tax affiliation with the government or states
they are endorsed by themselves
that said, as long as the information is good, who cares
you do know that you only have to collect tax for your specific state that you reside in so only orders shipping within your state. I would pay for this functionality to work right now i just have to eat it when their in a different county. I'm in florida
that used to be the case
say i lived in Connecticut, and the item i purchased online is shipped from Connecticut, i would pay Connecticut sales tax
if i lived in New York and the item is shipped from Connecticut, i would have no sales tax
so 17 states have started destination sales tax
so its a multi tiered tax system, its not just the sales tax for the the state the item is shipped from, its the tax for the place the item is shipped to, state, county, and city, each have their own sales tax in some states and this is the formula Johns module addresses.
there are another 21 states in the process of enacting the same tax law
I don't understand your example? your example outlines what i just said, the way i understand it and to go into more depth exactly what you said I live in florida if i buy a product from conneticut you the store owner don't have to charge me tax. I actually am however when i do my sales tax suppose to report that as a "use tax" when i do my own monthly sales tax stuff and i'm suppose to pay tax on it arriving because i bought it out of state, but that's not you the store owners concern. So for my own store when i ship stuff out in florida i have to charge them sales tax, but when it's out of my state it's up to them. Actually it's kinda funny the state of florida expects that INDIVIDUALS go on and actually file the same use tax when they buy goods out of state! hahaha like anyone EVER does that! I sadly do since I want to cover myself as a business
Thanks Mike!
QuoteThe Federal Tax Authority is not a government agency, its the name of there company only
Proves you should never believe stuff you read on the internet... ;)
Makes you wonder what's in it for them though and how you can get away with registering a company called "The Federal Tax Authority" - :-\
I guess as the other carts are using it natively then it should be kosher...
not sure what you mean that's not "what i've read on the net" that's being in business for 8 years doing business in about 8 countries tons of states, and bouncing questions off of over 3 or 4 cpa's over the years that make thousands of dollars per year doing my taxes, not to say i'm perfectly right but i have to be dam close in what i've stated thus why if memory serves the only LARGE online store i've ever seen charge tax is walmart which would make sense since they have stores in all 50 states!
Seems to depend on whether your State is part of the SSUTA
Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement
QuoteThe Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement is a cooperative effort by forty-four states to simplify and reduce the administrative costs of sales tax collection. As part of its efforts, the SSUTA governing board has been working toward the passage of federal legislation, which would authorize states to require out-of-state merchants to collect sales tax. This is a much simpler and straightforward solution, and one that has none of the drawbacks of affiliate nexus legislation.
QuoteFederal Legislation
While SSUTA has made it easy for retailers to collect sales tax for multiple states, there is still no federal legislation authorizing states to require remote sellers to collect and remit sales tax. Without this legislation, out-of-state retailers are exempt from the obligation to collect sales tax. Today, retailers are merely encouraged to volunteer to collect sales tax as a customer service feature (so consumers don't have to send in the tax due with their income taxes).
However, Congress is currently considering new legislation, which would grant states the authority to require all retailers to collect those states' sales and use taxes—regardless of nexus or physical presence
QuoteLaws surrounding the collection of sales tax by online retailers are continuing to evolve and change. And more and more states are passing laws that add "in-state affiliate marketers" to the list of ways to create nexus. With sales tax laws constantly changing, your sales tax management service needs to be able to comply with current and future regulations.
Federal sales tax legislation that currently being considered by Congress will rely on the sales tax simplification guidelines of the SSUTA. Since CSPs are guaranteed to comply with SSUTA regulations, selecting a CSP as your sales tax management service means that it will be able to comply with future sales tax laws.
QuoteTaxCloud is a free, easy-to-use sales tax management service. It's the only service that was designed to comply with the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement at a scale to support all online retailers. TaxCloud determines the applicable sales tax rate for a transaction, automatically incorporates changes to tax codes and rates, files sales tax returns, generates monthly reports, and handles all exemptions and audits – all at no cost.
[attachment cleanup by admin]
Pleased to annouce this has now been approved by TaxCloud (they will be announcing this shortly) and is available for download.
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113564.0
so I guess i'm your one customer is mine going to work? and did you ever send me the correct file?
which leaves this back as a subscription component
the other option is a company that provides a DB of the tax rates by state, but it is a monthly subscription, and each user of the component would have to have their own, and it was 100's per month. on top of that, the format of the files did not work for virtuemart, of which we reformated, but it could take 4 or 5 days to format for each state, and that would be an ongoing process
logistically, this is just not possible, and as stated in other posts, everyone wants free
I'm very interested in your product. I need to know if it work in my situation.
We will only tax purchases made in California. But, there are two rates, one rate for zip codes in our county and one rate for the rest of California.
Thanks for responding
here we go again
http://www.cnn.com/2013/05/06/tech/web/internet-sales-tax/index.html?hpt=hp_t2
saw the story on fox this morning, looks like stores with less than 1 million in yearly sales we be exempt, but no one knows specifics yet
Since this is a "HOT" topic for the US right now, I thought I'd try to re-generate interest in this thread.
TaxCloud is a good idea...sort of. The problem, as my client mentioned, is that they do not want to create a "door" to send data to a company that lets the government know that "John Doe" just placed an order and the government should look at "John Doe" to pay a "use tax", and should look at the business to pay the city tax.
Also, the ability to send the information to TaxCloud through their API can open a security door to my client.
So my client is very reluctant (read as...refuses) to use any service for calculating tax information outside of the site.
They prefer to do it manually.
But VM doesn't provide any method for US businesses to add literally thousands of tax codes. There are over 3,000 cities in Washington and California - both states from where my client ships and is bound by law to collect tax.
How in the world would one be able to input 3,000 tax calculations when each city has their own rate? There is no method of calculating because each city has a different rate. Nothing is done on percentage. Each city pulls a number out of their....hat...and decides that's the rate for their city. It's not calculated - not based on a percentage of some other rate.
I need to figure out a resolve in the next 24 hours. If someone is watching and has a good idea, I'd love to hear that thought.
its kinda like obamacare, all these ideas and laws being past, with no way to implement
To cope with the mad US tax model VM has for a while included and Avalara plugin for Avatax. http://virtuemart.net/news/latest-news/450-virtuemart-2-0-24a-includes-klarna-checkout
There is no way your site owner can keep track of the enormous variation of tax levels so this does provide a solution. Enable the plugin and configure it as a tax/calc rule.
http://docs.virtuemart.net/component/flexicontent/28-plugins-payment-shipment-and-others/75-configure-avatax.html
Quote from: LTCreations on December 12, 2013, 01:15:59 AM
Since this is a "HOT" topic for the US right now, I thought I'd try to re-generate interest in this thread.
TaxCloud is a good idea...sort of. The problem, as my client mentioned, is that they do not want to create a "door" to send data to a company that lets the government know that "John Doe" just placed an order and the government should look at "John Doe" to pay a "use tax", and should look at the business to pay the city tax.
Also, the ability to send the information to TaxCloud through their API can open a security door to my client.
Just to clarify - TaxCloud's API
does not expect or even accept
any customer identifiable information - the API requires association of a mechant/site defined customer identifier (a guid or some other unique identifier) which is needed for convenience to enable the merchant/site to cross reference transactions.
Moreover - why would "the government look at 'John Doe' to pay a 'use tax'" if John Doe actually paid the sales/use tax due (because the merchant/site relied upon TaxCloud to collect the correct tax due)?
We would be happy to engage directly with you and your client to discuss any security concerns.
You can email us at service@taxcloud.net or call 206-452-1686.
Thank You!
Quote from: GJC Web Design on April 04, 2013, 21:45:02 PM
This has been withdrawn from sale as TaxCloud have told me they demand FULL implementation and will block accounts using this until it is completed.
[re-posted from the other thread for clarity]
Our free service does require
complete implementation - otherwise we cannot help retailers by preparing accurate sales tax returns. Telling retailers the amount of sales tax to collect without helping them automatically prepare the related sales tax returns (for potentially thousands of jurisdictions) is a disservice; failure to report and remit collected sales tax proceeds is a crime.
We would be happy to pay you to complete your implementation by simply invoking the Authorized and Captured APIs (or the single consolidated AuthorizedWithCapture).
PHP sample code is available on our developer site at http://dev.taxcloud.net (http://dev.taxcloud.net) and also on Github at http://github.com/taxcloud (http://github.com/taxcloud)
Thank you.
http://forum.virtuemart.net/index.php?topic=113564.0
Pleased to annouce this has now been approved by TaxCloud (they will be announcing this shortly) and is available for download.
awesome
does max and valerie know?