Zipcode-based sales tax not showing in Magento but national/state tax is. Why?

1
votes

I have a Magento 1.4.0.1 installation and I am trying to configure sales tax. I need to charge a state sales tax to every customer, and two zip-code based sales taxes depending on whether the buyer is in my county / in my city.

I’ve imported a table of tax rates and it looks like this (but quite a bit longer.):

Code    Country    State    Zip/Post Code    Rate
IL Use Rate    US    *    *    6.25
Winnebago-County-Tax-61011    US    IL    61011*    1
Winnebago-County-Tax-61016    US    IL    61016*    1
Winnebago-County-Tax-61019    US    IL    61019*    1
Winnebago-County-Tax-61020    US    IL    61020*    1
Winnebago-County-Tax-61024    US    IL    61024*    1

I have created a rule which is shown in the attached image, which contains the state tax as well as all my zip codes.

However, in my checkout screen I only see the state tax and none of the zip-based tax. I have tried many zip codes, using an asterisk in the tax rates and not using an asterisk, and setting up multiple rules (thinking that perhaps only the first match was being used.) Nothing has worked.

What do you suggest? We must be missing something simple. How can we fix this problem?

sales tax rule

2
phpdebuggingmagentocsve-commerce

2 Answers

0
votes

I think you need to get rid of the star on your zip codes and possibly make the identifier like the following as we have set up for one of our clients.

Tax Identifier Country State/Region Zip/Post Code mRate

US-AK-99659  United States   AK  99659   4.00
US-AK-99685  United States   AK  99685   3.00
US-AK-99687  United States   AK  99687   2.5
US-AK-99689  United States   AK  99689   4.00
US-AK-99690  United States   AK  99690   6.00
US-AK-99697  United States   AK  99697   6.00
US-AK-99692  United States   AK  99692   3.00
0
votes

Sales tax is not based on ZIP codes. Any calculation based on ZIP codes will be false and subject to state audit. There are over 14,000 different taxing jurisdictions throughout the United States and they are not ZIP code based. In fact, there can be several different special taxing jurisdictions within a single ZIP code, depending on the city, county and state.

And that is only the beginning. Each product type you sell is subject to different tax rates. An apple is not taxed the same as a deli sandwich or a bottle of Jim Beam. If you are a multi-state retailer selling multiple products, I would suggest a more robust solution.