US-state tax and shipping, login

Help on this would be great--I've spent a couple whole days on this and cannot figure out the answer. I'd like to post a guide once I get this done, to help others.

First, I have two products for sale in California. I need to tax both items 8.75%, but ONLY to California residents. Nobody else in the world needs to pay that tax. As I've set it up, tax apparently is being added to the product for everybody--I cannot figure out how to apply the tax only to Californians. Here is the link: wavegrinder.com/beta-products-page . The products are $65 and $11, which after tax is $70.69 and $11.96.

A related issue is that I've set up Display to show product price plus tax, and the filed label on the front end reads "excl VAT." In the US, we have tax, not what is commonly known as Value-Added Tax (VAT). Can I change the text "VAT" to "tax" somehow?

Second, I want to charge shipping of $12.35 to US destinations, $30 to everywhere else in the world. I have tried setting this up too, but cannot get it to apply.

Any help on these questions would be wonderful!

Thanks,

Doug

Great! I fixed the "VAT" issue--that was easy!

Here are some screenshots.