Taxes for Dummies version please

I've read everything I can find on this, but still can't grasp this.

Could someone give me the step by step version to accomplish...

1. Only California customers will be charge 7.25%

2. Everyone else will not be charge tax.

3. All products should display their price before taxes and only show the tax price at checkout if they enter a California address.

Thanks.

Hi Nicloas,

I'm trying to set up my own tax in CA and I want to be sure I have this correct based on your explanation. Can you confirm and clarify, explain a bit more so I can understand this to expand on if needed for the future? It would be good to have these instructions written out with a bit more detail to insure there is no confusion for people like me who this seems very complicated It's sad on my part I can program web stuff but can't set up tax!

1. Go in System->Taxes, click on "manage tax category"
2. If you don't have a tax category, you need to create it.

Right now, there is only the category "Default tax category" which is installed already. If I am setting this up for a single state (i.e. CA) should I set up a second category called California or will I use the Default tax category for California? It would be good to have some clarification on the "Default" tax category... is it the category for everything EXCEPT what you are trying to set up a tax for, or if you only need one tax source (like CA) is that it's purpose? By saying default, it seems to me, default is the entire world which has either a 0 or low fixed tax rate, and then you create tax category exceptions on top of that? Or, Default is set up just a place holder to be use for the first (or only) tax category?

3. Go in System->Taxes, click on "manage tax rate"
4. If you don't have a tax rate, you need to create it.

This was empty, so I set up a California tax rate of 9.75%.

5. Go in System->Taxes, click on new in order to create a new tax rule
6. Select the zone of the tax (California), the rate, the tax category, publish it and save.

Here is the rule I created, is this correct?
Zone: California Tax Category: Default tax category Rate: 9.75 Customer Type All Customer Types

7. In your products select the tax category.

This instruction is very vague to me. All of my products are currently set as: "Tax Category: Default tax category" so based on this, my guess is all products have a default tax value of the California rule I set up. But I am thinking the default rule should be the zero rate? I could really use more clarification on this point!

8. Set a "main tax zone" other than California in the configuration page of HikaShop.

I set this to the United States, but does it matter? If there will be tax only in CA, should this really be world-wide?


Thank you for the clarifications! This is a requirement to use the basic PayPal plugin, because if an order from CA doesn't have tax that matches the PayPal setting it cancels the order!

Thank you so much! I want to help volunteer if you'd like to write up a sticky post you can keep at the top of the forum that really describes how to do this (set up tax for a single location/state) in very high detail for people like me in the U.S. who don't quite get this without help. Your support is excellent and I want to help you in return if I can!

Actually, I am sorry to say this did not work once I set it all up as instructed. I narrowed this down to one thing that affects it:

If I have my products set to "Default tax rate" it applies and forces CA tax no matter where the person is purchasing from. If I set it to "None" then the product is NOT taxed no matter if the person is from CA or not.

I created 2 orders, buying the same items and the only thing I changed each time I made an order is the address of the customer.

What is left I am doing wrong?

Hello Nicolas,

I have convinced the owner of my company to purchase Hikashop Business due to your excellent support while we have used the free version! I do need some help finishing setting up the cart, but for anyone reading the forums, this company provides better support than any other company I've dealt with in the 20+ years I've done computer/web work!

~Michael

I want my tax to be added at the end I got it to work for new jersey but I was wondering if I could get it off the regular prices , cause it applied it to all of them www.thundermoto.com I want to just added it in the check out! thanks!