California State and District Taxes

Hello, I am setting up shop in California and have the following requirements:

1. I have to charge everyone in the state a flat tax rate.

2. In the county my business is in, I have to add an additional percentage (District Tax) to the state tax. (This only applies to customers I ship to in my county).

3. Shipments outside California are zero tax. International is tax free as well.

Questions:

1. Could I treat California as the Country and each city of the county I reside in as a state (for tax calculation purposes that is)?

2. If not, how would I go about adding the district tax (coding) to add the additional tax during the final checkout process? Specifically, I am considering a list of cities that are in my county, and performing a look-up and adding the tax if the city is in my county and matches the city in the order.

Could you point me in the right direction please?

Thank you in advance, and thank you for putting so much capability in this product for the little you charge.

Mike

I know you guys are extremely busy, but I would really appreciate feedback on if I am on the right track to solve this, or do I need a new approach.

Thx...

Thank you Nicolas, I will read through that post and work on implementing.

Just an FYI on the tax issues (not yours, our government's issues). Taxing by zip code will not work in all US States, because a tax district in many cases overlaps zip codes (go figure lol).

On a positive note, however, California gives us a break by only requiring merchants who are engaged in business within a district to charge that district tax. Since my district tax applies to the whole county, i basically lucked out.

However, if I expand and create another physical sales location then that will be another story (wishing a little).

Thx again for your help and I echo others on your level of support, just make sure you keep time to live too (I have spent 30 yrs in IT so I know what you go through...)

Mike