How to Use/Configure Sales Tax (Regional or International) When Selling Through PayPal

Categories: Shipping & Tax

Please see the WP eStore Tax Calculation article to learn more on eStore’s built-in tax feature.

Configuring sales tax (regional or international) when selling through PayPal is really easy if you want to use it. After you configure the sales tax, PayPal will automatically charge customers the appropriate amount when they pay for your products or services on PayPal.

Configure Sales Tax in PayPal

Log in to your PayPal account by visiting www.paypal.com.
Go to ‘Profile’ from ‘My Account’ (My Account->Profile)

paypal-sales-tax-calculation-settings-4441

Click on the ‘Regional Tax’ link and you will get the following screen

paypal-sales-tax-calculation-settings-page2-444

Now you can add regional or/and internation sales tax in this screen.

After you configure the sales tax when a customer goes to pay for a product by clicking the ‘Checkout’ button of the WP eStore shopping cart plugin, PayPal will automatically charge the customer the appropriate tax.

If you do not wish to charge tax for a particular item (for example: a digital item) then set the individual item tax of that item to 0 (zero) and it will not charge any sales tax on that item. You can set the individual tax of a product from under the Shipping and Tax section of that product.

Please note that sales tax will be applied to the shopping cart after the customer fills in the credit card details (if paying by card) or logs into his/her PayPal account (if paying from paypal account). This is so paypal can work out the appropriate tax amount based on the customer’s location.

Cindy Says:
September 15th, 2009 at 10:45 am

Thank you for posting a reply to the “tax” thing. Awesome support!

John Says:
December 12th, 2009 at 1:01 am

I see adding state sales tax when the customer gets to paypal.. but in MN state sales tax is only applicable to certain things.. For example a PFD (life jacket) is taxable but basic clothing is exempt from state sales tax. It looks like if you set up charging sale tax in paypal.. all items are taxed. Is there no way to set up charging sales tax for sales within my state on an item by item basis before it gets to paypal?
Thanks

admin Says:
December 12th, 2009 at 6:21 am

Hi John, no, eStore doesn’t have the option to do item by item sales tax.

Michael Oeser Says:
June 16th, 2010 at 10:28 am

Hi,

this simply doesn´t exist in my PayPal account. Any idea why? Is that a US feature only (I live in Germany)

Ivy Says:
June 17th, 2010 at 1:03 am

Hi Michael, This should be a global setting. Log into your PayPal and go to the “Profile”. Once you are on the main page of the “Profile” settings it should be under “Selling Preferences” as “Regional Tax”.

Michael Oeser Says:
June 18th, 2010 at 6:51 am

But that´s the point. There is no “Regional Tax” in my PayPal Profile

Ivy Says:
June 19th, 2010 at 12:23 am

Hi Michael, The eStore only does tax through PayPal. We do have plans to add a tax feature in the future (eta is unknown at this time as our to do list is always changing). One solution is to add the tax into the price of the items. For example you have an item for $5.00 and your tax is 10% this would make the item then $5.50. If a majority of your customers are out of your region, say 1 in 5 then you can make this $5.10.

Michael Oeser Says:
June 19th, 2010 at 11:40 am

Thanks ivy. Unfortunately German taxrules are not that simple
Anyway I will find a solution for this.

Mitch Slater Says:
September 13th, 2010 at 7:39 pm

In the United States, you are only required to collect sales tax in states where you have a presence. We only have a presence in one state: Ohio.

How do we configure the WP eStore to ask for state and only charge it for those customers who declare that their state is the same as ours, ie, Ohio?

Help

Ivy Says:
September 14th, 2010 at 5:46 am

Hi Mitch, You would need to set this up in PayPal as the eStore only has simple tax options.

Jonathan Says:
March 30th, 2011 at 7:31 am

In the UK that option within your Paypal profile is called set up VAT rates. But that’s not really workable for my site – I need the VAT to show up in the cart on my website as normal.
If selling to consumers, the UK has a legal requirement to show the price including any VAT, so adding it on right at the end in Paypal is a none starter!

Reckon that’s a pretty important feature to have in plave (in my opinion!)

Regards

Jonathan

Ivy Says:
March 31st, 2011 at 12:27 am

Hi Jonathan, I believe this maybe what you are looking for:

http://www.tipsandtricks-hq.com/forum/topic/display-ttc-price-tax-included-on-product-page