Sales Tax | Tips and Tricks WP eCommerce

WP eStore TaxCloud Integration AddOn

The eStore TaxCloud addon allows you to integrate your store with taxcloud, a free sales tax management service, to automatically calculate tax for every address in the United States.

TaxCloud handles every aspect of sales tax management, from collecting to filing. It calculates tax in real time for every state, county, city and special jurisdiction in the US.

Installing the eStore TaxCloud Integration Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
Click the “upload” tab
Browse for the addon file (estore-taxcloud-integration.zip)
Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

1) In order to integrate your store with TaxCloud click on the “TaxCloud” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

2)Enter your TaxCloud credentials (API ID & API Key).

screenshot showing the eStore taxcloud addon settings menu

3) Enter your Store Address. TaxCloud requires this information to calculate tax during checkout.

4) Click the Save button

5) Now click on the Verify store address link. This is to make sure that TaxCloud can successfully locate the store address that you have entered. You only need to do it once.

How Does the TaxCloud Integration Addon Work

When a user clicks on the checkout button the addon will redirect the user to a page to collect the destination address.

screenshot showing the taxcloud address collection during checkout

Once the address is submitted, TaxCloud will verify the address and calculate tax based on the origin (Store address) and the destination.

screenshot showing taxcloud checkout process using eStore

After the transaction is processed, the addon will notify TaxCloud that the order has been completed.

International Sales

If you are selling to international customers also then there is an option for those customers to select the “Outside US” option to bypass this.

Get the TaxCloud Integration Addon

The price of this addon is $29

Please contact us to purchase this addon.

WP eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types AddOn

The eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types addon allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the user’s country and type of items.

Installing the eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
Click the “upload” tab
Browse for the addon file (estore-table-rate-tax-by-item-types.zip)
Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

When this addon is active, You can easily configure rates that will be used to apply tax in the shopping cart based on the customer’s country.

To access the addon settings click on the “Table Rate Tax” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

To add a new tax zone you need to select a country, type of product and specify a tax rate for it (For example: 20).

Click the “Save” button which will add the zone.

If you do not wish to configure a rate for every country you can specify a flat rate (For example: 15). By default it is set to 0.

screenshot showing the settings of table rate tax by item types addon

screenshot showing the default options of table rate tax by item types addon

screenshot showing the countries configured in the table rate tax by item types addon

How Does It Work

Lets say, a customer is browsing your website from Denmark. When that user adds a digital product to the shopping cart a 25% tax/VAT will be automatically applied.

screenshot showing the eStore table rate tax addon by item types country dropdown in the shopping cart

The location of the user is determined based on the IP address. But they can also manually select their country (the addon will calculate the tax accordingly).

If the user is from a zone that you haven’t configured (Example: USA) a 15% tax will be automatically applied.

Tax will be applied the same way for physical products.

AddOn Price

The eStore Table Rate Tax by Item Types Addon is FREE for all customers who purchased WP eStore plugin from us.

Download the Addon (v1.0.1)

You can download this addon from the addon download area of our customer only support forum.

General Note

Please note that some of these free eStore addons are developed by our users in the community. So they do not have any advanced customization option. The description above explains exactly what this addon does.

WP eStore Table Rate Tax AddOn

The eStore Table Rate Tax addon allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the user’s country.

Installing the eStore Table Rate Tax Addon

You can install this addon the same way you install any WordPress plugin:

Go to the “Add New” plugins screen in your WordPress admin area
Click the “upload” tab
Browse for the addon file (estore-table-rate-tax.zip)
Click “Install Now” and then activate the plugin

Using this Addon

When this addon is active, You can easily configure rates that will be used to apply tax in the shopping cart based on the customer’s country.

To access the addon settings click on the “Table Rate Tax” sub-menu under the WP eStore plugin menu.

To add a new tax zone you need to select a country and specify a tax rate for it (For example: 20).

Click the “Save” button which will add the zone.

If you do not wish to configure a rate for every country you can specify a flat rate in the “Tax Rate For Other Zones” field (For example: 15). By default it is set to 0.

screenshot showing how to configure a table rate tax

How Does It Work

Lets say, a customer is browsing your website from Denmark. When that user adds a product to the shopping cart a 25% tax/VAT will be automatically applied.

screenshot showing the eStore table rate tax addon country dropdown

The location of the user is determined based on the IP address. But they can also manually select their country (the addon will calculate the tax accordingly).

If the user is from a zone that you haven’t configured (Example: USA) a 15% tax will be automatically applied.

AddOn Price

The eStore Table Rate Tax Addon is FREE for all customers who purchased WP eStore plugin from us.

Download the Addon (v1.0.1)

You can download this addon from the addon download area of our customer only support forum.

General Note

WP eStore Tax Calculation

Charging sales tax for your products when using WP eStore plugin to sell your product(s) is very easy. There are a few ways you can use the tax feature of eStore:

Use the built-in tax feature of eStore.
Use the PayPal’s profile based tax feature.
Use the table rate tax addon.
Use the TaxCloud integration.

Using the Built-in Tax Feature of eStore

Simply enable the tax calculation option from the settings menu and specify the tax rate for your store and that’s it.

WP eStore Tax Settings

Sometimes you maybe selling product(s) where sales tax is not applicable or you may want to charge a different tax rate for a particular item. With eStore you can achieve that by overriding the tax rate for a particular product from the individual product’s tax option:

Overriding Sales Tax for an Individual Product

The sales tax is displayed in the shopping cart when the tax feature is enabled (the following is an example screenshot of the shopping cart with tax feature enabled)

WP eStore Cart Screenshot

Using the PayPal Profile Based Tax Feature

Please see the how to use regional or international sales tax when selling via PayPal post for this option.

WP eStore Table Rate Tax

Table rate tax allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the customer’s country. See the table rate tax addon page for details.

Table Rate Tax by Item Type

The Table Rate Tax by Item Types addon allows you to charge tax in the shopping cart based on the user’s country and type of items they are purchasing.

Using TaxCloud Integration

WP eStore has an integration with TaxCloud, a free sales tax management service, to automatically calculate tax for every address in the United States.

View the eStore TaxCloud addon page to get more details on this integration.

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

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

There is a video tutorial on how to setup regional sales tax in PayPal.

PayPal frequently updates their interface so the following screenshot may not exactly match with what you see in your profile but the general concept is the same.

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.