Sales tax discrepancy on small amounts

[ellenrassiger]

I am noticing a consistent pattern of sales tax errors on Square transactions on small amounts when reconciling my transactions - always under about $100. For example, NYS sales tax is 8.625%. On a recent transaction of $52 total sale, the net sales amount should be $47.87. 

$47.87

+ 8.625% sales tax of $4.13

----------------------

$52

Instead, Square calculates the net amount to be 48.83 + $3.17 sales tax for a total of $52. I have no idea where these numbers are coming from, since sales tax amounts are calculated correctly for all other transactions. But this seems to be a consistent problem when the amount is under $100. 

[Alex_]

Hi @ellenrassiger,

Happy to provide some insight.

Because we use banker's rounding to apply customer-created tax rates, the tax amount that shows in the dashboard summary doesn't always match the total sales (minus discounts and refunds) multiplied by the tax rate.  The IRS, city, or state is calculating taxable sales as a total sum over a given period. Since they are not calculating per item, this will lead to pennies of discrepancy that do add up over time.

Please let me know if you have any other questions by replying to this thread. 

[ellenrassiger]

This is not pennies, the discrepancy can be around a dollar per transaction. Which results in skewing my sales tax data that I have to report to NYS. Not to mention the extra time it takes me to reconcile my accounts. Can you please escalate this and look into it further? 

[Alex_]

@ellenrassiger,

Thanks for letting me know.

I've gone ahead and escalated your case to our Customer Success Team and forwarded the details to your inbox in a private message.

Please let me know if you have any other questions by replying to this thread. 

[MagpieIdaho]

Alex_, did this ever get looked into?  I'm having the same issue - I opened October of last year and ended the year with a nearly $5 discrepancy.  I'm not sure if that's normal for rounding differences?