How to set separate - itemized - sales tax rates per item in my Square Online site?

[mtnoven]

The title of this post has been edited from the original: How to set separate sales tax rates per item in my Square Online site?

We are a bakery that sells different categories of items that our state (CO) taxes differently.

For example, bread that is sold packaged to be eaten at home is exempt from state retail sales tax whereas a ready to eat pizza includes the state retail sales tax.

This results in us having different items that we need to tax at different rates.

In the Square Register, this is easy enough to do. In the Square Online site, however, I don't see any way to set tax rates by the item - only by the location.

How can this be resolved? Thank you!

[isabelle]

Hey @mtnoven-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community.

At this time, customizing taxes per item is only a feature available for in-store purchases and POS purchases, not the Square Online site. We're working to ensure that tax settings will be able to be synced across both POS and Square Online site settings in the future. In the meantime, there is not a way to create a custom tax, or a per-item tax within the Square Online site.

Thank you for surfacing this feature request. We'll make sure to pass your insight along to the appropriate Square Online product team. 

[RedLightRoaster]

In my question to Square/Weebly this idea was put on a list of things to update later, and I was advised to post to the community for more input. So if this is important to you please let Square/Weebly know that this needs to happen now.  

As our business has evolved recently, our online shop is the place where our local pickup, delivery and shipping customers go to make their choices on ALL items in our coffee house. In our city and state there are different sales taxes collected and remitted for different types of items.  Prepared beverages/foods, alcoholic beverage 6pks togo, grocery items, all have different sales tax rates.  In order to stay in compliance with local and state taxes we need to be able to collect and pull reports for these items. 

The online shop only has a general state sales tax as far as I can tell.  and no sales tax for out of state buyers.  I guess that's fine for shipping goods, but for local pick up and delivery of prepared items and grocery items we need to collect and report more specific taxes. 

The taxes that are applied to items in Square register need to be synced to the Square/Weebly Online stores.  

[isabelle]

Hey @RedLightRoaster-

Thanks for posting in the Seller Community. It looks like you have similar needs to @mtnoven. Take a look at my previous comment about syncing tax settings across POS and Online Store. We're working on it, however I do not have a release date to offer at this time. 

Insight like yours really gives our Product Teams an idea of how this limitation impacts our seller's businesses, so we really appreciate you taking the time to post about this. 

Thanks again, and I'll make sure to post an update in this thread when I have one. 

[MvilleSoapworks]

Not just coffee shops. I have a retail brick and mortar and here in NY most items are taxed by both the state and county, but clothing is only taxed by the county. Right now it is not an issue because I am not selling any of those items for pickup, but if I continue to stay closed to browsing I will want/need to list those items. So, different scenario, but another example of why this is so important. ^_^ 

[Proper]

Chiming in to say that this is a major issue that needs addressing! As others have stated, the different tax rates work great on the Square POS, but the weebly side needs to be able to amend different tax rates for different items. Our scenario: We are a pie shop that sells ready-to-eat food that is taxed as follows: State tax (VA) 5.3%, Richmond City Meals tax 7.5% (total of 12.8%, ugh) BUT we also sell some merchandise (coffee mugs, pint glasses, t-shirts, etc.) On the Square POS those things are set at the correct tax rate of ONLY the state tax (5.3%), but the online store blankets every item with the same 12.8% tax. 

Our "work-around" that we are implementing for the time being: 

Mark the merchandise item as "tax exempt", then add the correct tax amount to the total price, i.e. Coffee mugs are $5 each, so the new total cost will be $5.27. Then break out the taxes later per item. Fortunately (or unfortunately?) we don't sell a TON of merch, mostly food, but as we are super limited in our menu and hours right now (hello pandemic) every little bit helps. 

tl/dr: definitely need to be able to adjust taxes on individual items in Square Online! 

Thanks!

[RedLightRoaster]

@isabelle  Is there an update for this major disconnect between the online shop item taxation and the square register taxation?  For two SQUARE owned products that communicate so well with items, pricing, inventory, etc. for it not to communicate the proper taxation of items is hard to understand.  Over collecting sales tax on items isn't fair to our customers, and under collecting sales tax isn't good for business.  It also makes it very difficult when running reports for us to remit taxes to our local collectors...  Please fix.

[Vyolet]

I totally agree, this is a huge issue. I sell clothing apparel and accessories and the taxes are different, I don’t want any issues when it comes to filing taxes.  This is an urgent issue that needs your urgent attention.

[emsroth]

3 years later friend, still no change. Square gives no **bleep**s about their customers.

[roastology]

We are a coffee roaster and coffee shop, we recently moved from Shopkeep to Square and the Online Store for carry out coffee and food and sales of items such as roasted coffee, merchandise, equipment and supplies.  We also operate a woocommerce site for our roasted coffee sales.  Our goal is to integrate everything into one system, hopefully Square if the features are added to allow it.  

In Richmond Virginia we have City of Richmond Admission, Lodging and Meals tax plus Virginia general Sales tax that apply to food and drink items sold in the cafe and for online store (picked up in the cafe). Virginia Food tax applies to Roasted Coffee sold in the cafe and online store (picked up in the cafe) and for online sales we have to include tax in the cost and mark the items non-taxable in order for taxes to work properly. This needs to be fixed.

Virginia general sales tax that applies to merchandise, equipment and supplies. 

For sales tax to work for online sales that are shipped we need to be able to charge sales tax according to where it is shipped in state or out of state and apply to the proper sales tax jurisdictions where appropriate.   This feature does not exist. 

[AdamB]

Thanks for posting about your particular tax situation, @roastology. Are you using the automatic tax calculator with your Square Online Store, or did you set up your own rates manually? I don't know that the automatic tax calculator is able to take into account situations where one item should be taxed at a different rate (although you can turn off tax for items), but it should handle whether or not tax should be applied if shipping to a different state and if so what rate should be used.

[Darla_]

Is there a solution to this yet? About to do a product launch, it's going to be awful to have a "some items include tax some items don't" confusing customer situation, since the only work-around I see is to include the correct tax for differently taxed items in the price and then later do all the tax math myself.

If you need more feedback to get this issue moved to the front burner (although it is wild to me that this would ever not be a front-burner issue), here's mine:

We have to be able to sell items with different tax rates. At our place, we're doing a strict online-order/curbside pickup model - we're too small for anything else to be viable with our locality's current capacity restrictions. With only one available tax rate, we are being put into a position where we either lose money, operate illegally, spend a whole bunch of time doing backwards tax math once a month with inherent risk of human error, or limit our available products to those with one tax rate. We really, really need to be able to sell whatever we can right now, so that is a pretty terrible position. I am pretty frustrated that this doesn't seem to be an issue of importance with Weebly. If I had known something so important was not being handled I probably would not have switched over to Square. I know that no system is perfect, but this puts your customers in a legal bind. When I spoke with Weebly first about it months ago, they didn't even seem overly concerned - same old, "If enough people complain maybe the Product Team will work on it." It seems pretty basic that a POS/online store platform should allow a business to charge the correct taxes. Square POS can do it, why's that the only thing that doesn't sync with Weebly? Please please please can this be fixed?

[paintapicture]

to add to this. I sell products on my website that are taxable. I am an art teacher and also use the Events product type to offer seats in my classes. Because they are classes, they are not taxable, regardless of where the customer is located.

I used to be able to check a box on the item screen that said "this item is tax-exempt' but that check box no longer exists.

I shouldn't be charging sales tax and seats in a class.

[KingstonBread]

Chiming in to say this is an essential need for us as well. We are a bakery in New York, and many of the products we sell for pickup at our shop - loaves of bread, pastries - should not be taxed. Sandwiches, meanwhile, should. Right now we are forced to overcharge our customers and put tax on top of everything, collecting unnecessary sales tax on items that should not be taxed. Please address this issue! Thank you. 

[prestonrosefarm]

As a brewery who has been forced by recent events to rely on online ordering and takeout sales, and a business in a state with an excise tax applied to beer but not to food, we MUST have the option to apply specific taxes on an item by item basis.  This was a pretty elementary "radio button" option in square, in all platforms (point of sale, shipping AND online ordering)....and now you're forcing all square online store users over to weebly WITHOUT this option?  Seems like a simple fix, so what's the holdup?  I've seen plenty of inquiries on this thread from people with similar problems across MANY retail industries.  If you want to help small business survive this pandemic pandemonium....PLEASE make the minute changes in your software that we are being forced to use as paying square customers!!!

[KJC]

Having found this out what seems like forever ago, i stopped setting up our online as i need at least 2 different tax line, like i have set in my pos. Recently figured i would switch from wix to square as the events of 2020 we are down in sales. still a problem with the taxes. im sure most members would be unhappy to hear that they are either over taxing their customers and could get in BIG trouble with the states they are in OR are LOSING money that they really cant afford to now. Square may have a lot of its plate but this should be a top priority for them as it effects the business.

[winmker]

Hello,

Similar situation here for us at a winery in Pennsylvania: we charge regular sales tax (6%) for all online purchases, either picked up on site or shipped, but on top of that, we have to charge an additional excise tax of 2.5%, only on wine bottles, and only if they are shipped within PA and only if the billing address is also in PA.
Right now everything, bottles and other items, are charged both 6% and 2.5% taxes, regardless if shipped or not, and regardless of the shipping and billing addresses.

I think the first step would be to put a toggle option in the tax setting to apply it or not if the order is shipped or not. That should be simple enough.
A second step would be to add an option that would trigger that specific tax if the billing State is the same as the ship-to State, and also the same as the ship-from State. I understand that the system already does that if the ship-from and ship-to States are the same. All is needed is to add the bill-to State as an additional condition. That should also be fairly simple to implement.

Thank you.

[SketchBeer]

As a taproom that has alcoholic products taxed at different rates than other items - with multiple and different taxes per taproom location (we have two) - it is critical the square is able to duplicate our in-store taxes rates (which work fine) in our on-line store where we only sell for pick-up orders.  As we are now shut down from everything BUT online orders with COVID-19 rules , this is our lifeline.   We will have to abandon square if this is not addressed right away!

[emsroth]

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We're working to ensure that tax settings will be able to be synced across both POS and Square Online site settings in the future.

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No you're not. It's been three years.

[isabelle]

Thank you for sharing @MvilleSoapworks! I'll make to to post in this thread when I have an update. 

[UrbanTeaTown]

Same request also in my topic here: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Online-Store-Discussion/Online-Store-Tax-at-the-Item-Level...