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!

[UrbanTeaTown]

Here's an enhancement request (needed):

The online store currently has the ability to set a tax rate at the state and an additional local (zip code) level. In our zip code, the state tax rate is 6.5%, and three local taxes: County (1.25%), city (2.5%), and city prepared food tax (2%), for a total of 12.25%. (Yeah, I know! 🤑)

The online store taxes correctly based on our zip code for prepared foods, but we also sell retail items, which are not supposed to be taxed at the 2% prepared food tax rate, just county and city for 10.25%. 

We need a way to designate that individual tax rates such as the 2% above apply to some items (prepared foods), but are excluded from others (retail items). Or perhaps at the item category level.

The Square POS does this just fine.

[JustinC]

Hey there @UrbanTeaTown 

You're right - the POS has this ability but with the Online Store, assigning certain taxes to specific items when you have multiple rates isn't doable. 

I don't have any insight if our Product Team will work on getting this feature added in the future but one we catch wind, we'll let you know here! 

[tcs-chicago]

Yes!!!  This is a HUGE issue for us (a coffee shop), using the Online Store for Pick-Up Orders. "General Merchandise" is taxed differently than "Grocery Items" in Illinois (and in many states). 

We sell drinks and baked goods (taxed at a combined rate of 10.5%, but we also sell "grocery" items like bags of coffee beans/boxed teas at 2.25%.  In the POS this works great, but the online store does not seem to take the Item level tax information.  I cannot charge 10.5% tax on grocery items. This is a major problem! I am selling beans and NOT charging tax, which is not great, since I still have to pay the taxes to the state.   (There are other item level tax rates too, like "Soft Drink Taxes" or "Bottled Water Taxes" which will need to fixed at some point also, but we don't sell that much of those, so it's not a major issue for us right now.)

We need an update in this ASAP! We are losing money not being able to charge the correct taxes.

[UrbanTeaTown]

Same request in this thread: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Online-Store-Discussion/How-to-set-separate-sales-tax-rate...

[Joe]

Thanks for adding that here, @UrbanTeaTown! We appreciate you helping us for record keeping purposes. 

[RedLightRoaster]

@Joe  @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.

[tcs-chicago]

Agree. This is an URGENT issue for us. Re-posting from a few weeks ago, on the above thread I said:

Yes!!!  This is a HUGE issue for us (a coffee shop), using the Online Store for Pick-Up Orders. "General Merchandise" is taxed differently than "Grocery Items" in Illinois (and in many states). 

We sell drinks and baked goods (taxed at a combined rate of 10.5%, but we also sell "grocery" items like bags of coffee beans/boxed teas at 2.25%.  In the POS this works great, but the online store does not seem to take the Item level tax information.  I cannot charge 10.5% tax on grocery items. This is a major problem! I am selling beans and NOT charging tax, which is not great, since I still have to pay the taxes to the state.   (There are other item level tax rates too, like "Soft Drink Taxes" or "Bottled Water Taxes" which will need to fixed at some point also, but we don't sell that much of those, so it's not a major issue for us right now.)

We need an update in this ASAP! We are losing money not being able to charge the correct taxes.

[isabelle]

Thank you! I merged them together for visibility purposes @UrbanTeaTown. 

[SeaCider]

We are also facing the same issue as all the users above. Since COVID-19 hit we have transitioned to a lot more online sales, and the platform does not allow us to charge the correct taxes. We are based in B.C., Canada and sell both alcoholic and non-alcoholic products (different tax rates), as well as merchandise all of which are taxed differently, which can't be accomplished with the current system. This is an urgent need for our business to stay in tax compliance. So much so we are evaluating alternative online sales platforms that already incorporate this ability, however we would like to avoid the hassle of building a new online store and stay with Square if this can be fixed.

[Luppoleto]

I live in a state where food & beverage is taxed differently than merchandise. Since we are currently only able to do curbside pickup service we're selling all our items (food, beverages & merchandise) through the web store and therefore need to be able to tax our items differently. I know there is a way to do this in the Square POS but I understand this is not yet possible in the web store. Does anyone else have this same issue? If there's enough need for it they may devote some resources to add that feature.

[Alex_]

Hello @uppoleto,

Thank you for posting in the Seller Community. Welcome.

I'm going to go ahead and check in with our Weebly Team on this, and will be back as soon as I have an update.

In the meantime, please let me know if you have any other questions by replying to this thread. 

[FairTradeShop]

Hi this is an issue for our shop in Illinois too.  We have some food items that need 2.25% tax and other merchandise that's taxed at 10.25%.  

How am I supposed to make this work?  It's not a problem with the normal Square app. 

Please help, we're trying to go live with curbside pickup and shipping by next week.

[ashc]

Hey @Luppoleto and @FairTradeShop,

I moved your posts to an existing thread that goes over how the Online Store doesn't offer this feature at this time.

It's a popular feature request and hopefully something we'll be able to offer soon. We will update this thread if it becomes available so keep your eyes peeled. 👀

[FairTradeShop]

Thank you for responding.  I hope this is a front burner issue that's being tackled soon.  This is not a "feature" but a necessity that your retailers are able to collect the correct taxes!

[tcs-chicago]

I just wanted to say that I wholeheartedly agree...  we have been waiting on this fix for over six months, and it is being consistently called a "Feature Request" rather than a Critical Bug, as it should be.  We are ALL out of tax compliance because of this error in the software/app, and we are NOT seeing Square/Weebly take it seriously.  We really need a proper response and timeline for the fix!

[lgmbts]

FYI - I received no notification that this had been solved.  In fact, I was on the phone with a rep TODAY and asked about this very same thing and if there was any update and the answer was that it had not.  They had no idea it had been addressed.  How is that even possible?

Just some feedback from a slightly less frustrated user.

[Flb]

how do I set up different sales tax rates ( food vs bakery) in items? In the old store you set up under category. Thanks

[AshleyK]

@Flb if you're trying to add tax on the Square Dashboard it will be under Items > Sales Tax. Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂

[Flb]

The new store does not allow me to set up different tax rates for different items. It is charging 4% based on my address. I need to charge 6% for bakery and 2% for food. I am not compliant with the new store which is not a good thing.

[AdamB]

We don't currently have the option to charge multiple tax rates on the Online Store, @Flb, although it's a request that we are tracking. I'm merging your posts onto another thread about this so you can get an update if this changes.

[RedLightRoaster]

I'm not sure Square/Weebly understands how much this sales tax issue with the online shop hurts the small business.  I have been discussing this issue with Square/Weebly since January 2020.  And at least monthly since March 2020 when our business changed to mainly online sales. We have 4 different item types that require different sales tax rates.  

WHY can't the tax rates assigned in Square Items sync to the online shop?

There are many businesses that need this to change now.