thread Re: Online Store Tax at the Item Level in Online Store

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

mtnoven — Sat, 14 Nov 2020 23:07:33 GMT

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!

Online Store Tax at the Item Level

UrbanTeaTown — Fri, 01 May 2020 17:54:33 GMT

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.

Re: Online Store Tax at the Item Level

JustinC — Sat, 02 May 2020 15:56:43 GMT

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!

Re: Online Store Tax at the Item Level

tcs-chicago — Mon, 04 May 2020 14:50:04 GMT

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.

Need Item Sales Taxes on Square/Weebly Shop to be the same as my Coffee Shop

RedLightRoaster — Sat, 09 May 2020 22:13:41 GMT

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.

Re: Set Separate Sales Tax Rates per Item in Online Store

isabelle — Wed, 19 Aug 2020 23:36:36 GMT

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.

Re: Need Item Sales Taxes on Square/Weebly Shop to be the same as my Coffee Shop

isabelle — Mon, 11 May 2020 19:14:57 GMT

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.

Re: Need Item Sales Taxes on Square/Weebly Shop to be the same as my Coffee Shop

MvilleSoapworks — Mon, 11 May 2020 19:43:07 GMT

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. ^_^

Re: How to set separate sales tax rates per item in Online Store?

isabelle — Wed, 13 May 2020 21:00:49 GMT

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

Re: How to set separate sales tax rates per item in Online Store?

UrbanTeaTown — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:10:06 GMT

Same request also in my topic here: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Online-Store-Discussion/Online-Store-Tax-at-the-Item-Level/m-p/168279#M474

Re: Online Store Tax at the Item Level

UrbanTeaTown — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:12:12 GMT

Same request in this thread: https://www.sellercommunity.com/t5/Square-Online-Store-Discussion/How-to-set-separate-sales-tax-rates-per-item-in-Online-Store/td-p/170440

Re: How to set separate sales tax rates per item in Online Store?

isabelle — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:31:51 GMT

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

Re: How to set separate sales tax rates per item in Online Store?

tcs-chicago — Thu, 14 May 2020 19:33:48 GMT

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

Re: Online Store Tax at the Item Level

Joe — Fri, 15 May 2020 15:49:48 GMT

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

Apply different tax rates on different items on the online store

Luppoleto — Sat, 16 May 2020 12:40:36 GMT

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.

Re: Apply different tax rates on different items on the online store

Alex_ — Mon, 18 May 2020 00:47:56 GMT

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.

Re: Need Item Sales Taxes on Square/Weebly Shop to be the same as my Coffee Shop

Proper — Thu, 18 Jun 2020 14:08:09 GMT

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!

Re: Need Item Sales Taxes on Square/Weebly Shop to be the same as my Coffee Shop

RedLightRoaster — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 20:08:42 GMT

@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.

Re: Online Store Tax at the Item Level

RedLightRoaster — Tue, 30 Jun 2020 20:10:46 GMT

@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.

Re: Need Item Sales Taxes on Square/Weebly Shop to be the same as my Coffee Shop

roastology — Sat, 04 Jul 2020 14:00:15 GMT

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.