Customer Tax Exempt Automation at the Customer Level

[Flowerman]

The ability to have all "Tax Exempt" Customers automatically not charged Sales Tax at the Customer level and not the Item Level. By current tax LAW there are items that are taxable while the customer is tax exempt on the sale. While Square allows you to add a tax exempt status by adding their Tax Exempt ID number in the customer setup, it fails hugely in the execution of the sale. From not removing the sales tax to also not reporting it without the ability to classify Taxable verses Non taxable Sales. For this reason alone they will be never beat out their competitors for accurate reporting and handling of Non-Taxable Sales.  

I've seen this issue posted for several years, with no updates to the software as of today 05/08/2023. Please listen to your customers and make this simple change without sending it over and over again to Feature Requests. If they can't handle it, hire a new team who can. 

[MayaP]

Hello @Flowerman , I apologize for the delay replied, and certainly understand your frursation and need for customer tax exemption automation on a customer level. I’ve gone ahead and changed the status of this feature request to “Open”. You provided a great assessment on the potential business use/need for something like this on our platform from a seller’s perspective. This is a useful tool for our Product Team to use as they build the future of our products. As more information becomes available, a Community moderator will come in and change the status letting all of the subscribed sellers know. Thank you so much again for your input! 

[funnytown]

It would be incredibly helpful if there was a way to mark certain customers as tax exempt, so when you attach a customer to the transaction the sales tax would automatically come off. We have customers who need to submit tax exemption certificates, but there's no good way of marking those customers in that manner. Right now you'd have to manually go in and turn off the tax and this would definitely cut down on potential mistakes.

[doctornote]

Yes.  Mark customers as tax exempt, plus a field for why they are tax exempt (educational institution, sale to another retailer, religious institution, etc) AND be able to report on this.  Not only is the customer automatically not charged but we can easily fill in our monthly state sales tax form.

[HrtngG]

Our store very much needs this feature! We do business with other businesses and non-profit entities as well as the usual customer. Mistakes have been made now and again where customers have to be called and orders have to be rerung. It would be so much easier if tax exempt rules could apply to customers' accounts. Our employees shouldn't have to remember every single tax exempt customer! (Custom fields for customers aren't visible when ringing up at the register.)  We definitely had this feature in Quickbook's POS.

[lsadows]

I too would utilize a feature like this! I grow regionally native plants and sell to the public as well as government and/or environmental orgs. It would be incredibly helpful if they could have an approved tax-exempt customer account to streamline online orders. As it stands, I have to create an invoice for each order and it has become very tedious and inefficient. 

[Leaflet]

This feature would be super helpful! I do orders for tax-exempt customers, such as churches, and it would be helpful to mark the customer as tax exempt instead of having to turn off the tax every time I need to invoice them. Thanks!

[lsadows]

Another thought as to how this could work: it would save loads of time if I could set them up as a tax exempt entity one time (at least only as often as their status needs to be renewed).

[HUDCOLLC]

Is there any update for this issue? Considering switching to Lightspeed because the software will automatically recognize a customer's tax exempt status. (Agricultural Feed store)

[DieselTruck]

I agree this feature would be super helpful. As I can have the customer fill the tax exempt form out and mark their account on square that way anytime they come in for repairs or parts and I start a new invoice it would automatically remove sales tax. 

[salinatradepost]

We are also in need of a better way to handle tax-exempt purchases for our agricultural customers. We sell both gift items (taxable) and farm items (non taxable for exempt customers) and are not seeing even a feasible work-around for this problem long-term. It does not help to mark specific products as tax-exempt as those products are NOT tax-exempt generally -- only tax-exempt for specific customers. Our accountant is not happy with any work around that involves charging the tax and removing it as a discount as the tax should not be technically 'charged' at all. Toggling tax off and on for items lends itself to user error pretty quickly and the last place I want to open up user error issues is when it comes to collecting sales tax. I hope you guys are taking this very real business need seriously. We are new Square customers and already considering reluctantly switching to another service if this isn't resolved very soon.