Hey there! 👋 That definitely sounds confusing — especially if the same item is being taxed inconsistently. Let’s walk through a few things that could cause this:
🔍 Possible Causes to Check:
Is the item marked as taxable?
Go to Items > Item Library and double-check that the "Tax" toggle is turned on for the item.
Are you applying taxes based on location?
If you're selling in multiple states or conflicting tax zones (like in-store vs online), Square might be pulling different tax rules depending on the transaction location.
Customer Tax-Exempt Status
If a specific customer is marked as tax-exempt (like certain businesses or non-profits), Square will skip the tax for them — even for taxable items.
Custom Discounts or Modifiers
Sometimes applying a discount that’s configured to remove tax or adding a “tax-exempt” modifier can cause taxes to disappear in certain cases.
Manual vs Online Checkout
Are the inconsistent sales happening in-person vs online? Square sometimes applies differences in tax if you have location or online store tax settings that aren’t synced.
✅ What You Can Do:
Head to Dashboard > Account & Settings > Taxes and make sure all your locations and sales channels are using the same tax rules
Pull up Activity > Transactions and compare the taxed vs non-taxed receipts — look for patterns (customer, location, discount, channel, etc.)
If needed, reapply the tax to the item and save — just in case there's a caching issue
If you still see inconsistencies after doing this, I’d recommend reaching out to Square Support with an order number or receipt — they can dig into it with you. You shouldn’t have to worry about this every time you ring up a sale!
Let us know if any of that helps or if you spot something specific we can dig into
