[ic] tax based on zip code?

[Greg]

Barry Treahy, Jr. wrote:

> Greg wrote:
>
>> Barry Treahy, Jr. wrote:
>>
>>> DB wrote:
>>>
>>>> In Ohio, sales tax must now be charged at different rates depending 
>>>> upon the location (zip code) of the customer. Has anyone done such 
>>>> a thing or am I going to have to get my hands dirty (or pay someone 
>>>> else to?) I'm running 5.2 with mysql.
>>>>
>>> I asked this question just weeks ago and the silence was irritating 
>>> since someone has to had to have dealt with this already.
>>>
>>> For teh data source, one of the least expensive solutions I've found 
>>> is a product from the 'Sales Tax Clearinghouse' which provides 
>>> monthly or quarterly updates of the tax tables in a fixed record 
>>> format.  I've already created a table with the imported values and 
>>> will be working on a tags that will validate the zip,state,city 
>>> combinations when a ship-to or account is setup and another to pull 
>>> the current rates at the time of ordering...  If you're interested 
>>> in working together on this, contact me off-list...
>>>
>>> Barry
>>>
>> You can find a start to your project here with the use of levies:
>>
>> http://www.icdevgroup.org/pipermail/interchange-users/2002-December/030083.html 
>>
>>
> Hi Greg,
>
> that solution is good for VAT or levies, but not for US State Sales 
> Tax.  Few states have either no sales tax, or a monolithic sales tax 
> (ie. Michigan at 6%) but rather compound rates that are based on the 
> ship-to location which consists of taxes at the states, county and 
> city level.  Where I'm located is a perfect example, we have all three 
> yet just one-mile across the city line, they too have theirs, but 
> their city rate is different, therefore, a different total sales tax 
> rate.

Hi Barry,

We have clients that use levies for precisely that - multiple sales tax 
rates - consisting of a state rate, combined with various local or 
county tax rates, all based on zip code. Basically you could have as 
many rates as you have zip codes.  It sounded to me that is precisely 
what DB was looking for. 

>
> With a tax table where you can lookup by zip code, you can at least 
> obtain an almost precise hit on the rate (zip+4 would assure a precise 
> rate, but most people don't know the +4 codes so I didn't go there).  
> In the case of the STC table I mentioned, there are almost 42,000 
> entries.  As for Ohio, there are almost 1500 entires and though I 
> don't see any with city taxes, their county taxes are all over the map 
> which means that Toledo pays 7.25% while Columbus pays 6.75%, just as 
> an example...


The levy rates can be controlled by zip code, or criteria other than zip 
code... I assume you will have some means of identifying the location of 
the customer in order to assess the tax...


Greg

-- 
Greg Hanson
Perusion
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