We’ve just completed another Virtuemart Destination-based sale tax module for Joomla.
When considering Destination-based Sale Tax calculations for Virtuemart you need to deal with:
- Solve the problem with getting your customers to give you their zip + 4 information during the registration or checkout process. Since most people, including myself, do not readily know our zip + 4 information – you need to have a method for suggesting to the customer what it might be. You see this on high-end systems such as Buy.com or Amazon.com.
- We do this by taking the user input and when they enter in their address we make a call out to either the USPS Web Service or Yahoo Maps API and send the zip and map it to the missing +4.
- Then, you present them with what you “think” is the +4 based on the info returned. When the customer selects it, it then writes to their customer profile in the database.
- You can also make this call out during the registration process or anyt time that they update their address information.
- Then, in our case we get the sales tax tables from the WA State Department of Revenue and compare it with the zip +4Â information for that order, based on destination and then get the correct tax rate for the specific destination now based on the zip +4.
- Then, it is just a matter of clean up in Virtuemart, Zen cart, OSCommerce or whatever other shopping cart you are using to calculate the tax against the order + shipping to arrive at a final total that reflect destination-based sale tax for your Wa State order – or any other state for that matter so long as the information is available.
It is not exactly a drop-in module by any means – but it does take care of your destination-based taxes, calculations and reporting in less money than a trip to your accountant for advice.
If you want more information on how we can work for you and solve your destination-based sale tax project, whetehr for Virtuemart or any other shopping cart – contact us today.
