United States: sales tax by customer address

The real rate for each address, not the state minimum

The US starter catalog carries the state rate, but a business in Los Angeles charges around 9.5%, not 7.25%: county, city and special districts add up. With this preference, each line's rate comes from a real calculation for the customer's address, done on the business's own payment account and with its own state registrations.

What's included

• Setup in Settings › Taxes: business address, what you sell (services, physical goods, business software as a service or digital services) and the states where you collect.
• Breakdown by jurisdiction on the PDF, the quote and invoice links, printouts and editors, for example "California 6%" and "Los Angeles County 0.25%".
• A 0% that explains itself: "No obligation to collect sales tax in Texas" or "Exempt customer" with its certificate, instead of a bare zero.
• To the cent with the document: the stored rate reproduces exactly the calculated tax, and the sale is recorded with the same figure the document charges.
• Each sale recorded once: when the invoice is issued or the quote is paid; voiding an invoice reverses the sale.
• Fails closed: without a usable address, with an expired exemption certificate or without a response from the calculation service, the document isn't saved and the editor says why.
• Its own allowance: available from Starter, with a number of recorded sales included each month by plan, separate from the tax-compliant invoice allowance.

Why it is in beta

Calculation and recording are covered by tests against a simulated service, but testing them with live keys on a US account is still pending. Also, overage beyond the allowance isn't billed yet, so the included amount works as a cap: once it's reached, rates are entered by hand until the next month or a plan upgrade.