"Includes Tax"?

LegoDude202

Hi, I'm from Ontario in Canada and I need help, please.

I just made an order at this website today and there's 1 little thing I'm not familiar with...

The order total excludes the 13% tax of $0.76 as shown in this "Order Totals":

Sub Total
CA $6.61

Shipping
CA $2.04

Incl. 13% Tax
CA $0.76

Order Total
CA $8.65

The order total is supposed to be $9.41 ($8.65 + $0.76 = $9.41), not $8.65.

Is it normal for any tax not added in the "order total"?

Should I pay the seller $0.76 via PayPal or there's nothing I can do about it?

If the tax is excluded in the order total (for some reason), then why is that?

Thank you, stay safe and Happy Holidays!

- Joel

qwertyboy

@LegoDude202 - Yup, that order is in our shop. Thank you for mentioning this (and thanks for the direct message).

@Lawrence - Do we need to set up taxes differently? It looks like taxes are never actually added to the total checkout amount. An order shows up exactly like OP mentioned. The program calculates the taxes correctly, but they don't get added to the amount the customer has to pay?

Niek.

qwertyboy

See linked picture how OP's order shows up. It looks like we didn't collect just under CAD 300 in taxes... :'(

Niek.

Lawrence

The information is showing that the shown prices are inclusive of tax. The tax is not an additional line item.

qwertyboy

@lawrence That is the wrong way around, as taxes are different for different provinces we ship to. We need to add taxes on an order, and the amount depends on the province we invoice. If we simply say that for Ontario the items include 13% tax, and Quebec has 5% tax included, that means the base prices of the items are somehow different for these customers.

Is there a different setting we need to tweak to actually _add_ taxes to an order?

Niek.

Lawrence

The tax display is the same regardless of how the taxes are calculated. The actual tax calculation is down to your tax settings within your store. You can tweak your tax settings to confirm it works how you expect

Emporiosa

@Lawrence To add to what Niek has been saying, and I think I may have mentioned it before, but is there a way then for us to make our prices show as tax exclusive but then have the tax rate added at checkout?

In Canada, we do not normally have tax inclusive prices. It is added after the fact at checkout. I've had a few buyers actually remove items from their cart because of the weirdness of how it sometimes shows the part prices with and without tax (depending if browsing the store or viewing from the cart - they thought I was boosting prices if parts were sitting in carts which of course isn't the case. They're just seeing the tax inclusive prices after).

I'm not sure if that's a possibility based on how the site is programmed being based out of Europe (where prices are tax inclusive), but I can confirm that it is a source of confusion for Canadian buyers. The tax ends up being right, but the way it's shown isn't typical for our country and I've had questions about it before (not to mention, it's also a bit of a pain on the seller's end too to make sure we document the subtotals for accounting purposes correctly).

qwertyboy

With the help of @Emporiosa to clear things up - our taxes were set up correctly, but the misunderstanding comes from the fact that BO adds the taxes on each order item (without showing this at the seller's end). So when a customer from Ontario buys a part which we have listed for CAD 1.00, the item shows up on the order details as costing CAD 1.13 (13% tax) without any notice of the fact that price already has tax included.

As @Emporiosa already said, prices here (and in the US) are almost always shown without taxes, and taxes on the order are usually shown as a final line item on the order summary.

Yah, that will get messy with the bookkeeping. Even in the API we can't see the price-without-tax for items sold - ironically the price for an item is named "base_price", which in this context is a complete misnomer.

But OK, at least taxes are invoiced and paid, now it is "just" a matter of deconstructing the prices using the "tax_rate" on the order.

Niek.

LegoDude202

Thanks for the help, friends.

Stay safe and Happy Holidays!

Lawrence

I understand the confusion, that is indeed a difference in how different countries calculate/display tax. You may want to create a suggestion in the suggestions section of the forum for how the system could better fit the needs of Canadian stores

Calibrick

US stores similarly do not typically show sales tax inside the price, but rather separately as a line item added up to the total. I learned in setting my store up that the EU required all prices show inclusive with tax, which was why BO was setup this way, so just rolled with it... once I got used to it, it hasn't been an issue for me (and there is still a separate line item breakout of the tax amount collected on your order download, which is critical of course).

But if we are looking to consider separating that in the total breakout down the road, I would be a fan. :-) But I'm also good without it separated as it is right now, I've learned to work around it.

qwertyboy

@Calibrick There is already a suggestion active - https://www.brickowl.com/forum#/discussion/11003/setting-for-when-to-add-tax
Please add any additional thoughts there if that suggestion needs to be modified.

Niek.

Emporiosa

@Calibrick Same boat - I just rolled with it and was able to get the hang of it. Honestly, it's mainly for the buyers that it's confusing because I heard from a couple that the way it was shown (with/without tax) would changed based on how they were viewing and it looked like we were messing with prices as soon as it hit the basket. And the original poster of this thread also had confusion thinking they missed out paying the tax based on how it's displayed (from the viewpoint of a Canadian/American). It's more of a pain point for the buyers.

Calibrick

Gotcha... honestly, none of my buyers have ever mentioned it to me as an issue for them (and I do sell a lot in California). But I totally get it and would have zero complaints obviously if we could separate it out for US and Canada, as a US seller myself. :-)