US Home-Rule State Tax Compliance (again)

US Home-Rule State Tax Compliance (again)


Ow... I think my eyes just rolled into the back of my head.

If we were to read the above text word-for-word when the above text states, "Zoho Commerce is compliant with all state taxes in the USA.", and ran it through the truth-o-meter... well... then yes, I must concede... that is *technically* accurate, I guess.

But...

C'mon.  Anyone reading that, including myself, would just say, "Great... compliant on all US Sales tax law", and check off that mental check box and move on.  The carefully workded question, however, if more generally worded wouldn't pass.  So, for example, something like, "Will you be able to correctly collect for and maintain proper compliance US sales tax liability using Commerce?  Mmmm... certainly not if you live in a home rule state.  Not by a long shot.

First of all, sales tax in the United States is calculated at the state and city and sometimes county level, and sometimes has additional "special" taxes applied as well.  For example, my state's sales tax is 2.9%.  However... when you add all of the other taxes on top of the state tax, the total taxes end up being 8.81%.

If you're fortunate to be located in a non-homerule state, then you're probably just going to stack your local taxes on top of the percentage for the state tax for sales made within the state in which you're located, which still doesn't provide any sort of a breakdown for reporting purposes... But at least it's manageable, because it keeps it simple.  This is because your taxes are determined by the tax rates at your location, and not the location you're shipping to... at least within your state, and therefore a single rate for your state inclusive of state + local taxes is both manageable and adequate, and Commerce can correctly collect this amount for the transactions within your state when it sees that destination for your customers shipping address.

However...

If you live in a "home rule" state, then there is currently no way to make Zoho Commerce compliant without the cost of an additional integration, as you need to use collect tax based on tax percentage that's been assigned to the address of the shipped destination, and that can vary widely across the state.  There is simply nothing in Commerce that supports this functionality.  So, I can certainly configure the 2.9% state tax rate for Colorado. Does that make me compliant?  Not at all.

Furthermore, these same rules may also be applicable for any business that sells over a certain dollar amount to any other state where they have a threshold dollar amount that exceeds a certain level (e.g. $100,000).  If so, you may have tax liability in those states as well, and also need to be configured to collect taxes for those locations in the same way.

I again reiterate that there is a ridiculously simple method that Zoho could implement into Commerce that can addresses this one issue for most ecommerce businesses to maintain reasonable compliance.  And while not perfect, it would be at least be adequate for most small businesses to demonsterate that they've taken practical measures to comply with all the relevent sales tax laws that apply to their home state.  The straight forward solution is to simply perform the tax rate lookup at the zipcode level instead of at the state level.  That's all.  It's so simple that my dog could code it while locked in a sausage factory (if he were provided the API, that is).  The following thread elaborates on this subject in further detail:


So the correct statement with full disclosure is: Zoho Commerce is indeed absolutely, 100%, completely, undoubtedly compliant with all, yes *ALL* US State taxes, but...  has no mechanism to allow you to comply with city, county, juristictional, or special taxes in home-rule states in order to conform with the required state tax liability law, nor does it provide any publically available API to make the propor modifications to do so.

Now, to cover all bases.... Yes... There is another option... I can pony up $50 a month for Alavera + extras, which is the base price.  The cost can actually be much higher depending on a range of other factors.  This integration is said to include live tax lookup by the address.  But... why should I have to do that when the fix I've proposed is so simple to implement.  Why not simply make the extraordinarily simple changes that are being requested to allow a home-rule-state US businesses to maintain proper compliance without Alavera.  Just provide the option to permit tax lookups at the zipcode level.

-Bryan


    • Recent Topics

    • Integrating Quotes with leads Information

      Our business requires giving a quote to a lead (not Account / Potential - as we define it differently). Currently, Zoho CRM's Quotes are integrated with Accounts / Potentials and not with Leads. Is there a way I could get the Lead information to the Quotes

    • Flow to follow up on trade fair contacts

      Hi, Before we moved to Zoho we had some flows (sequences) in HubSpot to follow up on trade fair contacts. To explain further on this it had the following characteristics: New contacts could be added to the sequence When added a flow of communication started.

    • Unknown error occurred

      Hi, When we want to publish or edit a page in our website, we encounter with "Unknown error occurred" problem. I share a screenshot here. Our website is www.essoft.com. It happens every page. We want to solve this ASAP.

    • Zoho one

      I am starting Zoho one as a beginner and there is Zoho crm and Zoho sales which i needed to work on but it appears in unassigned apps. What Should i do now?

    • Dialing Microsoft Teams Phone Service via Zoho CRM

      I am using the VOIP option in Microsoft teams for my office phone system. I was hoping to have a way to dial numbers directly from Zoho CRM, but don't see anything in the Teams Integration or in the Telephony integration that will enable this. Does anyone

    • Emailing lookup field but placing this as an ID or number rather than text

      Hi there, First time poster and have been a user of Zoho Creator for approx 6weeks so forgive my ignorance as I learn to code. We have a need to send an email to a specific email address with some of the fields triggered by the submission of a form. In

    • Search mails in shared mailbox

      Hi everyone, is there a way to search mails in shared mailbox's? Search in streams or mail doesn't return anything from mails in shared mailboxes. Thanks! Rafal

    • User Emails Blocked

      Community: I keep running into issues where our users stop receiving notifications from CRM because their email addresses get blocked in on the backend some how. I reach out to support, they confirm, they fix, and we carry on, but then it happens again.

    • Why wont Zoho Support Grammarly!! --- PLEASE VOTE FOR THIS to show Zoho we need this

      The spell check and grammar in ZOHO are so buggy and a waste of time. Please support Grammarly! I'm sure I'm not the only one — there are other CRMs that support this. If you're not planning to add this feature, Please let others know before accepting

    • Is it possible to hide Developer Space for all user in Zoho Projects

      Hello! I am Zoho admin in a company and we want to use Zoho Project to manage projects, but after a few days of testing we are not able to "hide" the Developer Space from all kind of users except the admin. To sum up, I want to hide this for all users.

    • API (v2) Search Criteria using CONCAT

      With API I can search for a contact using First_Name and Last_Name. However, when I need to search the Contact Module using a full name — and because CRM does not provide an API for full name — I am not finding a way to do this in the traditional way

    • Weekly Tips: Stay Focused with Email Snooze!

      New Year, New Resolutions Being back at work also means being back to the constant barrage of messages from work and clients. The constant flood of incoming emails can lead to the missing of important messages, especially when you can't respond right

    • Schedule Zoho CRM reports only on Business Days

      Hello, Is it possible to schedule reports only on business days ? We currently get daily sales reports on weekend which has no value since the sales team doesn't work on weekends. Thanks

    • Zoho Payroll's Year in Review 2024

      As we roll into 2025, we'd like to pay tribute to all the milestones we hit in 2024! From releasing out new features that streamlined your workflows to updates that made payroll management smoother, we’ve had a prolific year—all while keeping you, our

    • Using tickets to train Zia

      Hi Team, I would like to know if there is any way that Zia can also learn from previous tickets in addition to the articles from the knowledge base. Since we have most of our knowledge curerently in the tickets and that this is hard to combine into a

    • Recurring Events Not Appearing in "My Events" and therefore not syncing with Google Apps

      We use the Google Sync functionality for our events, and it appears to have been working fine except: I've created a set of recurring events that I noticed were missing from my Google Apps calendar. Upon further research, it appears this is occurring

    • How can the direct link to a ticket be created from ticket #?

      Our agents will be using ZDesk but we will have to create direct link to tickets in another ERP by providing the Desk Ticket # Is there a way to create the direkt links from the ticket # alone? Do we have to use the API to get the direct links?

    • Multiplying Weight of product by Quantity

      I am facing an issue with creating a report that consolidates the total sales volume in kilograms. I have already specified the weight for each product. I have also aggregated the total sales quantity. The key question is: how can I create a report that

    • Confirmation prompt before a custom button action is triggered

      Have you ever created a custom button and just hoped that you/your users are prompted first to confirm the action? Well, Zoho knows this concept. For example, in blueprint, whenever we want to advance to the next state by clicking the transition, it is

    • Frontal interview scheduling - room availability in office using Google Workspace?

      Hi, We're using Zoho Recruit as our ATS and Google Workspace as our email, calendar and resources management. We want to use the interview feature to schedule an in-person (frontal) interview with the applicants. How can we sync the room resources availability

    • Add and Remove Agents from Departments and Groups in Zoho One

      Hi Zoho Flow Team, We hope you're doing well. Currently, Zoho Flow provides an action to add an agent to a group in zoho one, but there is no action to remove an agent from a group or a department. Another action that we find missing is the option to

    • Explication sur comment mettre en place des règles d'affichage ou "layout Rules"

      J'ai passé plus d'une heure hier avec le support et je n'ai rien compris !! Je suis lecteur assidu des guides (je "RTFM") qui ne sont absolument pas orienté "client" chez Zoho, et je tiens à le rappeler ici . Dans la documentation on m'indique un cas

    • Introducing Hiring Pipeline for Vendor Portal

      Keeping vendors informed about candidate progress is often challenging, leading to communication gaps and repeated follow-ups. To address this issue, we've released an update to the Vendor Portal feature that lets you choose to display candidates' hiring

    • Unlocking New Horizons: A Year in Review

      As we bid farewell to 2024, let's celebrate and revisit the key highlights of the year. From adding a new edition to cross-platform enhancements, here’s a roundup of all the feature updates designed to simplify accounting, optimize financial management,

    • Free user licenses across all Portal user types

      Greetings everyone, We're here with some exciting and extensive changes to the availability of free user licenses in CRM Portals. This update provides users with access to all Portal user types for free to help them diversify their user licenses and explore

    • Address Grabber function for Zoho

      I converted from ACT to Zoho. With ACT, I used an add-on called AddressGrabber to scrape the contact information from leads that I buy and contact information contained on emails and websites and directly add it as a new lead or contact. Does anyone know

    • Integrate zoom with zoho bookings please; or add optional times in zoho meetings

      Just like events - these online meetings like zoom need to be integrated with zoho bookings, and there needs to be option for customer to book a time slot. It should not be dictated by CRM user.

    • Add Owner to deluge-created module record note

      Is it possible to include the "owner" aka "creator", of a Note when creating it via delulge? This sets "superadmin" as the Note creator. I need to override it. notemap = Map(); notemap.put("Parent_Id",program_contact_id); notemap.put("Note_Content",program_contact_data.get('Note'));

    • Directly Edit, Filter, and Sort Subforms on the Details Page

      Hello everyone, As you know, subforms allow you to associate multiple line items with a single record, greatly enhancing your data organization. For example, a sales order subform neatly lists all products, their quantities, amounts, and other relevant

    • Custom "Filter By" in Client Portal

      Currently our client portal only shows items for that specific person that is logged on to the portal, we want the current logged user to see all items for that user's company. An example would be invoices, so the current user would see all invoices for

    • Unique and Random IDs in Zoho Forms: Organize and Secure Your Data Efficiently

      When it comes to form submissions, organizing and identifying entries effectively is crucial. Zoho Forms offers two versatile ID generation options for submissions: Unique ID and Random ID. Each serves distinct purposes, providing flexibility to meet

    • Sort By Date - Deluge

      I have the following code, which normally works to sort calls by created time. Every once in a while, it doesn't work and something sneaks through in the wrong order and I can't figure out why. calls = zoho.crm.searchRecords("Calls","(Owner:equals:" +

    • Iteration through a list - Coming up against a "Failure to update function" error

      Hi there! I've been attempting to get a deluge script working and am running into an error that I have been unable to resolve. The error I am getting is Failed to update function Error at line :18. Improper Statement. Error might be due to missing ';'

    • Can you modify "Last Activity Time" in deluge? If so what's the field name?

      I need to perform some bulk modifications on records in the Leads module, but I need to avoid changing the "last activity time" or "date modified" because I am using those fields to filter and sort leads for follow-up action. I cannot find an answer anywhere

    • How do I define a weekend

      I noticed the default for weekends does not seem to include Saturdays. How can i define weekends to include both Saturdays and Sundays? Thank you.

    • 【Zoho CRM】ポータル機能のアップデート

      ユーザーの皆さま、こんにちは。コミュニティチームの藤澤です。 今回は「Zoho CRM アップデート情報」の中からポータル機能のアップデートをご紹介します。 今回の機能アップデートにより、CRMのポータルへのログインがより簡単にできるようになりました。 【目次】 SAMLベースのシングルサインオンについて ポータルへのアクセスリンク送付について 今回のアップデートにより、アイデンティティプロバイダー（IdP）を利用している組織において、SAMLベースのSSO（シングルサインオン）を有効化できるようになりました！

    • Getting error during inserting a record in form of zoho people using zoho api

      import requests import json # Set your access token and Zoho People API base URL access_token = '1000.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX.XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX' api_base_url = 'https://people.zoho.in/people/api/' # Set the form name and data to be inserted form_link_name

    • UI Arabic

      can i change the member portal UI to arabic in zoho community?

    • Resume template to include profile photo

      Hi, We would love the Resume Template to be able to include their profile photo. How can this be done? Miriam

    • Marking a form as 'done'?

      Hi! I've got a form that staff fill in when moving stock from location to location. I see the entries they've sent across and I input them into my stock control system. Is there a way to mark a form as 'done'? So that I know which entries I've input,

    • Next Page