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Is there a way to switch between different tax rates since I sell in different cities?

I have a mobile food truck and sell in several different cities within my state - all with different sales tax rates.  Is there a way to make the change quickly and easily through Square?

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Hello @HMH — thanks for surfacing!

 

If you have one food truck, I would suggest adjusting the tax directly from the Point of Sale app prior to opening up for business in each county.

 

To do so:

  • Tap the icon below to visit your in-app Settings
  • Tap Settings > Tax
  • On an iPhone, tap the + icon in the top-right corner. On an iPad, tap Add a New Tax, and on an Android device, tap Create Tax
  • Enter the tax information and toggle on Enabled to automatically apply this tax at checkout. 
  • Tap Applicable Items to choose which items this tax will automatically apply to. Note: if all of your sales should be taxed, just tap on Tax All Items. Toggle on Custom Amounts to apply this tax to amounts entered at the time of a sale.
  • Tap the back arrow > Item Pricing. Select if this tax will be included in item prices or added to a price at the time of sale.
  • Make sure to save your updates.

If you have multiple trucks and need to accept payments in multiple counties simultaneously, I would suggest assigning a location to each truck. This will allow you to designate a county for each truck and collect the correct amount of tax.

 

Hope this helps get you in the right direction. Please feel free to chime in with any other questions or insight! 🙂

️ Tom | he/him
Seller Community Manager | Square, Inc.
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Square Community Moderator

Hi @dharari

 

Welcome to the Seller Community 🙌🏼

 

Your tax rate setting is stored on Square’s servers, rather than on each individual device.

 

If multiple devices are signed into the same Square account, the same tax rate will be applied to each device.

 

If you make a change to your taxes on the Square dashboard, it will be reflected on all devices that are signed in.

 

What you can do is create different locations for each event and create the correct tax for that location only. This way your employees can sign in to the specific location and not have to worry about manually applying sales tax. 

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Thank you for helping with this. We only have one product, which we are selling in different cities as we travel from city to city.

 

I am trying to figure out the best way to collect the city and county taxes is a way that will be easy to make sure that the tax collected for each state, county, and city will easy to pay to the state and report come tax time.

 

Sales in City A = 6% state 1%countyA .5% cityA

 

City B = 6% state 1.5% countyB no city taxA

 

City C = 6% sate no county or city tax

 

Should I make the following taxes in Square and then turn on the taxes that are being collected at that time, and turn off the rest?

 

State 6%

County A 1%

County B 1.5%

City A .5%

 

Thanks for any help you can provide.

 

 

 

 

 

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Square Community Moderator

Hi @wildernessdave

 

That's a solution that many sellers use and probably the best way to do it. 

 

Just remember to double check which sales tax you have enabled before collecting sales 👍🏼

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I'm a service provider,  and I may have sales in multiple counties or cities with different tax rates all in the same day.   I need a way to change my tax setting for each sale. 

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I'm new to Square, and haven't received my card reader yet, so I can't play/test.

I'm going to be selling my cookbook at different locations that have different tax rates.

  • For example, I'm going to be in Patterson, CA which has a 7.875% tax rate, compared to my home, which is 9% tax rate.
  • Do I set up different "tax locations", under Taxes for the item, with appropriate tax rate?

And then under the item, do I select all locations under the Taxes link?

I did this, and it says "All Taxes" - will this charge taxes multiple times for a single item?

 

I guess my question really is, how do I select the right tax 'jurisdiction' rate to use when I am at different locations?

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Alumni

Hi @LisaN - I merged you to this thread so you can check out @Tom's best answer on the first page. Let us know if you need more help!

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How do you set different sales tax levels based on the location?

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Admin

Welcome to the Community @woodthingamajig, what a great name! I've just added your post to this thread. @Tom's Best Answer has the steps to create and use different taxes from the app but there are more helpful suggestions on page 2 and page 3 of this thread too.

️ Helen
Seller Community Manager

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I am selling art at shows in various locations.  Each item is one of a kind and can be sold at any of the shows.  I need to have taxes applied by the location where I make the sale.  How do I set this up?

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Square Community Moderator

Hi! Thanks for reaching out about this and welcome to the Seller Community. I've merged your post to an existing thread where Tom's best answer may help answer your question. You will need to create multiple tax rates and apply/remove the tax as needed if you sell your art in a different location. 

 

Let me know if you have any other questions. 🙂

AshleyK
Community Moderator, Square
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This reply was created from merging an existing thread: Is there a way to collect different sales tax rates per device?

 

My partner and I are doing two craft shows on the same day that are located in different sales tax jurisdictions. Is there a way to collect different rates based on what device is being used?

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Admin

Hey @cuttingboard! There isn't a way to set specific taxes on each device I'm afraid. I went ahead and moved your post to this thread because I think that EJ's workaround on page 2 of this thread might help you and your husband. Take a look and let me know if you have any other questions.

️ Helen
Seller Community Manager

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How do I set up the Square mobile app to automatically apply the correct local sales tax rate for my mobile business based on where I am when generating the invoice?

 

I work in several counties across NYS, so I need to track sales by county and apply the correct sales tax rate. This is possible with e-Commerce websites where customers place an order and input their address, so why not use that same process to accepting payment in person for mobile businesses? With the number of food trucks and other mobile service companies using mobile payment solutions like Square, it seems like this has to be an available service/setting.

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Alumni

Hi there @SLSetbrown - this would be considered a feature request at this time.

I've moved your post to a thread where others have expressed interest in seeing their tax rates automatically changed in-app, based on their geolocation. While this isn't currently possible, @Tom's Best Answer here should help you set things up so you can run your mobile business smoothly. We'll be sure drop back into this thread to share any news we hear of that might impact how this works!

 

P.S. Welcome to the Seller Community!

Valentina
Community Moderator, Square
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That would definitely be a helpful feature for a mobile-based service business where each appointment may be in a different county with different sales taxes. My example is not as simple as a food truck that sets up in 1 location and makes multiple sales. In mobile service businesses, the appropriate local sales tax has to be verified for each sale since each sale taxes place at a different location. It's a major tax liability for small businesses to ensure the proper sales taxes are applied for each sale by manually searching each address where a sale takes place, verifying the local tax jurisdiction and rate, and making the necessary adjustments in Square. This is the sort of task that computers do well.

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Beta Member

This conversation has been happening for a while.  Would it be possible to have a product enhancement that would allow you to set up a mobile location with only a city or county and state without a street address?  We have a mobile food business and serve certain cities, and like multiple people have pointed out, each city charges different rates, the problem is that now, at least in the state of Texas, they want you to add each jurisdiction (city) and pay taxes to each city.  If we could set up locations for each city and county, then when we start operating we can select the days location.  Then we can have a report that reflects sales based on each location and be able to pay the taxes for each city when it comes time to pay taxes.

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Any update on this.. geolocation to set salestax... 

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