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Hello? PayPal peeps? Anyone care to answer as to what is wrong? Customer Service??? ... View more

And to top that off, apparently, adding a set shipping amount to a button does add the shipping amount, but takes AWAY the tax. What the heck? Can someone in support look at that please? What gives? I have a button set to override the shipping amount in my profile for a certain item and that works, but even though I have it set to USE the sales tax in my profile, it doesn't have any field for tax at all at checkout. Arghh!!! ... View more

Hi AllenFromMars,   You can test drive your theory with your shopping cart if you have it set up. I entered 8% as a state tax for NYS. I have since entered several counties worth of zip codes where the rates were either over or under that 8% rate. Here is what happened in my test runs:   If I enter 14424 which is in Ontario County (tax rate is 7.5% in Ontario and it IS one of the zips that I have entered), it calculates correctly at 7.5% tax. If I enter 13614 which is in St Lawrence County (tax rate is 7% and IS NOT one of the zips that I have entered) it calculates the tax at 8%.   So this tells me that there is NO adding of rates going on. If you put in .5% for a zip code in a certain county, that .5% is ALL the tax it will collect, NOT the 3.4%. You need to enter the ENTIRE tax rate for each jurisdiction, you can't to my knowledge, do "pieces".   I set my state rate to 8% because 47 out of 77 of NYS counties/jurisdictions have an 8% tax rate. Therefore, for those counties/jurisdiictions I DON'T have to enter individual tax amounts. If someone from an 8% county enters their zip (even though I have not entered their percent individually) it will calculate the correct tax. Then, as I have time I will go back in and enter tax rates for zips that fall in counties that are NOT 8% - starting with the counties that are less than 8% as first and foremost I do not wish to OVERCHARGE my customers. Then I will start working on the rates that are higher than 8%, so I don't have to eat the difference!   Until something better comes along from PayPal, we are stuck with this option or choosing, setting up and installed a 3rd party cart which does the work for us. I am researching said carts as time permits.   Hope this helps a bit!   Melissa     ... View more

Hi LawsonP,   I plan on researching some alternative carts, starting with the free ones and see what rises to the top. Until then, I'll have to make do with PayPal.   Although I certainly feel your pain as I am in a similar boat (w/broken oars!), I don't see NOT selling to your own state as a solution. I wouldn't want to turn away any sale as that never looks good to your customers no matter the reason. Options 2 and 3 sound way to cost prohibitive and your customers would likely think that something VERY HOKEY was going on.   I'm also not worried about sales tax reports as I won't rely on PayPal for those, but on my own accounting software.   As far as the states having so many different rates, it's not the state that does. At least in NYS, it's the locality tax that differs. The state share of sales tax is 4%, but the counties vary from 3% up to NYC's 4.875%. You add these together to get your total sales tax rate. I plan on getting as close as I can with tax rates and just go for it. What can I do at this point?   Hopefully, eventually, the right person at PayPal will grab onto this and run with it. Until then, they will likely a certain share of customers. ... View more

Hi Olivia,   I did as you suggested and explored the link you gave me. Unfortunately, the only thing I found regarding sales tax (and which I found very interesting) is that in 2007 people were asking for the same thing - sales tax calculated by county.   So, it appears that this is not any type of priority (or even a consideration, for that matter) for PayPal developers. Am I correct? Can you tell me if this issue is even on PayPal's radar screen? Since 4 years have lapsed and customers are still  being given the same response, I'm left to assume that it's not. So, is there a reason it is NOT being pursued? ... View more

Hi Olivia,   I guess I don't understand that. Why should zip codes be alot easier? There are far fewer counties than zip codes. Do you realize how many zip codes I have to enter to try and make your system work? And I mean try, because it will not work 100% of the time.   Why not create a custom percent calculation where we can enter our own description with our own percent? That would solve the problem. I would have no problem entering and keeping my 77 jurisdictions up to date. It would be my responsibility anyway, not PayPals. So, why not humor us, and add a custom field?   Come on, PayPal. Take the ball and run with it. Where is your customer service? Instead of saying 'can't' and dsmissing us, improve your service. Otherwise, we will all go elsewhere eventually. ... View more

Hi LawsonP,   In my correspondence with PayPal, all they could suggest is using a 3rd party shopping cart.  I've only briefly looked into other cart software and haven't followed thru with any decent research on them yet. After all, the whole point in using PayPal was supposed to be the simplicity of it. Go figure. I had no idea about the sales tax issue when I signed up.   So, for the time being, here is what I am doing. First, I printed out NYS's tax table. I then set my a tax rate for NYS for 8% because 61% (or 47 of 77 jurisdictions) have 8% tax. Then, I have started entering tax rates for the other jurisdictions that are either under or over. It's a daunting task to say the least. I apply ranges whenever I can and I definitely won't ever get them all in, but am trying to "hit the high spots".   This is not a 100% method either, because of course, many zip codes overlap county lines, but I'm hoping to catch most of those. I'll just have to eat or refund the difference on the few I get wrong. If it helps you out any, I found a website that actually has the split zip codes by county correct (at least for the ones I know in NYS). They even tell you how much of a zip code is in a county, so I am going with the tax rate for the county that has most of that zip.   Here is the link: MelissaData   I hope this is of some help. I will try to look into other carts as I get time and will post back if I find something that is easy to implement. Please do the same if you find something worthy in your own research.   All we can do is to keep posting about the importance of this feature.   Take care and thanks for responding to my post.     ... View more