US Sales Tax (VAT) collection

Author Message

Joe Kepley

Monday 27 November 2006 3:57:16 pm

Has anyone taken a look at implementing US-style sales tax (VAT) collection using eZ Publish?

In the US, when a buyer places an order, the seller usually needs to charge the buyer the sales tax rate for the buyer's address, but only if the seller usually operates in the buyer's state.

What this usually boils down to for most companies is that you only charge sales tax for the state you're in. Large companies with multiple locations charge sales tax for all of the states they're in.

eZ Publish's VAT rules allow you to set VAT levels based on country, but they don't let you set rules by state. Unfortunately, this seems to make the VAT system useless in the US.

I've written a very simple workflow event that examines the state the user entered and adds a charge to the order for a sales tax percentage if it matches the site's state. The state and tax rate are both set in an ini. It goes completely around the whole built-in VAT system, but it works.

I've considered releasing the event as an extension, but I don't want to if someone has come up with a good way to do this using built-in VAT rules.

Is there a way to make the VAT rules system work in the US, or would US users find this extension helpful? Let me know.

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eZ debug

Timing: Jan 18 2025 10:29:43
Script start
Timing: Jan 18 2025 10:29:43
Module start 'layout'
Timing: Jan 18 2025 10:29:43
Module start 'content'
Timing: Jan 18 2025 10:29:44
Module end 'content'
Timing: Jan 18 2025 10:29:44
Script end

Main resources:

Total runtime0.8990 sec
Peak memory usage4,096.0000 KB
Database Queries46

Timing points:

CheckpointStart (sec)Duration (sec)Memory at start (KB)Memory used (KB)
Script start 0.00000.0071 589.0469152.6250
Module start 'layout' 0.00710.0029 741.671939.4453
Module start 'content' 0.01000.8874 781.1172400.2500
Module end 'content' 0.89740.0015 1,181.36728.1641
Script end 0.8989  1,189.5313 

Time accumulators:

 Accumulator Duration (sec) Duration (%) Count Average (sec)
Ini load
Load cache0.00350.3850160.0002
Check MTime0.00130.1439160.0001
Mysql Total
Database connection0.00150.167510.0015
Mysqli_queries0.860295.6888460.0187
Looping result0.00040.0462440.0000
Template Total0.866796.420.4334
Template load0.00180.205120.0009
Template processing0.864996.207620.4324
Template load and register function0.00020.020610.0002
states
state_id_array0.00110.118410.0011
state_identifier_array0.00110.122120.0005
Override
Cache load0.00140.1592100.0001
Sytem overhead
Fetch class attribute can translate value0.00130.140510.0013
Fetch class attribute name0.00090.098010.0009
XML
Image XML parsing0.00010.012810.0001
class_abstraction
Instantiating content class attribute0.00000.000510.0000
General
dbfile0.00070.0779100.0001
String conversion0.00000.000940.0000
Note: percentages do not add up to 100% because some accumulators overlap

Templates used to render the page:

UsageRequested templateTemplateTemplate loadedEditOverride
1node/view/full.tplfull/forum_topic.tplextension/sevenx/design/simple/override/templates/full/forum_topic.tplEdit templateOverride template
1content/datatype/view/ezxmltext.tpl<No override>extension/community_design/design/suncana/templates/content/datatype/view/ezxmltext.tplEdit templateOverride template
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1print_pagelayout.tpl<No override>extension/community/design/community/templates/print_pagelayout.tplEdit templateOverride template
 Number of times templates used: 4
 Number of unique templates used: 4

Time used to render debug report: 0.0001 secs