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Hi, I have a 'relatively simple' question.
New York STATE requires that retailers charge sales tax based on where the sale takes place. So if it shipped via UPS to another tax jurisdiction I have to charge their sales tax. the NYS Tax Department offers a search function located at http://www8.nystax.gov/STLR/stlrHome. I didn't know if there was any way to be able to have the NY customers type their address and 5 digit zip code into a search box and run it through the tax departments site and fetch the tax rate / code. Possibly this would be able to change the tax rate that they are being charged to the correct one based on their location. Of course all out of state sales are exempt from NYS Sales Tax.
Anyone have any ideas on how to make this work?

Try This:
New York State Tax By Zip Code

I have the same sales tax problem too, being in Ohio. I've tried to install this contribution, but it appears to be written for something older than the current 2.2RC2a distribution that I'm trying. The admin stuff it puts in is working, but it has one required modification to the file order.php that has me stumped. The install guide says to look for a sniglet of code in the function cart() containing a tep_db_query to set the $tax_address. The current distribution has no such code in cart(). The only thing I see in order.php is a simple if..then..else statement that builds $tax_address as an address array. I thought I might be able to add either $billing_address['entry_postcode'] or $shipping_address['entry_postcode'] as an element to this array, but that completely breaks the checkout process. Obviously, I'm missing something else here, and I'll confess that I'm not familiar enough yet with the architecture to know how all this is called. (hey, I've only been working on this since last Friday.)

It might help if I could see the version of order.php that this contribution was intended to modify. Maybe then I could see what changed between it and the current version to know what and where to fix.
--
Jay

I use the contribution and it works well for me. I did have to do a lot of modification to get it to work. I could give out copies of any files you want but they are heavily modified including MVS and 30+ more. email me if you want copies.

I would also suggest a much simpler solution. Setup your credit card processor to do just auths rather than sales. This is so you can adjust the final charge slightly. Then setup instate sales to be charged one estimated prevailing rate. Then as each instate sale comes in use the State provided Jurisdictional Online Tool (NYS has one) to retrieve both the Jurisdictional rate and Jurisdictional Reporting Code (you need the reporting code to file the sales tax payment). Compare the rate charged and the correct rate. Using Order Editor add a line to the Totals column of the order saying "Adjustment for Sate Tax " and correct the invoice. Then convert the auth to a sale and correct the final amount to be charged to the customer.

This seems like a lot but it really isn't. Here is why: you have to check the State provided Jurisdictional Online Tool anyway (even with this contribution installed) as zip codes do go across tax boundaries. And the contribution does not give you the Jurisdictional Reporting Code which you need on the tax forms (this would be a nice enhancement of the contribution) so you have to look it up. Even with the contribution installed I still end up looking it up! Be aware that the NYS provided Jurisdictional Online Tool does go down from time to time so be prepared (using the tax form) to estimate yourself.

Hope this helps!

Wouldn't it be great if we only had 1 tax rate per state (or none)!