Sales Tax on subscription site with vBulletin / Pay Pal combo.

[Aric Hoek]

Hi. I have done a search for an answer to my question, but didn't come up with anything.

My site is a paid recurring subscription site. There is no access to the site without a paid subscription.

My problem is this. When a registered user goes to subscribe to the site, they are successfully taken to PayPal. When my customer is viewing their PayPal page there is no sales tax applied to the purchase. It is my understanding that individuals purchasing a subscription to my site who are located in the same state that my company is based in must pay sales tax.

In my admin control panel, under paid subscriptions, in the subscription manager, I can see the subscription I have created. When I edit that subscription I have selected for PayPal to charge sales tax and I have also marked that shipping should be required, assuming that this will force PayPal to take notice of the buyers shipping address, and determine whether or not to charge sales tax on this particular transaction.

In my PayPal account, under merchant services, I have found the link called tax calculator. Inside this section I have created a new domestic sales tax rate. My business is located in the state of Texas, and sales tax in the state of Texas is 8.25%.,

Now, at all that being said, when I visit my paid subscription site, and using my wife's account, I attempt to purchase a subscription using the paid subscriptions link located in the users control panel. Once I have selected a subscription, my site successfully takes me to PayPal. Using my wife's PayPal account information I can successfully login to PayPal. I am then brought to the purchase review page which shows me the cost of the monthly subscription, but sales tax is not added.

This then is my dilemma. how can I get PayPal to recognize that the individual trying to subscribe to my vbulletin site is or is not from the state of Texas. As I said before I bought a set the preference in the bulletin to make it mandatory for a shipping address. I thought that this information would communicate what state the buyers from PayPal, but evidently that is not the case. I also thought that PayPal would know the state of the buyer.

So I am stuck. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Surely there are other people here who have a subscription-based site that are successfully charging sales tax to the people subscribing from their own state. Or are people taking subscriptions from people in their own state, and not charging sales tax?

Thank you for your help.

[BSMedia]

you may want to give the state tax department a cal and double check if you're required to pay tax on website subscriptions, usually unless you are offering a service to your subscribers you might not have to pay.

Other than that, I cant help much, i've always used amember to take care of subscriptions on my forums.

[Aric Hoek]

BSMedia. thank you so much for your reply. I have only spoken with my accountant and bookkeeper and they both inform you that it will be necessary for me to charge sales tax to customers purchasing a subscription if they line in the state of Texas, which is where my business is located.

I am very interested in amember software, and and and like to ask you a few questions if I may. First is the software capable of charging sales tax? Is the software capable of determining what state the purchaser resides in to defend whether or not sales tax needs to be charged in the first place? Have you been happy with the software?

[Aric Hoek]

I have installed aMember, and sales tax is being calculated flawlessly.