Local pickup does not apply tax

Just to understand what you’re saying, you’ve got the standard tax rate set up in the Woo general settings, correct? In doing that, you set up your state’s sales tax.

Based on what you wrote, the tax rate only applies to your state. That’s the way it’s supposed to be. You wouldn’t charge your state’s tax to a resident from another state.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding you. Let us know if we’re on the right track.

Hi Moondog
Thanks for the reply.

The way I’m trying to set up the tax settings is as follows, if someone buys from another state they do not pay sales tax. If they live in my state they do, but if someone picks up the item in my store they have to pay the state sales tax no matter where it was ordered from.

I thought that is what the checkbox ” When this shipping method is chosen, apply the base tax rate rather than for the customer’s given address.” would do.

I hope this makes more sense to you.
Ron

The base tax rate applies to your state, not another state. If someone from outside your state purchases something using the online checkout process, then the tax won’t populate. It doesn’t matter if that transaction is a local pickup or not. The tax won’t apply to anyone purchasing something via the online checkout process that resides outside your state.

If someone picks up directly from your store, why would they use the online checkout anyway? You could log into the virtual terminal of your payment processor and run their card (or use a pos terminal, if that’s how you do it), or you could accept cash or a check.

If someone residing outside your state chooses to pickup directly from you and pays in advance using the online checkout, you haven’t generated a sale to a resident of your state. Just because they choose to pickup directly from you doesn’t mean you have to collect the tax.

In fact, I wouldn’t. If I paid for something online then have you try to charge me tax just because I’m picking up, I’d ask for a refund.

It’s up to you, but that’s how I do it. I’m not losing any sleep.

Unfortunately I have to charge state sales tax on any item that gets picked up at my store, no matter where its ordered from. That’s the law.
So I need a shopping cart that applies tax to any pick up. Jigoshop’s shopping cart can do this but it doesn’t work well with my theme.
Woocommerce has the function in their settings but it doesn’t seem to work.

I am running into the very same problem. It doesn’t matter where you are from, if you order online and then pick up an item in the physical store you need to pay tax (in BC at least). Woocoomerce has the option in the ‘local pickup’ shipping option to apply the local taxes but for some reason it ignores them in favour of the taxes that apply to any entered shipping address EVEN IF the items aren’t actually being shipped there. So all you need to do to avoid tax is to list your shipping address outside of BC and then you aren’t charged tax even if you choose ‘local pickup’ – that’s a bug.

Has anyone else encountered this and perhaps discovered a solution?

I have the exact same problem with woocommerce. It won’t charge tax when someone selects local pickup.
Any help?

Solution. Disable local pickup, and then enable local delivery. Change the name of local delivery to local pickup. Then it should calculate tax.

anapatriciaboutique’s solution only works if you don’t also need a local delivery option. I see that this issue has been requested multiple times over the past year or more. I see some plugin hacking in my future.

Looking for the exact same thing.

rotnatws is correct, in the United States you MUST collect sales tax on items received by the customer in your base state, whether shipped or picked up directly.

Sales tax based on shipping location varies state to state.

Yes. This is an issue, but it may be a rare issue. I’m having the same issue for a client.

A local, in-state customer should be able to browse products online, buy, and tell the cart “hey, I’ll stop buy the store and pick it up.” There is nothing out-of-the-ordinary with this, yet if you do this, the cart does not apply the required local sales tax.

Again rare, but the customer would NOT pay sales tax at check out when it is required, so the customer would get hit with a sales tax additional charge when he or she walked in to pick up the product.

This is an issue.

@anapatriciaboutique: I tried your method and it does not seem to work.
You can see our store at https://www.maineloghome.com

Has anyone else found a solution? This is a common problem in our line of business.

The solution to the issue is the Local Pickup Plus extension – https://www.woothemes.com/products/local-pickup-plus/

Unfortunately, WooThemes decided not to build this function into WooCommerce and instead charge $79 for an additional plugin.

I have purchased this extension and I can confirm that it does work to charge sales tax for orders that are picked up.

Wow! That is an expensive solution to a very simple problem!

That’s not a solution at all. Yes, local buyers do occasionally buy a product online and head to the store to pick it up. The current setup allows this, yet gives the customer the false impression of a final price that is incorrect. Sure, it may not happen frequently, but when it does happen, it’s a bad impression for the online buyer.

I’d call this a bug and not a feature enhancement request.

Turns out, woocommerce has made an update that calculates this correctly if you select the Local Pickup option!