Tax Exempt Sales

Tax Exempt Sales

Question: Can the Volusion (Boost) catalog handle sales tax exemptions?

Short Answer: "Yes, but it's a multi-step process."

A given customer account in a Volusion catalog can be set as "tax exempt" but this requires the customer to request a "tax-exempt catalog account" from the merchant before the customer places any online orders.

The system will NOT add sales tax to any orders that are submitted by a customer who first logs into their tax-exempt account before placing the order. If the customer forgets to log first, then the order will have normal sales tax added to it.

Merchants who have tax exempt customers should create a page on their website that contains the following content (or have another way for customers to request a tax-exempt catalog account): 
  • Explains the two step process that tax-exempt customers must: (1) request a tax-empty catalog account; and (2) must log into this account before they place any orders.
  • Embed a simple "tax-exempt catalog account request form" on the page which would request at least the following information from the customer:
    • customer name
    • email address they will use to log into their tax-exempt catalog account
    • tax exempt ID
If a customer already has a catalog account from previous orders, it can be easily updated to have tax-exempt status for future orders (not retroactively).

When merchants receive a request to set an existing catalog account to tax-exempt status, if the request is valid, the merchant needs to:
  1. Login to their Volusion catalog admin area
  2. Hover over Customers menu and click Accounts
  3. Click the unique number beside the requested customer record
  4. Open the "Optional Fields" area and enter their customer's tax exempt number into the "Tax ID" field
  5. Open the "Special Privileges" area and select "Tax Exempt / Does Not Pay" for the "Pays State Tax" field
  6. Click [Save] button
  7. Respond to the customer's email request for tax-exempt status, letting them know that it has been set-up.
If the customer does not already have a catalog account, then create a customer account (Customers / Accounts / [ADD]), set the "Tax ID" and the "Pays State Tax" fields as described above, click [Save] button, and inform the customer about their new account.