Taxes

E-commerce applications need to correctly handle taxes such as sales tax or value added tax (VAT). In Vendure, tax handling consists of:

• Tax categories Each ProductVariant is assigned to a specific TaxCategory. In some tax systems, the tax rate differs depending on the type of good. For example, VAT in the UK has 3 rates, "standard" (most goods), "reduced" (e.g. child car seats) and "zero" (e.g. books).
• Tax rates This is the tax rate applied to a specific tax category for a specific Zone. E.g., the tax rate for "standard" goods in the UK Zone is 20%.
• Channel tax settings Each Channel can specify whether the prices of product variants are inclusive of tax or not, and also specify the default Zone to use for tax calculations.
• TaxZoneStrategy Determines the active tax Zone used when calculating what TaxRate to apply. By default, it uses the default tax Zone from the Channel settings.
• TaxLineCalculationStrategy This determines the taxes applied when adding an item to an Order. If you want to integrate a 3rd-party tax API or other async lookup, this is where it would be done.

API conventions

In the GraphQL API, any type which has a taxable price will split that price into two fields: price and priceWithTax. This pattern also holds for other price fields, e.g.

query {  activeOrder {    ...on Order {      lines {        linePrice        linePriceWithTax      }      subTotal      subTotalWithTax      shipping      shippingWithTax      total      totalWithTax    }  }}

In your storefront, you can therefore choose whether to display the prices with or without tax, according to the laws and conventions of the area in which your business operates.

Calculating tax on order lines

When a customer adds an item to the Order, the following logic takes place:

1. The price of the item, and whether that price is inclusive of tax, is determined according to the configured OrderItemPriceCalculationStrategy.
2. The active tax Zone is determined based on the configured TaxZoneStrategy. By default, Vendure will use the default tax Zone from the Channel settings. However, you often want to use the customer's address as the basis for determining the tax Zone. In this case, you should use the AddressBasedTaxZoneStrategy.