Canada Taxes - GST, PST, HST

I'm new to OpenCart, has anyone figured out how to set up the taxes for Canada? In Canada, we are required to collect Provincial Sales Taxes (PST), the federal Goods and Services Tax (GST) and the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) from buyers located in other provinces (exception: PST in PEI [10%], Saskatchewan [5%], Alberta [0%] and Territories [0%]).

CANADIAN TAX RATES
Alberta - GST 5%
British Columbia - PST 7%, GST 5% (HST 12% July 1, 2010)
Manitoba - PST 7%, GST 5%
New Brunswick - HST 13%
Newfoundland and Labrador - HST 13%
Nova Scotia - HST 13%
Ontario - PST 8%, GST 5% (HST 13% July 1, 2010)
Prince Edward Island - GST 5%, Note: PST voluntarily (buyer responsible)
Quebec - PST 7.5% (Applied to GST; Effective provincial rate = 7.875%.) QST: 8.5% on 01-01-2011 & 9.5% on 01-01-2012
Saskatchewan - GST 5%, PST voluntarily (buyer responsible)
Territories (Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut) - GST 5%
United States - Tax Exempt OR Outside Canada Tax Exempt

I assumed the tax rates would automatically be applied based on the country and province/state of the buyer when setting up Geo Zones and Tax Classes. Thus if the buyer is from Alberta, Canada, the GST of 5% would be applied; if the buyer is from Nova Scotia a HST of 13% would be applied, etc. However, instead, each product requires a tax class assigned to it. OpenCart seems to assume tax is only collected if the buyer is from the same province/state, which is unfortunately not the case in many jurisdictions. Rather, as you can see, multiple classes need to be assigned to each product depending on the shipping address location.

Has anyone come up with a solution or do I have to re-program the way taxes work in OpenCart to solve this? If I need to re-program, does the OpenCart allow for Overrides so I do not have to modify the core; thus allowing for quick file overwriting with future updates of OpenCart?

No coding required. You need to set up Canadian Geo Zones and Taxes as follows:

Geo Zones
Alberta GST
British Columbia PST, GST (HST July 1)
Manitoba PST, GST
New Brunswick HST
Newfoundland and Labrador HST
Nova Scotia HST
Ontario PST, GST (HST July 1)
Outside Canada Tax Exempt
Prince Edward Island GST, PST voluntarily
Quebec PST, HST
Saskatchewan GST, PST voluntarily
Territories GST
United States Tax Exempt

Tax Class
Canadian Taxes
Tax Exempt


See http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=6 ... =653719621

You could group GST into one GeoZone. I prefer not to group HST as the tax rates may change. Note: BC HST is 12%. Also note that the Quebec Tax rate (QST) is calculated from the product price + GST (tax on tax). Use the effective tax rate of 7.875% (opencart will round it to 7.88; I might change this in the code for accuracy).

Assign Canadian Taxes to products under catalog > Product > Data > Tax Class

Your HST rate is incorrect for Nova Scotia. It is 15% effective 01 Jul 10. You can find current rates here:

http://www.taxtips.ca/pst/pstrates.htm

northernpenguin

Hi there,

great manual for the Canadian Tax, but how did you sort out GST on Shipping?

Any help is welcome ;-)

Thanks

Dirk

Full compound tax support for PEI & Quebec can be found here: http://www.opencart.com/index.php?route ... on_id=5976

Thanks Tcalp,

just another question, what is "VQMOD" I am new at OpenCart and tried to google for it but there is never a good answer coming out.

Does OpenCart display these taxes automatic with description or did you have to add a mod (your last picture - before and after)?

Thank you for your help

Dirk

Open Cart will display taxes like that automatically when setup. The purpose of the mod I mentioned is to provide proper support for compound tax for Quebec / PEI / and other areas of the world that have a base tax, which then has another tax which taxes the tax. Open Cart does not provide native support for this feature as it's so rarely used.

As for VQMOD it is a very popular modification tool that was designed for Open Cart and is heavily used by for extensions as it allows for changes to be made to core system files for open cart without actually editing or replacing original files leaving you an easier upgrade path in the future should you want to upgrade to newer versions of Open Cart in the future. I can be downloaded at http://code.google.com/p/vqmod/downloads/list

Installation is very simple , simply upload the 'vqmod' folder to the root of your Open Cart installation via FTP and then run http://www.yourdomain.com/vqmod/install . After that VQMOD will be installed and any modifications you acquire which use it simply get placed in the 'xml' folder within vqmod.

Thank you Tcalp, that was a great help.

I am waiting for 1 (actually 2) Quebec Vendor(s) and that would be the time to purchase your module ;-)

I am trying to set up the Canadian Tax-System, but struggle a lot as I don't have the proper understanding how the shop handles all this.

Any good tutorial how to use these Geo-Zones?

Oh, and is it this way. If you have a multi store and got a Vendor sitting in Quebec (I am in Manitoba) because his store will hold the Quebec data, will it have to deal with Tax like it was sold in Quebec or will it still be Manitoba, where the main shop sits?

And it takes the Vendors Shop as start pint to calculate the transport cost, right?

Thank you very much for your help.

Dirk

If you have have a vendor who is shipping from Quebec, then you need to charge Quebec taxes.

Open Cart will not, by default calculate shipping costs from multiple start points without some type of extension (possibly a Multi-Vendor extension ~~ these cost ~$150 typically).

Does OpenCart take the sub-store address to calculate TAX and shipping cost or always from the default shop?

Thanks for your help Tcalp, very much appreciated

Dirk