Which address is used to work out tax

Sales tax is normally owed where the goods change hands, and that isn't always where the customer lives. Sunshine works out which address to match your tax rates against based on how the order actually reaches your customer.

If you only ship prints, this happens exactly as you'd expect and you can stop reading. It's worth understanding if you also offer pickup or sell digital downloads, because those two use a different address.

Orders you ship

Shipped orders use the shipping address. The prints travel to your customer, so that's where the sale lands.

This is the case most people picture when they set up their rates, and nothing about it has changed.

Orders collected in person

Pickup orders use your store address, taken from Sunshine > Settings > General.

The reasoning is that nothing travels. Your customer comes to you, so the sale happens where you are, and your local rate applies no matter where that customer happens to live. A customer driving in from the next state over pays your rate, not theirs.

This also means a pickup order doesn't need a shipping address at all, which is why Sunshine doesn't ask for one.

Downloads

Download orders use the customer's billing address.

There's nothing physical to deliver, so the billing address is the only address the order has, and it's the one tax authorities generally look at for digital goods.

If your checkout isn't collecting a billing address on download orders, Sunshine asks for one automatically when your tax rates need it to work out a rate. You can also turn on Always collect a billing address under Sunshine > Settings > Checkout to ask for one on every order.

Before the customer has entered an address

While somebody is looking at their cart, there may be no address to work from yet. What happens then is up to the Default Customer Location setting under Sunshine > Settings > Taxes:

• No location by default shows no tax until they enter an address at checkout
• My business location shows an estimate based on your own address in the meantime

Either way the figure is corrected once a real address is entered, and the final total always uses the address rules above.

What this means for your rates

The practical effect is that your rate table may need to cover more than the places you ship to.

If you offer pickup, make sure a rate covers your own location, because that's what pickup orders match against. If you sell downloads to customers in places you'd never ship a print, check whether your rates cover those places too.

If tax isn't showing up when you expect it, tax is not being applied walks through the usual causes, and Setting Up Taxes covers how rates are matched.