You can use the AvaTax Sales Tax Automation add-on with X-Cart Marketplace:
in both the "Warehouse" and "Vendors as separate shops" multi-vendor modes;
regardless of whether tax collection has been set up as the site owner's responsibility or the vendors.
This add-on is perfect for X-Cart Marketplace stores with a large number of vendors operating as independent shops in different states across the country and needing to use various sales tax rates depending on their location (a situation typical for the United States). In contrast with such tax add-ons as Sales tax, VAT/GST, or Canadian taxes, the AvaTax Sales Tax Automation add-on spares the store administrator a lot of work. Instead of having to manually configure in their X-Cart store a multitude of zones and tax rates for all the locations where the store has nexus, with AvaTax all the administrator has to do is specify the nexus locations they require and then get all the necessary tax rates from AvaTax.
To use AvaTax Sales Tax Automation, the store administrator will have to get an AvaTax account and complete the required configuration in the AvaTax Admin Console and the X-Cart store as described in Getting Started with AvaTax Sales Tax Automation.
The vendors will not need a separate AvaTax account. However, to ensure correct tax calculation in a Marketplace store via a single AvaTax account, the store administrator will need to properly configure the nexus jurisdictions for the store's AvaTax account in the AvaTax Admin Console, specifying all the states where the marketplace has nexus. They will also need to make sure all the nexus states are appropriately set in the X-Cart store's settings:
Suppose sales tax collection is the site owner's responsibility (Sales tax is the responsibility of = Site owner). In that case, the administrator must define the nexus states for the marketplace and include these states in the nexus jurisdictions for the store's AvaTax account via the AvaTax Admin Console. Then it is necessary to make sure these states are specified in the Tax Calculation Settings section of the AvaTax Sales Tax Automation add-on settings page.
If the store is based in the United States, this has some specifics:If the store has nexus in all the US states, the administrator needs to adjust the "Automatically calculate taxes for" setting to "All US States."
If the store has nexus in just some states, the administrator needs to adjust the "Automatically calculate taxes for" setting to "Specific states" and specify those states in the Specify US states field below.
Suppose the sales tax collection is the vendor's vendors ("Vendors as separate shops" multi-vendor mode + Sales tax is the responsibility of=Vendor). In that case, the administrator must define the nexus states for the marketplace and include these states in the nexus jurisdictions for the store's AvaTax account via the AvaTax Admin Console. Then they must ensure each of the vendors has their nexus states specified in the "US tax calculation" section in the vendor profile (Financial Details).
If the store is based in the United States, this has some specifics:If the vendor company has nexus in all the US states, the administrator needs to make sure the "Automatically calculate taxes for" setting is set to "All US States."
If the vendor company has nexus in just some states, the administrator needs to make sure the "Automatically calculate taxes for" setting is set to "Specific states," and those states are listed in the Specify the US states field below.
Vendors should be instructed to specify their nexus states via My account > Financial details:
Note that failure to specify the states in the "Specify US states" field after adjusting the "Automatically calculate taxes for" setting to "Specific states" will result in that no tax calculation requests will be sent to AvaTax to calculate sales tax for the vendor's products. For this reason, the store administrator should double-check that vendors have correctly provided the information regarding the vendor's nexus states via the "Financial details" section of a vendor account (If not, the administrator should request that the vendor fixes it or fix it themselves for the vendor).
Related pages: