The Taxes & Fees module allows you to create custom tax rules for your products, shipping fees, and service fees. Setting these up correctly ensures buyers see accurate, itemised charges at checkout, and your finance team can reconcile tax collected and calculate remittance without manual recalculation. This guide explains how to create a new sales tax.
Accessing the Taxes & Fees Module
1. From the left-hand menu, click Settings.
2. Select Taxes & Fees.
Create a New Tax Rule
3. Select Add a new sales tax.
Enter the Tax Name
4. In the Tax name field, enter the name customers will see during checkout.
Example:
VAT
Sales Tax
State Tax
GST
This label will appear on invoices, checkout pages, and order summaries.
Configure the Tax Amount
5. Enter the tax amount. You can apply tax in two ways:
Flat fee
Percentage
Or both combined
Flat Fee
Enter a fixed monetary fee amount for this tax rule.
Example:
£2.50
$5.00
You can leave this blank or as 0.00 if you only want to apply a percentage-based tax.
Percentage
Enter the tax percentage rate.
Example:
20%
8.875%
22%
You can leave this blank or as 0% if you only want to apply a flat fee based tax.
Choose How the Tax Is Applied
6. Under How will the tax be applied?, select one of the following options:
Option 1: Tax Added to Product Price
Select: Tax will be added to the product price
Use this when product prices should display excluding tax, and the tax is added during checkout.
Example:
Product price: $100
State Tax (6.25%): $20
Customer pays: $106.25
Option 2: Product Price Includes Tax
Select: Product price includes this tax
Use this when prices already include tax, which is common in countries such as the United Kingdom.
Example:
Product price: £120
VAT portion: £20
Customer pays: £120
Tax is calculated using the formula: Tax = (Tax Rate × Price) / (1 + Tax Rate)
The tax will appear as a line item for both you and your customers, even though it's already included in the price. The subtotal and total will remain unchanged, but the tax amount you need to remit is clearly shown.
Select Where the Tax Applies
7. Under Tax Applies to, choose the applicable areas.
Products
Enable: Products, if the tax applies to products
Then choose:
All products — applies the tax to every product
Selected products — applies the tax only to chosen products
Service Fee
Enable this option if the tax should also apply to service fees.
Shipping Fee
Enable this option if the tax should also apply to shipping charges.
Save the Tax Rule
8. Once all settings are configured:
Review the tax details
Click the Save button
Your new tax rule will now be active and applied during checkout according to your configuration.
Tips & Best Practices
Use clear tax names that customers recognize.
Ensure your tax setup complies with local tax regulations.
If operating internationally, create separate tax rules for each region.
Test checkout after creating a tax to verify calculations are correct.
Need more help?
Speak to our support team via live chat or contact us by email at help@vouchercart.com
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