Tax exemptions data through API

When retrieving a tax item from the catalog API no information for the ‘exempt if’ are displayed. How can someone determine the amount needing to be paid for tax when there is an exemption before submitting a payment or order?

e.g. catalog api response for tax

{
  "object": {
    "type": "TAX",
    "id": "JUAQGI52TIZYLPB7FN6GSSYG",
    "updated_at": "2022-07-26T00:52:28.724Z",
    "created_at": "2022-07-06T21:17:47.882Z",
    "version": 1658796748724,
    "is_deleted": false,
    "present_at_all_locations": true,
    "tax_data": {
      "name": "Sales Tax",
      "calculation_phase": "TAX_SUBTOTAL_PHASE",
      "inclusion_type": "ADDITIVE",
      "percentage": "8.875",
      "applies_to_custom_amounts": true,
      "enabled": true,
      "tax_type_id": "us_sales_tax",
      "tax_type_name": "Sales Tax"
    }
  }
}

How the item looks in Square with the exemption item:

I’m able to reproduce this. I’m checking with the team. :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

Any update on this one? My app company said they’re still running into this issue (and thus, my app doesn’t know when to remove sales tax)

I posted this on the day everything went down, so I’m guessing it got lost in the shuffle. @Bryan-Square - any updates on this issue?

At this time the exempt tax options aren’t currently available in the API. We’re constantly working to improve our features based on feedback like this, so I’ll be sure to share your request to the API product team. :slightly_smiling_face:

For what it’s worth, this is hugely problematic for restaurants in states like Ohio, where our sales tax is essentially on a per-item (or at least per category) basis, and heavily dependent on if they’re eating in the shop or taking it to go. If we can’t access exemptions via the API, our only choice for API orders is to always charge sales tax, which means we’re overcharging our customers. The alternative is breaking state tax law, which is worse, as I’m sure you can imagine.

From what my app company told me, this used to work and now it doesn’t - can this be put on the board as a defect so it gets handled faster than a feature request?

Or could it be that the data move elsewhere, and they just need to access it differently than before?

On the catalog object item_data there is is_taxable boolean that you can use to identify whether or not an item is taxed. :slightly_smiling_face: