How can I manage tax exempt purchases or set up a customer as tax exempt?

[ERM_TS]

We have tax (7%) set up as default for every non-food item in our store.  Recently, we had someone bring in a Tax Exempt Certificate.  Is there a simple way to turn the tax off for an entire order?  The poor cashier had to disable the tax for each item one at a time.

We currently have the settings button (the three lines in the bottom left corner) locked down because many of our cashiers are volunteers and we would prefer to not allow access to any of these settings.  Only the manager can bypass this security measure, but the manager is not always close by.

[VanKalkerFarms]

If you click on the Tax line of the running bill, you can delete all the tax on the bill.

[Kpay]

Thanks @VanKalkerFarms!

@ERM_TS, you may need to tap "Current Sale" and then take off any taxes you don't want to apply for that order. For more info about editing taxes at the time of the sale, check out this article.

Hope this helps but let us know if you have any other questions! 🙂 

[GlassJudy]

Have there been any improvements since this answer?  Turning off the tax during a sale is ok, but being able to designate certain customers as tax-exempt would be much better.  We don't expect our employees (or ourselves) to recognize a tax-exempt customer at the cash register, and we don't want to have to ask each customer if they're tax-exempt or not (and how would we verify it if they answered 'yes' anyway?)

[Helen]

@GlassJudy I don't have an update for you I'm afraid, but thanks for your feedback. I agree it would be very handy to be able to designate a specific customer as tax-exempt! 

In the meantime, I recommend checking the requirements for how to record tax-exempt purchases in your state (they vary by state), or reaching out to a tax professional. 

[mooretoys]

This reply was created from merging an existing thread: better reporting for taxable and non-taxable sales

I operate a store front and sell frequently to area schools, libraries and other tax exempt organizations. I am new to Square, and have found that there is no mechanism to identify a customer as tax exempt (I collect 501c3 letters and the other required documentation). The only way to accomplish a tax exempt sale is to remove the tax on an item by item basis, but that means I have to immediately switch that back after the sale is complete. 

[Helen]

Hello @mooretoys! I'm moving your post to this thread where you can see the steps to quickly remove tax from a sale in this Best Answer.

The ability to create a tax-exempt customer is currently a feature request but I can see how it would be really useful for businesses like yours that work with tax exempt organizations. Thanks for letting us know this is important to you! 

[frillseekerstx]

What I have done is create an item called "tax exempt" where the tax for the item is turned off.  It doesn't help with inventory control but for me these are usually larger special or bulk orders and not something that I keep in inventory.  I keep their tax exempt paperwork on file at the store. I haven't had the need to keep track of which customers are tax exempt because for us it is usually organizations and they are very quick to tell or remind you that they are tax exempt without having to ask.  

[userchag]

Yes deleting sales tax and having to go back and turning it on for your next transaction is a non starter.  Square needs to spend time in a restaurant to see these problems.  It is annoying to always hear "our team appreciates your feedback and I'll send your request to our customer squad".  Enough with the positive reinforcement language- a simple way to delete tax for non profits and EBT should not be hard. 

[BsVintage]

I do a lot of trade shows and would like to be able to turn on and off my sales tax on my point of sales...I ran into this over the weekend on a large sale....I have read and reread thru my dashboard and missing this somewhere...any help would be great!

[nika]

Hey there @BsVintage! I moved your post to this board so you can find the answer to your question. It includes some helpful links to our Support Center, also, that have the steps on how to disable tax on particular sales.

Let us know if any other questions come up!