Incorrect tax rates and public home business address?? WOW

[EricD]

My taxes and my privacy are 2 of the most important requirements and with Shopify they're both handled incorrectly. I will have to leave Shopify if this isn't corrected. Don't make my mistake and spend thousands on store design like I did, before you read this.

Shopify prints my home address on every shipping label! I am a home based e-commerce business. I'd like to keep my home address private, but it is my nexus and the address must be used for tax calculation. When I enter my address it automatically prints on all shipping labels as the return address. I do not have a post office or UPS in the same tax region as my home, so I cannot use my UPS PMB or a P.O.

Even with my home address entered, my tax rates are still incorrect! The state rate is correct at 4%, but everything else is wrong. I live in a county, outside the city, so my rate is 4% instead of 3%. I live near a township and within police jurisdiction, but outside town limits, so my rate is 1% instead of 2%. 

I would think that ensuring the privacy of store owners' home addresses & collecting the CORRECT tax rates, would be a cornerstone PRIORITY for Shopify, but evidently not.

A manual entry for shipping label return shipping address & tax override for county and municipalities instead of only State, seems like a small task to create in contrast to everything else that is done.

[Shay]

Hi @EricD 

Thank you for sharing your experience here in the community forums. I can definitely understand your concern about your privacy as well as accuracy at the checkout for your taxes. Hopefully, I can provide some insight into the first one and some support on the second one.

All businesses that are shipping products are required to provide a return shipping address on the label in case of issues with delivery, or other reasons. For many online stores that are running their business from their home, that means that the shipping labels will show your home address. You mentioned the PO Box, and I am glad to hear you know about that option. In situations like this, if you don't want your personal address for your business showing then you would need to register the address to a PO Box/Post Office or even to a business you are familiar with that doesn't mind receiving your returns in the mail. 

Here is a great article that also discusses some alternative options for businesses like yours: Do You Need a Physical Address for Your Business? | legalzoom.com 

For your tax calculations, I would recommend reaching out to our live support channels for additional help as they will be able to see your tax setup and review calculations with you in real time. If you have added your registered business tax ID into your admin under Settings > Taxes, and the tax calculations are still not coming up correct, you will want to setup the tax overrides to ensure the correct tax rate is being charged: Tax overrides and exemptions · Shopify Help Center.

We do strive to provide an accurate tax calculation automatically based on your registered tax ID for your business. If you confidently feel that the auto calculations for your tax rates are not correct, please let our live support team know so that they can verify that and pass it over to our tax support team for a closer look. 

I hope this information helps.

[DanaW71]

Hello Shay, 

My concern is the same as Eric's. I understand the return address is required on the shipping label, but why is there no option to say list a PO Box? I myself work my business from my home and don't like the idea of my home address on the shipping label, that is why I spent the money to get a PO Box for returns. Why does Shopify not offer that option? 

[Shay]

Great question! If you have a PO Box address you want to use then you can update your business address for returns by editing the contact information in Settings > Store Details > Address. The address used there is the physical address shared with customers on your website.