Due to local tax regulations, i am obligated to either send fully tracked/insured out of europe to prove it has left the EU, or charge tax on untracked orders. Both options have merit and depends on the customer what they prefer. I want to offer both options, is there a way to turn on tax for one shipping option, but turn it off for another shipping option?
Hi,
I think the best way to handle this is to use Shopify Tax which should handle export TAX automatically even when its exported. Also make sure you put the “relayed” tax on your invoice.
I looked into that, but it seems i would need to be collecting tax specifically in a region of every country which i am not, so i cant make an “override”.
Hey @user118!
I totally get your situation with the EU tax regulations - it’s one of those frustrating compliance things that makes running a business more complicated than it should be.
Unfortunately, after looking into this, Shopify doesn’t have a built-in way to apply different tax rates to different shipping methods on the same products. Their tax system is pretty rigid - you can either charge tax on shipping or not, but it applies across the board to your whole store or specific regions.
But don’t worry, there are definitely ways to work around this. Here are a few options that could work for you:
The easiest solution would probably be to create two versions of each product. So instead of having one product with two shipping options, you’d have “Product Name - Tracked Delivery” and “Product Name - Standard Delivery”. Set the tracked version to include tax in the price, and the standard version to add tax at checkout. This way customers pick their preference upfront and you stay compliant.
If you have Shopify Plus, you could potentially use their Scripts feature to create custom tax rules based on shipping methods, but that would need some development work.
Another approach is to treat the tracking/insurance as an add-on product rather than a shipping method. So you’d have one shipping rate (no tax) and then offer “shipping insurance and tracking” as an optional product that includes the tax component.
You could also look into third-party tax apps like TaxJar or Avalara - some of them have more sophisticated rules that might handle this kind of scenario.
The product variant approach is probably your cleanest bet though. It’s transparent for customers and keeps everything above board with your tax authorities. You’d just need to update your product descriptions to make it clear why you’re offering these options.
Let me know what you think about these options or if you want to brainstorm any other approaches. This kind of compliance stuff is always a pain but there’s usually a way to make it work!
Cheers!
Shubham | Untechnickle