How to always collect tax for a local service product?

Accounting & Taxes

Topic summary

Merchants selling digital event tickets on Shopify want to always charge tax on all orders for local services, regardless of customer location. The current tax settings don’t allow forcing a fixed tax rate (X%) on every sale, and non–sales-tax states (e.g., Oregon, Montana) aren’t available under Settings > Taxes > add state.

A previously available “legacy tax system” could reportedly achieve this, but Shopify support is no longer enabling it. This impacts hundreds of stores, including multiple Shopify Plus merchants.

A parallel UK case reports VAT (Value Added Tax) should apply to tickets for services delivered in the UK, yet Shopify removes VAT for USA-based customers based on buyer location. This suggests Shopify’s location-based tax logic overrides the desired “always collect tax” behavior even for locally provided services.

No resolution or workaround is shared, and there’s no confirmation that Shopify has acknowledged the issue. The thread remains open.

Key questions: Is there any current method to override Shopify’s tax logic to always collect a fixed tax/VAT for service products? Will Shopify provide a setting to enforce tax regardless of customer location?

Summarized with AI on January 26. AI used: gpt-5.
1

I run a Shopify app that lets merchants sell digital event tickets. Nothing is shipped. Hundreds of my customers, including dozens of Shopify Plus stores, have a major pain point where they are unable to “always collect tax no matter what” on their products/events. Especially for merchants who border a non-tax state such as Oregon or Montana, as these states are not present in Settings > Taxes > add state.

It’s a simple need… “always charge this X% tax on all products sold, regardless of any other factors”. Is there a way?

I know about the ‘legacy tax system’, but Shopify support is no longer willing to enable it.

Thanks for any advice.

2

Hi Jeff, just wondering if you ever resolved this issue. We have a very similar issue here in the UK, where customers are buying a ticket for a service provided in the UK (hence VAT should be added), but shopify is removing this for USA based customers.

Just trying to assess whether shopify have even acknoledgeded that this is a problem?

Thanks

Sam