Tax changing AFTER customer completes payment

Shopify Discussion
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Topic summary

Shopify merchants are experiencing a persistent tax calculation glitch where the system recalculates tax amounts after customers complete payment authorization. This creates two authorization charges on customer bank accounts—the original amount and an adjusted amount (typically differing by a few cents)—before the first drops off.

Key Issues:

  • Customers see what appears to be double charges, leading to complaints about “bait and switch” tactics
  • The problem affects both Shop Pay and non-Shop Pay transactions
  • Order timelines show: initial authorization → tax update → void → new authorization
  • Merchants receive frequent support tickets from confused/angry customers

Shopify’s Response:
Support has acknowledged this as a “known issue” since at least spring 2023 with “no known fix or workaround.” They’ve offered to submit feature requests but provided no timeline for resolution.

Merchant Impact:

  • Lost orders when payments fail due to the recalculation (especially with PayPal, which doesn’t auto-authorize increases)
  • Potential overdraft fees if customers have limited funds
  • Damaged merchant reputation despite being outside their control
  • Extra customer service burden explaining the issue

Current Status:
The issue remains unresolved over a year later. It occurs intermittently with no clear pattern, making it difficult to track. Some merchants report updating product categories may reduce frequency, but doesn’t eliminate the problem. Most affected merchants now proactively explain it’s a Shopify platform issue beyond their control.

Summarized with AI on October 27. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
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A lot of the time people notice it when we’re closed or ordering online, so we don’t hardly deal with it in person too much. However, people almost always email us about it. Here’s our stock response that we send out via email. Our associates in shop explain a more simplified version of this to people that ask in person or call in via phone.

Our Email Response to Tax adjustments aka “being double-charged”:

Hi (name of customer),

We are only seeing that our website captured a payment of $xx.xx for your order.

Sometimes, websites and credit cards have extra interactions in the background that customers and merchants don’t usually see (ghost charges, communication issues, etc.). These issues typically work themselves out, and this appears to be one of those cases. If you look at your statement immediately (shortly after you make your purchase), you’ll see these interactions, even appearing in your online credit card statement.

However, these issues usually resolve themselves within a few business days. We recommend rechecking your account in a few days to see if this is the case. If you still see multiple charges after a week, you may need to contact your credit card provider, as our website only captured a payment of $xx.xx for your order.

We apologize for any confusion, and we hope this information helps. Take care,

-Hawaiian Pie Company Staff

So yeah, usually, I go back to my previous email, copy/paste, update the charges, and change the customer name. Everyone that gets our response understands and is okay with that. I would add that “Shopify support knows it’s an issue but doesn’t fix it,” but that won’t do much for our customers since the customer believes we handle our website transactions. :disappointed_face: