Vape Import Tax challenge - Per ML

Accounting & Taxes

Topic summary

A merchant is struggling to implement a new prepaid import duty on e-liquid products, which is calculated per milliliter (mL). Shopify lacks native support for per-unit or per-mL excise taxes, forcing manual price adjustments that distort sales analytics, profit/loss calculations, and tax reclaim monitoring.

Proposed solutions include:

  • Exploring Shopify’s custom tax overrides (location-dependent)
  • Using third-party tax apps like TaxJar, Avalara, or Quaderno for cleaner tracking and reconciliation
  • Applying the duty as an automatic line item at checkout via apps or custom scripts
  • For Shopify Plus users: leveraging Shopify Scripts with product metafields to automate per-mL tax calculations

One responder also mentioned WallidPay as a payment solution for regulated/high-risk products like vapes, in case payment processing is an additional challenge.

The discussion remains open with no definitive resolution, though multiple technical workarounds have been suggested to automate tax handling and preserve reporting accuracy.

Summarized with AI on October 29. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hey all, I’m hoping some genius can help me.

We have new Prepaid Import Duty being added to a large amount of our products. The tax is a Per ML tax on eliquids. The only way to add this according to Shopify is to manually add the tax to the price of each product. My issue is that the analytics will be useless for my Sales totals and Profit and loss calculations as well as monitoring the tax reclaims form my sales figures. I am at a loss of how to achieve this without a massively over complicated manual reconciling process, and accept my stores will no longer be able to accurately monitor their daily sales figures without intervention. Does anyone know of a solution?

2

Shopify doesn’t have a built-in way to apply a per mL tax dynamically, so adding it manually to each product price messes up your reporting.

One option that might work is using Shopify’s custom tax overrides in your tax settings, but it depends on your location and how Shopify handles excise taxes there. If that’s not an option, you may need an app like TaxJar or Avalara to track and apply the correct tax while keeping reporting clean.

Another possible workaround is adding the duty as an automatic line item at checkout instead of building it into the price. You’d likely need an app or custom script for this, though.

3

Totally get where you’re coming from — Shopify’s current tax system isn’t really built for per-unit or per-ML excise taxes like those now required for e-liquids, and manually adjusting prices can definitely skew your sales analytics and profit/loss reports.

One workaround some merchants use is to apply calculated tax charges via Shopify Scripts (if you’re on Shopify Plus) or through a custom app that references product volume (in ML) using metafields. It’s not native, but it can help automate tax visibility without inflating product prices or distorting analytics.

For reporting, you might also want to explore third-party tax tools like Quaderno or TaxJar — they don’t fully solve the per-ML issue but can make tax tracking and reconciliation easier across channels.

Also, since you’re working with e-liquids, if you’re running into payment gateway restrictions due to product type (which is common with vape/CBD), you could look into WallidPay (https://apps.shopify.com/wallidpay)— it supports regulated and high-risk products and integrates directly with Shopify. Just in case that’s another hurdle you’re hitting.

Let me know if you’d like more technical details or suggestions on automating the tax side further.