Why is my tax override function not working correctly in Ontario?

Shopify Discussion

Topic summary

Issue: Product tax overrides for GST-only items in Canada (e.g., books, children’s clothing) were charging full HST/PST at checkout, especially in Ontario.

Key findings:

  • Overrides apply to each province’s tax component, not the final total tax.
  • Automated collections can’t be overridden; use a manual collection for exempt products.
  • In Taxes > Canada, enable collection per province (not just “Canada”) before adding overrides.

Working setup (product taxes):

  • Create a manual collection of exempt items.
  • Add Product Overrides per province:
    • HST provinces (ON, NB, NL, NS, PEI): set 5% (GST only).
    • PST provinces where Shopify splits PST/GST (BC, MB, SK): set 0% (remove PST).
    • Quebec handling is unclear; some use 5%, others expect 0%—needs confirmation.

Limitations/risks:

  • Shipping taxes can’t follow product exemptions; Shopify confirmed no current fix. Workarounds include manual refunds, charging GST-only on shipping and self-remitting PST, or tax-included flat rates—each with trade-offs.
  • Some users reported prior overrides being wiped (around Jan 2021); keep backups and verify after changes.

Status: Product-level overrides work with the manual-collection method; shipping-tax linkage remains unresolved and the thread is ongoing.

Summarized with AI on December 31. AI used: gpt-5.
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Have you created a Manual collection for overriding the PST tax on children’s clothing? You need to do this; it can’t be done with an automated collection. You go to Products, Collections, Create Collection.

Then you add all the children’s clothing to this manual collection. Each child’s clothing that is PST exempt will still also be in the automated collection as well as in the Manual collection.

Presuming you’ve already set up your GST/HST tax number in the taxes, you will then you create a product override under Settings, Taxes and Duties, Regional Tax Settings - select Canada, Product Override +Override, put in the name of the Manual Collection you made, select Ontario in the pull-down menu, and put in 5% for the tax.