Tax Rules Terminology

Y.E.S! Tax Rules sales & use tax system automates your tax calculation and reporting.    

The following is an overview of the system's features and the information provided:

A Tax Agency is a federal, state, county, city, or a local tax authority, which mandates that a seller of goods and services collects and reports the proper sales and use tax that is determined by law. Each item for which you collect tax will have one or more tax agencies that make up a tax rule.  

Each item or service that you sell may be taxed by Federal, State, county, city, and local tax agencies and as a seller of these goods and services you have the responsibility to collect and report all taxes to the correct tax agency. This Item Tax structure is a "tax rule" for this item.

Each tax rule is made up of one or more tax types, which is the actual tax collected for a tax agency, which will receive the tax payable amount.  So a tax type is a tax (amount / percent) collected for one tax agency (tax payable authority).

Local taxes include those imposed by school and water districts, rapid transit authorities, police jurisdictions, etc. The following are the seven (7) jurisdictions types which can be defined.

Tax information is mapped to ZIP number code.  All U.S. Postal Service ZIP codes with their associated states, counties, and cities are included.
Tax information is mapped to City name code.
Tax information is mapped to county name code.
Tax information is mapped to County State code.
Tax information is mapped to county name code.
FIPS is an acronym for Federal Information Processing Standards.  Each state and county in the United States is assigned a unique FIPS code by the Federal government.  In a 5 digit FIPS code, the first two digits designate the state, and the last 3 digits designate the specific county within the state.
Custom Code that uniquely identifies user defined jurisdictions.

A Tax Split is a table that sets each tax type actual taxation. There are three ways to fill in a Tax Split table, they are Fixed rates, Maximum Rates and split Rates.

Tax rounding is a method of choosing what to do with the remainder of the tenth of a cent for each taxable transaction. For each tax type (or tax), a default rounding method is needed to allow for correct tax calculation. There are three tax-rounding methods to choose from.  

If the tenth of a cent is greater than 0,  then the cent (tenth of a cent) is incremented up to the next cent (tenth of a cent).    
If the tenth of a cent is greater than or equal to 5 then the cent (tenth of a cent) is incremented up to the next cent (tenth of a cent). Otherwise the remaining tenth of a cent is dropped.  
The remaining tenth of a cent is always dropped, regardless of the value.
In certain instances, county, city, or local rates override the state rate, or each other's rate.  
The dates on which current and prior rates became effective.
All prior rates, through January 1, 1994, are supplied.
The status of whether freight is taxable or exempt, and the associated stipulations and conditions.