Tax overrides in Shopify

First, you will set up a collection to group items in Shopify, then you will create up a rule to override all taxes on any items in this collection.

Unfortunately, Shopify's settings have recently changed and only allow manual collections, rather than automated collections, for tax overrides.

You will have to manually select which items are included in this collection. As soon as products are placed into the collection, the tax override will be applied.

Step 1 - Create a manual collection

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  Sign in to your Shopify admin.

  
  
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  Click "Products" then "Collections", and "Create new collection"

  
  

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  Give the collection any title you would like, such as "Tax override".

  
  
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  Choose the option for "Manual collection", and save.

  
  

• This collection will be empty at first, and that is okay. You will not link to it on your site or in your menu, so it will not be visible to customers.

Step 2 - Set up a tax override on the collection

• Click "Settings" and then "Tax settings"

• Click to "Edit" the tax settings for your country

• Scroll down to "Tax overrides" and click "Add product override"

• Select the new collection you just created for the tax override

• Enter the type of tax override to apply. In this example, the override is to make taxes 0%

• Click "Add Override"

Step 3 - Add products to the collection

Click the "Product" page, and select items to add to the collection. Anything you add to that collection will immediately have the tax changes applied.

There are several ways you can add products to your collection.

It is possible to select many items at once and send them to a manual collection in bulk. The best way to do this will depend on which items need to be taxed differently.

In this example, we are preparing for a state sales tax holiday.

For this state, the majority of all products should be overridden to have no taxes, but there are some exceptions that should be still be taxed.

Since most items should be included in the override, we will first select all products.

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  Go to the Products page in your Shopify admin and view all products

  
  
• Click the checkbox to select all, then click "Select all 50+ products in your store" to the right to select everything

• Click "More actions" then "Add to collection"

• Select the new tax override collection, then click "Save"

• It can take a few seconds to finish processing. Wait for a moment before you take other actions

Next, we will filter to select the items that should not be taxed, and remove them.

• Click "More filters" and filter to find the right items.

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  You can filter by product type, product tags, or your other automated collections.       

  
  
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  Apply a filter, then select all items in your filter. If applicable, click "Select all 50+ products in your shop" to ensure all are selected

  
  
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  Click "More actions" then "Remove from collection"

  
  

• Select the tax override collection, then "Save"

• Repeat this step to remove all items that should not be taxed. 

In most cases, you should be able to filter to find items fairly easily. However, it's possible you may have to select individual items manually.

Example:

Backpacks may be entered into DRS as purses when they are purchased, meaning they would be mixed in with the "Purse" collection or tag.

You may need to filter to all items in the "Purse" collection, then review the items and individually select or de-select items to find the right products to add or remove from the collection.

You may also find it easier to add groups of products, rather than adding all products and then removing certain items. 

Note:

Tax changes will be applied as soon as you put items into the collection. You will want to add all items to the collection at the time when you are ready for the change to go into effect.

If you are adjusting taxes for a state sales tax holiday, please refer to your local guidelines about which items should or should not be taxed. 

If you upload additional products to Shopify during the sales tax holiday, you will need to separately add those items to the manual collection as you add them. A recommended way to do that:

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  De-select the "Available on Shopify" checkbox as you upload items with CamRAI so they are not immediately available for purchase

  
  
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  Sign in to Shopify and go to the Products page. Sort all products by "Created newest first"

  
  
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  Select all the products you recently uploaded. Click "More options" then "Add to collection" and add them to your tax override collection

  
  
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  Select the items again, then click "More options" and "Make available" to make them available on your Online Store sales channel

  
  

After the holiday ends, be sure to remove all items from the tax override collection so they are taxed normally again. You will also want to fulfill all Shopify orders in-store in DRS before you change back the tax settings in DRS as well, if possible

For more information, see Shopify's help article related to tax overrides here.