Develop > Controller layer > Application developer > Tax codes
Value Added Tax (VAT)
Value added tax is attached to the product price and service fees in some jurisdictions.
By default, WebSphere Commerce lists product prices without taxes included in the product display page. Only after some products are added to the shopping cart as an order item can the tax amount be calculated according to the order item's address (the ship-to address) and fulfillment center (the ship-from address). Tax law in many jurisdictions, such as most European countries, Australia, Singapore, and so on, requires sales taxes be included in the price of a product. The prices are usually loaded from back-end systems with the VAT amount included.
Aspects of the VAT tax model:
- The VAT tax model is incompatible with the default WebSphere Commerce tax model and can be enabled at store level or site level as required
- When the VAT model is enabled, we will need to load the tax included product price into Websphere Commerce
- When the VAT model is enabled, the different types of charges in Websphere Commerce have VAT included
- Promotions and shipping calculations are all based on the VAT included amount
- The product prices with VAT included can be displayed on all product display pages and order pages
Charge related columns in some tables and behavior differences between the VAT model and Websphere Commerce's default model:
VAT model Default tax model offerprice Offer price with tax included Offer price without tax included orderitems.price offerprice.price, with tax included offerprice.price, without tax orderitems.totalproduct orderitems.price * orderitems.quantity orderitems.price * orderitems.quantity orderitems.totaladjustment Tax included Tax excluded orderitems.taxamount Product tax amount (no change) Product tax amount orderitems.shipcharge Ship charge with shipping tax included Ship charge orderitems.shiptaxamount Ship tax amount(no change) Ship tax amount The grand total of an orderitem orderitems.totalproduct + orderitems.totaladjustment + orderitems.shipcharge VAT amount is already included in the other columns and the standalone tax amounts are for informational purposes only.
orderitems.totalproduct + orderitems.totaladjustment + orderitems.shipcharge + orderitems.taxamount + orderitems.shiptaxamount Corresponding columns in the orders table Same as order item level's Same as order item level's
- Enable Value Added Tax (VAT) at store level
How to register the VAT set of commands to enable VAT at store level.
- Set up Value Added Tax (VAT) configurations
Additional configurations are required to set up VAT besides the default tax settings. You can also use the tax tool in Websphere Commerce Accelerator to configure VAT.
- Display VAT information on product display pages
If display the tax breakdown for a single catalog entry, we will need to update the JSP to display the proper amounts.
- Display VAT information on order item display pages
The main purpose of this customization is to display the tax rate on the client side. OrderCalculateCmd will need to be extended.