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Understanding tax codes

Learn how to assign specific tax rates to your products

Rodrigo avatar
Written by Rodrigo
Updated this week

Tax codes let you assign specific tax rates to your products if they fall under non-standard tax rules in your country. This ensures the correct tax rate is applied based on the type of product you’re selling.

Introduction

Tax codes help determine the correct tax rate for each product on your site.

In some countries, tax rates vary based on the type of goods you sell online. With Podia, you can easily set and manage these rates for each product individually.

Podia offers the following tax codes:

  • e-Service : for digital goods or services (excluding e-books).

  • e-Book : for electronic books.

  • SaaS : for Software as a Service (a.k.a. on-demand software).

  • Consulting : for consulting or other professional services in cases where sales in your own jurisdiction are taxable but sales to other jurisdictions are not taxable.

  • Standard rate : For general goods or services not listed above, using standard tax rates.

  • Reduced rate : For general goods or services not listed above, using reduced tax rates.

  • Tax-exempt : For goods or services exempt from tax. Podia will not charge taxes on products set to this code.

Defining the tax code of your product

Here's how to define the tax code for your product:

  1. From your Podia dashboard, click on Products in the sidebar menu.

  2. Click on Edit next to the product you want to set up a price for.

  3. Once inside the product, navigate to the Pricing tab.

  4. Click on Edit to edit the offer of your product.

  5. Select the Paid option.

    • A Stripe and/or PayPal account needs to be connected before you set up a price for your product.

  6. Use the Tax code dropdown menu to determine the tax code for your product. Available options are:

    • Consulting

    • Ebook

    • Eservice

    • Exempt

    • Reduced

    • SaaS

    • Standard

  7. Hit Save to save your changes.

FAQs & Troubleshooting

What does Podia use to determine tax rates?

Tax rates will be determined by your added jurisdictions. Here's how to add jurisdictions to your account.

Does changing the tax code change how tax is calculated for existing product/community subscriptions and payment plans?

No, it does not. Your customers are locked into the tax code that is set at the time that they purchase. The updated code will only apply to new purchases.

What if the jurisdiction I'm in does not have different rates for specific tax codes?

If no specific tax rate is found for the tax code you’ve set, the "e-service" tax rate for your jurisdiction will be applied instead.

I can't see the option to set tax codes for my product... HELP!

If you can't see the option to set up a custom tax code for your product, make sure you have tax collection turned on.

Here's how to enable tax collection for your account.

How much are the rates for each specific tax code?

These rates will vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. We'd recommend consulting Quaderno's tax guides for your specific jurisdiction for more details.


Still need help?

If you have any questions, send an email to [email protected] or click the purple help icon to send us a message 😄

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