Defining Taxes & Uplifts System-wide
If you are applying taxes or uplifts to the cost of registrations, you can change global tax and uplift settings under System Setup / Preferences / Payments . Note that these tax settings apply system wide. At the event level, administrators have the ability to decide whether a defined tax or up-lift is applicable to an individual event.
In the example below, we have the web-site setup to know about two taxes. the Goods and Services Tax (GST) at 5% and a separate Harmonized Sales Tax (HST) at 13%. We also have defined an administrative fee of 1.5% that will apply to all on-line registrations to help offset the cost off accepting payment that include credit card processing fees.
Defining Taxes and Uplifts on a per-event basis
Once the taxes are setup system-wide as above, we can configure tax treatment of events individually.
The reason we allow taxes to be charged individually at the event level is that not all events will have the same tax treatment. For example, one event may be priced in such a way that taxes are included, while another may not. Also, taxes may be in the midst of changing and we may want a future event to reflecting the pending tax change while the existing event does not.
To change the tax policy for an event, first select the event by selecting Calendar & Events / View Events.
When you see the event listing above, click on the credit card icon or edit icon (the pencil) in the row corresponding to the registration event to change. From the Payment Setup screen, expand the Taxes & Uplifts are and shown below.
This is where you can indicate whether the globally defined tax or uplift pertains to this registration event definition. As soon as you make a change and press Save or Save & Return the change becomes effective immediately.
In the example above we want to charge HST @ 13% as well as a 1.5% uplift to account for the cost of on-line payment.
Applying Tax Policies to all Classes in a Session
For organizations offering multiple classes in a session, it is tedious and error prone to adjust these policies for each class individually. In this case use the Edit Multiple Events Option under Calendar & Events to make changes to all events in a particular year and session. An example is shown below.
In "Step 2", of the screen that results after selectomh the Summer 2010 classes as shown above, expand the Taxes, Uplifts and Fees section by clicking on the expansion box and click on each of the three fields shown below to confirm that you want to edit them.
Next, click on Proceed with Selected Events and Settings to edit these variables for all 2010, Summer classes.
The resulting screen makes it easy to inspect the taxes to be applied for each class in the year and session. In the example below we are applying the 13% harmonized sales tax to all classes in the Summer, 2010 session.
Managing transitions in taxation policy
In cases where tax policies are changing, hopefully policies will change on session boundaries. In some cases however the situation is more complex and taxes are changing in the middle of a session.
For example, a real tax policy is as follows:
| 1. | For programs starting prior to July 1st, 2010. GST is payable at 5% |
| 2. | For programs starting on or after July 1st, 2010, HST is payable at 13% |
| 3. | Because the government recognizes that programs may be registered for well in advance, that have instituted a May 1st, 2010 cut-off date such that registrants can register for programs starting after July 2010 before May 1st 2010 without paying the HST, but people registering within 2 months of the start of the new tax (on or after May 1st 2010) are required to pay the new tax. |
In this case, custom form fields with price impact expressions or early bird discounts can be a convenient answer that saves the need to alter the registration event prior to May 1st.
We might choose to configure our events as "HST mandatory" but offer an "early bird discount" that refunds the difference between one tax and another, so long as registrations are received before the trigger date (May 1st, 2010 in this example).
This can be a little complex, but we're happy to help clubs codify their chosen tax policies in the setup of the registration events.