How to Apply Sales Tax to Products on Your Payment Form

Applying tax to products on your payment forms keeps you compliant and makes pricing more transparent for your customers. You can apply sales tax as a percentage, either as a base rate or based on their location. Jotform handles the calculations automatically for each submission, ensuring accurate charges and a smooth checkout experience.

Setting Up the Base Tax Rate

Whether you’re creating a new payment form or updating an existing one, you can start by setting a base tax rate that applies to all taxable products on each submission. Here’s how to do it:

1. Open your form in Form Builder, and click on the Payment field.
2. Now, on the right side of it, and depending on the method you used to set it up:
   • Click on the Wand icon to open the Payment Settings section.
   • Click on the Shopping Cart icon to open the Product List section.
3. Then, under the Tax tab, in the Menu on the right side of the page, enter a tax rate (as a percentage) into the Base Tax Rate section. Or, leave it empty if you only want to charge customers based on their location.

4. Next, click on the Exempted Products dropdown and tick the boxes next to any products you don’t want to charge tax on.
5. In the Tax Text on the Form section, enter the label you want to show on the form instead of the default one.

That’s it. The base tax rate will now be automatically applied to all taxable products on each submission.

Setting Up a Location-Based Tax Rate

You can add location-based tax on top of your base rate by Adding and Setting Up an Address Field on your form. This lets you apply different tax rates depending on where your customer is located. Here’s how to do it:

1. In Form Builder, while under the Tax tab of the Payment Settings or Product List, click on the Set Tax Options From a Location Field Dropdown menu and select a Dropdown field, or a State or Country subfield for your form’s Address field.

2. Then, in the table that comes up at the bottom, enter the tax surcharge (as a percentage) next to each location option. If the State Options property of your form’s Address field is set to Text Box instead of American States (a dropdown with predefined options), you’ll also need to enter the location names manually in the table.

That’s it. The tax surcharge will now be applied automatically based on the customer’s selected location on each submission.