Note: The following can be applied to other countries which have two levels of sales taxes: 1 country-wide and 1 provincial/state.
 
The following steps will fully enable the use of a provincial tax rate and a country-wide tax rate. When a resident of your business’ home province makes a purchase, they will be charged both provincial and federal taxes. When a resident of the same country [Canada] but from another province makes a purchase, they will only be charged the federal tax.
 
This differs from the steps in the Viart newsletter. [In the Viart newsletter announcing the release of 3.6, 2 taxes are set as default and applied to all residents of the country.]
 
Let's add the provinces to the system.
System --> Static Tables --> States
For each province:
Click 'New State'
Check 'Show for User', Select 'Country': Canada, Enter ‘State Code’, ‘State Name’.
Example, x, Canada, AB, Alberta
Repeat for each province.
 
Since we are combining provinces and states into one table, let's edit the static message 'State' to 'State/Province'
System --> System Static Messages.
Select ‘messages’.
Locate 'SELECT_STATE_MSG'. Click Edit. Change 'State' to 'State/Province'
Locate 'STATE_FIELD'. Click Edit. Change 'State' to 'State/Province'
 
With State and Province combined, there may be no need to show 'province' as a separate entry in user types. Let's remove this from user account page setup.
Site Users --> User Types --> Profile Settings --> Predefined fields
Uncheck any entry you may have had enabled for 'Province'.
Ensure 'State/Province' is checked for Personal Details and Delivery Details.
 
Let Viart system know which is your home province so you will charge customers with the same province both taxes. Residents of other provinces will only be charged the federal tax
System --> Global Settings
Ensure 'Default Country' : Canada
For 'Default State': select your home province. Ex. 'Ontario'
 
Create the federal tax [GST]. I'll set GST as default. [You could set either as default; it’s a personal preference. The only impact I discovered is in the Products --> Product Settings --> Appearance section which is covered below.]
Orders --> Tax Rates --> Add New
Check 'Is Default'
Tax Name: 'GST'
State/Province: 'Any'
Country: 'Canada'
Base Tax Percent(%): '5.000'
Shipping Tax Percent: '5.000' optional, can be blank if same rate.
Click Update.
 
Now create the provincial tax. Note: the current rate for Ontario is 8%, modify as required for your province.
Leave 'Is Default' is unchecked.
Tax Name: 'PST'
State/Province: 'Ontario'
Country: 'Canada'
Base Tax Percent(%): '8.000'
Shipping Tax Percent: '8.000' optional, can be blank if same rate.
Click Update.
 
Last set of steps involve how this all appears in the cart, checkout and invoice.
In Products --> Product Settings --> Appearance
Scroll down to Cart Columns.
In this last section, I have noticed an undocumented behaviour.
For 'on basket page' and 'on orders/checkout pages' checkboxes: Certain tax checkboxes will only show the values for one tax rate. When testing with customers who are charged both taxes and others who are only charged one, the fields for 'Tax Percentage', 'Tax' and 'Price incl. tax' would show the values of the default tax. This is ok for those only charged the one tax but misleading for those charged both taxes. You may wish to leave these particular three tax checkboxes unchecked [see highlight on enclosed doc].
The entries for 'Total Tax (Tax x Quantity) and 'Total Price incl. Tax (Price incl. tax x Quantity)' do accurately display the correct tax totals for any customer including those charged both taxes and those only charged one tax. So I leave those checked. Feel free to experiment.
For 'on invoice', I left all entries checked.
 
The above steps should permit you to seamlessly charge the correct tax(es); one or both based on the customers address.
Kindly test in your environment if you wish to enable this functionality but its working nicely for me.
Regards,

How do you deal with HST (Quebec and others)?

Hi Foxtrotdomains,
 
HST is not a factor as our business operates and ships solely out of Ontario. Are you operating out of multiple provinces? I can only charge PST & GST to Ontario residents. Customers of other provinces are only charged GST. Only goods from NS, NB and NL can have HST applied to them. Selling from Ontario to those provinces only makes them eligible to be charged GST as the goods do not originate from an HST province.
 
When Ontario becomes an HST participant next summer, we'll have to read the fine print and determine if all customers are charged both the provincial and federal taxes. If I must collect both the provincial and the federal tax to all Canadian customers then I will modify the above steps to charge the PST to all of Canada, not just Ontario.
 
The enclosed link provides further detail
http://www.cra-arc.gc.ca/tx/bsnss/tpcs/gst-tps/gnrl/hst-tvh/wrks-eng.html
 
of which I excerpt:
Three provinces - Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Newfoundland and Labrador - harmonized their provincial sales tax with GST to create HST.
 
The HST is composed of the GST and the 8% provincial tax and applies to the same base of goods and services that are taxable under GST.
 
GST/HST registrants continue to collect GST on taxable supplies (other than zero-rated supplies) of goods and services made in Canada outside the participating provinces. On supplies made in the participating provinces, they collect HST.

DanN: Appreciate this info, very useful for me. I too am in Ontario and sell only from this province.
 
So I should charge PST & GST to clients within ON and only GST to the rest of the country. Correct.
 
Thanks for sharing.

Hi Foxtrotdomains,
 
No prob and that's correct.
 
When Ontario goes with HST next summer, we'll have to revisit the fine print.
 
From
http://www.rev.gov.on.ca/english/guides/rst/pdf/901.pdf
 
Out-of-province sales
If you make a sale to a customer, and deliver or arrange for delivery of the goods to a place outside Ontario, you do not charge your customer RST. You must keep all your shipping documents and bills of lading to support the exempt sale.

were hst... we got setup up finally
Anyone need what to do
email me
randy

Hi thebirdman,
 
Sorry to say ! if DanN shares his ideas to try help others to solve problem or make useful as possible, then if you got setup up finally ... why not share here ... Everyone can be able to get knowledge .....

Hello Birdman;
 
Kindly share your knowledge with us, I am finally in the midst of actually putting my shop live soon, so this info would be indeed very useful.
 
Regards,