TaxZen for WooCommerce

Description

Stop spending hours wrestling with WooCommerce tax tables. TaxZen for WooCommerce replaces the tedious, error-prone process of manually configuring tax rates with a guided 5-step wizard that gets your store tax-compliant in minutes.

Whether you sell physical goods, digital products, or services — domestically or across borders — TaxZen handles the complexity so you can focus on growing your business.

🧙 5-Step Setup Wizard

Get from zero to fully-configured taxes in under 5 minutes:

1. Store Setup — Auto-detects your WooCommerce store country and currency (or set manually)
2. Product Types — Choose what you sell: Physical Goods, Digital Products, Services — each gets the correct tax class
3. Target Countries — Select the countries where you sell, with smart defaults for EU, NAFTA, and APAC regions
4. Rate Preview — Review every rate before it touches your store, with country-by-country breakdown
5. One-Click Apply — Push all rates to WooCommerce tax tables with a single click and two-step confirmation

Re-run the wizard anytime. TaxZen cleans up old rates automatically — no duplicates, no orphaned entries.

🌍 Global Tax Rate Coverage

✨ Core Features

• 5-Step Setup Wizard: Configure your store’s tax rates for any country in minutes.
• Auto-Syncing Rates Engine: The plugin automatically connects to reliable open-source APIs every week in the background, continuously keeping your free dynamic rates cached and up-to-date without needing plugin updates.
• Smart Defaults: Auto-detects your shop’s base country and currency.
• Global Rate Database: Built-in support for standard, reduced, and zero tax rates across 100+ countries.
• Deep WooCommerce Integration: Automatically applies rates at checkout, manages shipping tax, and stamps orders with a custom « Tax Source » badge.
• B2B EU EU Exemption: Automatically validates EU VIES VAT numbers at checkout to exempt legitimate B2B buyers.
• Smart Address Validation: Verifies shipping zip codes and cities at checkout using OpenStreetMap Nominatim to prevent incorrect tax calculations.
• Digital Goods Auto-Classification: Automatically assigns virtual/downloadable products to the correct tax class.
• Dashboard & Alerts: A beautiful interface offering real-time rate statistics, activity logs, and email notifications when global tax laws change.
• EU OSS/MOSS Report Generator: One-click quarterly compliance export aggregating EU B2C sales and VAT collected by member state and tax rate.
• WooCommerce Analytics Built-in: Includes a dedicated « TaxZen Usage » tracking tab seamlessly embedded inside the native WooCommerce Reports screen.
• PDF & CSV Exports: Downloadable tax compliance reports for your records.
• Built for Reliability: Three-layer duplicate prevention ensures existing rates are updated safely without cluttering your database.

Third-Party Services & APIs

To provide accurate tax calculations, real-time address validation, and VAT number compliance monitoring, this plugin connects to external third-party services. Below is a detailed disclosure of each service utilized by this plugin:

1. TaxZen Rates Cloud API (https://swapnilde.github.io/taxzen)

   • Service Name: TaxZen Rates Cloud API
   • What the service is: A first-party static API service hosted on GitHub Pages by the plugin authors to deliver verified global sales tax and VAT rate updates.
   • What it is used for: Fetching the latest global sales tax rates database.
   • What data is sent: No user or store data is sent. Only a standard HTTP GET request is made.
   • When data is sent: Manually when triggered from the dashboard, or once a week via a scheduled cron job only if the store administrator explicitly enables automatic weekly sync in settings (disabled by default).
   • Account needed: None (Free Service).
   • Terms & Privacy Policy: https://docs.github.com/en/site-policy/privacy-policies/github-privacy-statement (GitHub platform policies).

2. VATSense API (https://api.vatsense.com)

   • Service Name: VATSense API
   • What the service is: A commercial SaaS API for global sales tax rates.
   • What it is used for: Looking up real-time, verified corporate sales tax rates for the store base and customer location.
   • What data is sent: The customer’s country code, state, and city. No personal user identifiers (like names or emails) are transmitted.
   • When data is sent: During tax calculation at checkout and when saving settings (only if the administrator selects VATSense as the active rate provider; static rates are used by default).
   • Account needed: Yes (requires a VATSense API key).
   • Terms of Service: https://vatsense.com/terms
   • Privacy Policy: https://vatsense.com/privacy

3. OpenStreetMap Nominatim API (https://nominatim.openstreetmap.org)

   • Service Name: OpenStreetMap Nominatim API
   • What the service is: A public geocoding service based on OpenStreetMap data.
   • What it is used for: Validating customer shipping addresses (city, state, and zip code) at checkout to prevent incorrect tax calculations.
   • What data is sent: The billing or shipping address details (specifically street address, city, state, zip code, and country).
   • When data is sent: When a customer validates their address during WooCommerce checkout, only if the administrator explicitly enables address validation in settings (disabled by default).
   • Account needed: None.
   • Usage Policy & Terms: https://operations.osmfoundation.org/policies/nominatim/
   • Privacy Policy: https://wiki.osmfoundation.org/wiki/Privacy_Policy

4. EU VIES VAT Validation Service (https://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/vies)

   • Service Name: EU VIES VAT Validation Service
   • What the service is: The European Commission’s official VAT Information Exchange System (VIES) REST API.
   • What it is used for: Validating EU B2B VAT identification numbers in real-time to apply B2B tax exemptions.
   • What data is sent: The customer’s EU VAT identification number and country code.
   • When data is sent: During checkout when a customer enters an EU VAT number, only if the administrator explicitly enables B2B VAT validation in settings (disabled by default).
   • Account needed: None.
   • Terms & Privacy Policy: https://ec.europa.eu/info/privacy-policy_en

Source Code & Build Instructions

This plugin uses modern build tools to compile and minify its JavaScript and CSS files. The uncompiled source code is included within the plugin directory under src/ and is also publicly available in our GitHub repository.

• GitHub Repository: https://github.com/swapnilde/taxzen
• Source Files: All raw, uncompiled JavaScript and CSS files are located in the /src directory.
• Compiled Assets: The generated, production-ready minified files are located in the /build directory.

How to Build and Compile the Assets

To build the project locally, follow these steps:

1. Clone the repository or navigate to the plugin folder:
   cd wp-content/plugins/taxzen
2. Install the npm dependencies:
   npm install
3. Run the build script to compile the assets (using @wordpress/scripts):
   npm run build
4. For active development, you can run the watcher:
   npm start
5. To install PHP Composer dependencies:
   composer install