Tax
Tax Classes, Rates & VAT Exemption
Last updated: May 15, 2026
Overview #
STOAR includes a fully configurable, jurisdiction-aware tax engine. Tax can be enabled or disabled globally. When enabled, the following settings control how tax is calculated and displayed:
- Tax-inclusive or tax-exclusive pricing — whether the prices shown in the store already include tax, or whether tax is added on top at checkout
- Apply tax before or after discounts — controls whether discounts reduce the taxable amount
- Tax on shipping — optionally apply tax to the shipping fee
Tax Classes and Rates #
Products are assigned to a tax class (for example: Standard, Reduced, Zero-rated). Each tax class has rates defined per country, with an optional state or region override for jurisdictions that require it.
If no rate is found for a product's tax class and the customer's country, the global fallback rate applies.
Tax-Inclusive vs Tax-Exclusive #
Tax-inclusive — the price shown on the product page and in the cart already contains tax. At checkout, STOAR extracts the tax amount from the price and shows the breakdown separately.
Tax-exclusive — prices are shown without tax. The tax amount is calculated and added to the order total at checkout.
VAT / B2B Exemption #
At checkout, business customers can enter a Tax ID. STOAR validates the EU VAT ID format. If the ID is valid, the tax rate for that order is set to zero.
Tax Breakdown #
Every order stores a per-rate tax breakdown — showing the tax amount for each rate applied. This breakdown is visible at checkout, in the order confirmation, and in order summaries in the admin.
Managing Tax #
Navigate to Admin → System → Tax Classes to create and name tax classes, and assign them to products.
Navigate to Admin → System → Tax Rates to define rates per tax class and country, add state/region overrides, and set the global fallback rate.