Troubleshooting Sales Tax Problems on Specific Orders

Note: This article covers tax problems on specific orders or jurisdictions. If you're dealing with tax being charged on freight/shipping when it shouldn't be, please see "Understanding and Managing Sales Tax on Your WSM Store."

---

Issue 1: No sales tax is calculated or collected for a state or county

Sometimes tax is not applied to an order even though your store's tax settings look correct and you should be collecting tax for that state or local jurisdiction.

This usually points to a tax lookup or sync problem for that specific order or jurisdiction, rather than a mistake in your store settings.

What to do

• Confirm your store is configured to collect tax for the affected state or county.

• Locate the affected order and note the order number.

• Check whether the transaction appears in your Avalara account. If the order is missing there, the tax lookup likely didn't complete for that order.

What to send support

• The order number

• The state and/or county affected

• The shipping address on the order

• Whether the order appears in your Avalara transactions

Issue 2: Tax was calculated at the wrong rate

In some cases an order is taxed at a rate that doesn't match the correct rate for the customer's address — sometimes much higher than the true local rate.

For example, a customer might be charged 8.8% when the correct rate for their address is 8.4%, or a county rate may be out of date.

What to do

• Look up the correct rate for the customer's address using your state's Department of Revenue (or equivalent) resource.

• Note the rate the order charged versus the correct rate.

• Check whether the order appears in your Avalara transactions. If it is missing, the charged amount may not match what Avalara would normally return.

Tip: Rates for specific counties are updated automatically through the tax service. If a rate looks out of date, report it to support rather than editing it by hand — a manual change can cause future orders to calculate incorrectly.

What to send support

• The order number

• The customer's shipping address

• The rate/amount charged and the correct rate/amount (with your source, e.g., the Department of Revenue)

• Whether the order appears in your Avalara transactions

Issue 3: Order placed without a customer email address, with incorrect tax

There is a known issue on the platform where an order can be completed without a customer email address being entered at checkout. When this happens, tax may be calculated incorrectly on that order — either charged when it shouldn't be, or not charged when it should be.

This is a known platform issue, not something you can correct from your store settings. When it occurs, please report the affected order to support.

How to recognize it

• The order has no customer email address.

• The tax amount is wrong, and you often cannot find the order in your Avalara transactions, so there's no clear record of where the tax figure came from.

• Trying to recreate the same order normally returns the correct tax, which shows the problem is tied to that specific checkout.

What to send support

• The order number

• The date the order was placed

• The shipping state/address

• A note that the order was placed without an email address

• The incorrect tax amount and what the correct amount should be

• Whether the order appears in your Avalara transactions

General tips for faster resolution

For any tax issue on a specific order, always include:

• The order number (this is the single most important detail)

• The customer's shipping address or at least the state/county

• The amount charged vs. the amount expected

• Whether the order is present in your Avalara transactions

Providing this up front lets support trace exactly what happened on the order and resolve it without back-and-forth.