Tax hooks across cross-border carts
Where tax calculation belongs in the checkout sequence when you sell from Taiwan to nearby markets.
Cross-border carts fail quietly when tax is applied after payment authorization. The customer sees one total, the acquirer captures another, and your finance team spends weeks matching deposits.
Calculate tax before authorization whenever the destination country is known. If the address arrives late in the flow, freeze the cart total and re-quote before capturing payment rather than adjusting after the fact.
Connector design should treat tax providers as replaceable. Hard-coding rates inside the theme template makes the next market expansion a redesign project instead of a configuration change.
We document which line items are taxable, which shipping methods carry duties estimates, and which promotional discounts apply before tax. Those three lists prevent most reconciliation surprises we see in Taichung retail accounts.