Setting Up Tax Rates in Magento Go via Import/Export

Setting proper Tax rates in Magento Go can be pretty frustrating, especially if you need to set up different tax percentages settings per zip code (or zip code range). And for some reason, Magento Go does not come with the default tax settings and they don't maintain the list. Luckily, Magento Go has feature to export tax settings, edit the rates in Excel, and then import them back. Sounds great?

Export existing Magento Go tax rates

To export your tax file, go to Sales → Tax → Manage Tax Zones & Rates

Open the file in spreadsheet editor you like, add more tax rules and export the file back to CSV. When you export CSV from Office, then by default the CSV contents looks like normal CSV:

Code,Country,State,Zip/Post Code,Rate,Zip/Post is Range,Range From,Range To,default
US-CA-*-Rate 1,US,CA,*,8.5,,,,
US-NY-*-Rate 1,US,NY,*,8.375,,,,

However there is a catch - if you try to import the modified file, it won't work.

How to import tax rates properly

You need to format the CSV file with all the fields double quotation marks. I used OpenOffice to export the CSV, and checked setting "Quote all text fields".

After doing that, the file looks like this:

"Code","Country","State","Zip/Post Code","Rate","Zip/Post is Range","Range From","Range To","default"
"US-CA-90680","US","CA",90680,8,,,,
"US-CA-92656","US","CA",92656,8,,,,

Notice the difference? Now when you import it again, Magento Go will accept newly formatted file.

For those who need to get their Magento Go store to apply tax rate for products, here is example CSV file for tax rates in Orange County, CA.

Download Magento Go tax rates for Orange County, CA.