Obviously, this isn??™t always the case??”digital download sites have no need to
charge for shipping, for example, because no physical shipment is involved. However, we??™ll
probably want to include additional charges of one kind or another with our orders.
In fact, adding this functionality can be very simple??”or not??”depending on how complicated
we want to make things. In this chapter, we??™ll keep things simple and provide basic but
extensible functionality for assessing both tax and shipping charges. First, let??™s discuss the
issues.
Tax Issues
The subject of tax and e-commerce web sites has a complicated history. Early on, online vendors
could usually get away with just about anything. Taxing was poorly enforced, and many
sites simply ignored tax completely. This was especially true for international orders, where it
was often possible for customers to avoid paying tax much of the time??”unless orders were
intercepted by customs officers!
When more people started to become aware of e-commerce web sites, taxation bodies
such as the IRS realized that they were losing a lot of money??”or at least not getting all that
they could??”and that tends to upset them. A flurry of activity ensued as various organizations
worldwide attempted to hook into this revenue stream. A range of solutions was proposed and
implemented with mixed results.
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