You can add sales tax to your event tickets to comply with state or local regulations. In this article, you will learn how to apply and calculate sales tax on event tickets.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
You can still add Sales Tax even if you have already started selling tickets; however, it will only apply to future ticket sales.
Sales Tax can be added to all or selected ticket types
Sales Tax can be charged to the ticket buyer or absorbed by the organizer
VAT and Sales Tax cannot be applied at the same time
If you want to add VAT instead of Sales Tax, click here for more information.
How to Add Sales Tax
Enable Sales Tax
Go to Settings > Payment Processing
Click the Sales Tax tab
Select "Yes, I need to charge tax for this event"
Fill out the required information.
Sales Tax Name
Sales Tax ID
Tax Rate - this is the tax percentage, not the tax amount.
Select which tickets will tax be applied
Select whether you want the tax to be part of your ticket price or if you want the tax to be on top of your ticket price.
Example:
If you have a $100 ticket and choose to absorb the 5% tax, your attendee will pay $100.
If you have a $100 ticket and choose to pass the 5% tax, your attendee will pay $100 + $5 plus the credit card fee. This is what they will see when they are buying a ticket:
5. To see the total amount of sales tax collected, go to:
Settings > Payment Processing
Under the Payment Options tab, look for the Sales Tax Amount
How is Sales Tax Calculated?
The sales tax computation will depend on your setup based on these scenarios:
Scenario 1: Fees and tax is absorbed by the event organizer.
Ticket Price: $100
Sales Tax: 5%
Amount paid: $100
Computation:
To compute the sales tax, get the 5% of $100
$100 x .05 = $5
The sales tax is $5
Breakdown of the amount paid by the buyer:
Accelevents ticketing fee: $5
Credit card processing fee: $3.45
Remaining revenue (from ticket price): $91.55
$5 + $3.45 + $91.55 = $100
Scenario 2: Fees are absorbed by the event organizer, and tax is passed to the buyer.
Ticket Price: $100
Sales Tax: 5%
Amount Paid: $105
Computation:
To compute the sales tax, get the 5% of $100
$100 x .05 = $5
The sales tax is $5
Breakdown of the amount paid by the buyer:
Accelevents ticketing fee: $5
Credit card processing fee: $3.45
Sales Tax: $5
Remaining revenue (from ticket price): $91.55
$5 + $3.45 + $5 + $91.55 = $105
Scenario 3: Fees and tax is passed to the buyer.
Ticket Price: $100
Sales Tax: 5%
Amount Paid: $114.03
Computation:
Part 1: Get the total amount without sales tax
Get the total amount (ticket price + fees) without the sales tax using this formula:
Ticket Price + AE Fixed + AE % + Stripe Fixed / (1 - Stripe %) = Total amount without sales tax
$100 + $1.50 + $3.5 + $0.3 / .971 = $108.444902162718847
The total amount without sales tax is $108.45
Part 2: Get the sales tax
Multiply the total amount from Part 1 to the sales tax rate (5%)
$108.444902162718847 x .05 = $5.422245108135942
The sales tax is $5.42
Part 3: Get the total amount to be paid
Since the sales tax will be added on top of the ticket price and AE fees, we need to compute the total amount to be paid which includes the Stripe % from the sales tax.
Ticket Price + AE Fixed + AE % + Sales Tax + Stripe Fixed / (1 - Stripe %) = Total amount to be paid
$100 + $1.50 + $3.5 + $5.422245108135942 + .30 / .971 = $114.02908867985164
The total amount to be paid is $114.03
Breakdown of the amount paid by the buyer:
Accelevents ticketing fee: $5
Credit card processing fee: $3.61
Sales tax: $5.42
Remaining revenue (from ticket price): $100
$5 + $3.61 + $5.42 + $100 = $114.03
Scenario 4: Fees are passed to the buyer, and the event organizer absorbs tax.
Ticket Price: $100
Sales Tax: 5%
Amount Paid: $108.45
Computation:
To compute for the sales tax, get the total amount, then subtract it from (the total amount divided by 1.05 (05 represents 5%)).
$108.45 - ($108.45 / 1.05)
$108.45 - 103.28 = $5.17
The sales tax is $5.17
Breakdown of the amount paid by the buyer:
Accelevents ticketing fee: $5
Credit card processing fee: $3.45
Sales tax: $5.17
Remaining revenue (from ticket price): $94.83
$5 + $3.45 + $5.17 + $94.83 = $108.45
Frequently Asked Questions
When an attendee purchases a ticket, will they see a breakdown of the sales tax in the order summary?
No
For fees passed on to the ticket buyer, it will show total fees collected where sales tax is already included, but no breakdown specific to sales tax. | 
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For fees absorbed by the event organizer, it will only show the ticket price. | 
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What will attendees see on their confirmation email? Will the sales tax appear there?
No
For fees passed on to the ticket buyer, it will show total fees collected where sales tax is already included, but no breakdown specific to sales tax. |  |
For fees absorbed by the event organizer, it will only show the ticket price. |  |
Can the Sales Tax be found in any report?
As of the moment, this is not found in any report. Total Sales Tax collected can only be found here:
Go to Settings > Payment Processing
Under Payment Options, you should see the Sales Tax Amount
How can I inform attendees that we will be charging Sales Tax before checking out?
You can utilize the disclaimer section by adding information about the Sales Tax charges.
Go to Registration > Order Form
Scroll down below to Checkout Disclaimer
Can sales tax be applicable for tickets already purchased?
No, once an attendee has already purchased a ticket and you had not set up your sales tax to be collected, we can't apply the sales tax anymore to previous tickets. To avoid this, make sure to enable the collection of sales tax before opening ticket registration.