How to handle reseller tax exemption and automatic discounts in Shopify Basic plan

Shopify App Store
1

Hi everyone,

I’m building a Shopify store for a brand in California that sells cleaning products both B2C and B2B (wholesale/resellers).
We’re setting up an MVP using Shopify Basic (not Plus), so we need a simple, native solution before investing in custom development.

The challenge: there are 4 purchase scenarios we need to support.

:puzzle_piece: 1. Regular customer — order below $300

  • Pays regular retail price

  • Pays sales tax (standard Shopify tax rules)

  • Can checkout as guest (no account required)
    :white_check_mark: This works by default.

:puzzle_piece: 2. Regular customer — order above $300

  • Should receive a cart-wide automatic discount once the subtotal ≥ $300

  • Still pays sales tax

  • Guest checkout is allowed

Question: Is it correct to use an Automatic Discount based on subtotal ≥ $300 for this?
I understand that Shopify applies it to the entire order (not per item), which works for us — but I want to confirm this is the best approach for the Basic plan.

:puzzle_piece: 3. Reseller (with valid Seller’s Permit) — order below $300

  • No discount

  • Should be tax-exempt (because resale orders are not subject to CA sales tax)

  • Buyer must log in with an approved reseller account

My current plan:

  • Create a “Reseller Registration” page with a form to upload Seller’s Permit and permit number (using an app like Helium Customer Fields).

  • Once approved, we manually mark the customer as “Tax-exempt” in the Shopify admin and tag them as reseller_approved.

Question:

  • Is this the correct way to make sure Shopify won’t charge sales tax at checkout for these accounts?

  • Can a customer be fully tax-exempt at checkout without being on Shopify Plus or using an external tax app?

:puzzle_piece: 4. Reseller (with valid Seller’s Permit) — order above $300

  • Tax-exempt (as in #3)

  • Also gets the automatic discount for orders ≥ $300

  • Must be logged in with an approved reseller account

Question:
Will Shopify automatically stack the discount and the tax exemption if both conditions are true (tag + order subtotal ≥ $300)?
Or do we need a workaround for this combination?

:gear: Operational details

  • We only sell in California for now.

  • We plan to manually validate each Seller’s Permit before approving the account.

  • We will not use TaxJar, TaxCloud, or Zamp yet — only Shopify’s built-in tax system.

:thought_balloon: What we want to confirm

  1. That the setup described above is fully possible under the Shopify Basic plan (without Plus).

  2. That automatic discounts can work together with tax-exempt customers.

  3. If there’s a more efficient or “Shopify-approved” way to handle reseller registration and tax exemption.

  4. Any best practices for storing Seller’s Permit info for compliance (file upload, notes, etc.).

Thanks in advance for any guidance or validation!

— Raquel S.
Brand & Digital Consultant
Lavarama project (California)