Tax Calculation Discrepancy Between App and Shopify Admin

Products and Orders APIs
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1

Issue:
My Shopify app calculates tax differently than Shopify’s admin, causing a 1-cent discrepancy when processing payments.

Details:

  • Taxable Amount: $115.00 (products + delivery)
  • Tax Rate: 8.25% (6.25% Texas State + 2% Frisco City)
  • My App Shows: $9.49 tax
  • Shopify Admin Shows: $9.50 tax

Shopify Admin Breakdown:
Texas State Tax 6.25%: $7.20
Frisco City Tax 2%: $2.30
Total Tax: $9.50

My App Calculation:
$115.00 × 8.25% = $9.4875
Rounded: $9.49

Questions:

  1. How does Shopify calculate $115.00 × 6.25% = $7.20? (Should be $7.1875)
  2. Can I retrieve Shopify’s calculated tax amounts via API instead of calculating locally?
  3. What’s the recommended approach for ensuring tax calculations match between app and admin?

Goal:
Ensure payment amounts in my app exactly match what Shopify processes in the admin.

2

I may have figured this out. Shopify may be calculating and rounding on each item vs the total. I’ll try that. I’ll leave the post in case anyone else has a similar point of confusion.

3

Hey @Matt_Hooper!

Nice work on your resolution. Just to back up your findings, this is clarified similarly in our help center docs here: https://help.shopify.com/en/manual/taxes/us/us-tax-manage#tax-rounding