Chris Geelhoed | Stripe Developers | Page 1

tranquil shoalBOT Sep 19, 2022, 10:36 PM

#

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 10:37 PM

#

Hi there

#

Yes this would be the proper workaround

#

There is no limit on amount of tax rates so you should be fine there

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 10:54 PM

#

Ok, great! As a way to investigate this workaround, we created a script that does the following for each US ZIP code:

Uses the upcoming invoice API with automatic tax on to get the automatic tax rate IDs
Takes the automatic tax rate ID returned above and makes another API request to get the tax rate percentage, description, etc
Uses the data fetched above to create our own tax rate

However, after a while we started to receive 404 (eg No such tax rate: 'txr_1Lim0pLdg9njNQWDK73VrHPc') responses when we tried to look up the tax rate details by the automatic tax rate ID. I'm guessing your system has protection to prevent scripts from crawling all your tax rates? How do we prevent getting 404s when we apply this system to production?

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 10:55 PM

#

Hmm that's interesting.

#

Can you provide me the request ID for one of those 404s?

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 10:59 PM

#

I just ran my script again, and got this:
"No such tax rate: 'txr_1LjsulLdg9njNQWDyUx6FIf2'"

req_pLGIm7qz7PXqHy

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:00 PM

#

Thanks, looking

#

Hmmm

#

Are you sure your script isn't grabbing tax rates from the upcoming invoice preview?

#

As opposed to the tax rate you are actually creating?

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:14 PM

#

I want to get the tax rates from the upcoming invoice preview, so I know the correct tax to apply

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:14 PM

#

Ah but those don't actually exist

#

Because it is a preview

#

So you can't retrieve those

#

You need to create the associated tax rate

#

Then retrieve that tax rate you actually created (not the one from the upcoming invoice preview)

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:16 PM

#

But I need to know the correct tax percentage to apply before I can create my own tax rates

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:16 PM

#

Right but you are getting that information from the preview, no?

#

I thought that was your flow...
1/ preview upcoming invoice based on address to know tax rate
2/ create your own tax rate that mirrors the above tax rate
3/ use that tax rate you created on the Subscription

#

Right now you appear to be retrieving the tax rate from step 1, no?

#

Instead of step 2?

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:17 PM

#

The upcoming invoice response does not return the actual tax percentage, just the automatic tax rate ID

#

So those 2 API requests are both part of step 1

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:18 PM

#

Huh I must be mis-remembering what the upcoming invoice returns in that case

#

One sec

#

Ah okay yeah I forgot — we only give you the amount for tax, not the % rate.

#

So yeah this is an issue

#

Because you can't retrieve tax rates from an invoice preview

#

Since they have never actually been created

#

So I think in this case you would have to determine the rate based on the amount returned in the Preview

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:26 PM

#

Ok. For whats its worth this method of taking the invoice preview tax rate and using that to look up the tax rate details did work previously. Thats the method we were planning to use to show customers the taxes they will be paying before they subscribe to our product

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:26 PM

#

Do you have an example of it working previously?

#

I see ~600 tax rates in your account... are you sure you weren't retrieving tax rates that did exist in the past? This really should never have worked unfortunately

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:28 PM

#

Yes I'm 100% sure. If you check the tax percent and details assigned to those tax rates you will see they match the automatic tax rates exactly.

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:28 PM

#

Okay if you have a request ID of a successful retrieval I would love to look at it to see what changed in that case

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:30 PM

#

The method of using the tax total and the invoice total to compute the percentage is a good idea. We also want to use the description on the automatic tax rate as well however

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:34 PM

#

Hmm wait a sec

#

Doh

#

You can expand the tax rate

#

When you preview the upcoming invoice

#

Yeah that's what you want

#

Totally forgot that was expandable

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:40 PM

#

I tried that, I don't think upcoming invoices are expanding in the same way that existing invoices are

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:40 PM

#

I just tested and it works fine

#

Ah there isn't a description

#

Hmm wonder why that is actually

#

But you get the percentage

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:46 PM

#

What programming language did you expand the tax rates in? I'm using the PHP client and I have not had much luck with that so far. I'm using syntax similar to this - just wondering where the "expand" key should go.

$stripe->invoices->upcoming([
'customer' => 'cus_MSniqFfPKIjD9k',
]);

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:48 PM

#

Yeah it should be $stripe->invoices->upcoming( 'cus_MSniqFfPKIjD9k', ['expand' => ['total_tax_amounts.tax_rate]] );

#

Oops

#

Missed a bracket

#

(edited)

#

Docs on expanding are here: https://stripe.com/docs/expand

#

Though actually those snippets use our old PHP library. So you can reference https://stripe.com/docs/api/expanding_objects?lang=php to see the new client library in use.

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:50 PM

#

Ok, I will try that now

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:50 PM

#

👍

#

Yeah doesn't look like we set description at all for auto tax

#

Since it is an arbitrary string for a tax rate

#

Think maybe you mean using display_name?

#

Which will indicate "Sales Tax" or "VAT" or the according tax

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:54 PM

#

I believe that there is also some attribute that indicates the jurisdiction of the tax rate (eg the state in some cases)

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:55 PM

#

Oh yep

#

jurisdiction is a property as well

sterile oyster Sep 19, 2022, 11:56 PM

#

We'd like to get that as well

daring urchin Sep 19, 2022, 11:56 PM

#

That is returned when expanding via the preview

sterile oyster Sep 20, 2022, 12:00 AM

#

I'm running into a "Got unexpected keys in options array: expand" when I use this syntax with the PHP client:

$testInvoice = $client->invoices->upcoming(
$testInvoiceParams,
['expand' => ['total_tax_amounts.tax_rate']]
);

(sorry, not sure how to format code)

fair sierra Sep 20, 2022, 12:03 AM

#

you need to include expand as part of the $testInvoiceParams, not in it's own array

sterile oyster Sep 20, 2022, 12:04 AM

#

Ok, trying that...

#Chris Geelhoed