[AffiliateHound]

There ARE such plugins available. One for Magento:

"This module was developed to enable businesses to incorporate and benefit from the Exactor sales tax compliance service within their Magento shopping cart. Exactor presents a sales tax compliance module for (i) calculating sales tax within the e-commerce shopping process; and (ii) generating and filing sales tax returns in all US jurisdictions (state and local). This plug-in was developed to enable businesses to incorporate and benefit from the Exactor sales tax compliance service within their Magento shopping cart. "

For X-Cart from Exactor:

"Exactor presents a sales tax compliance module for (i) calculating sales tax within the e-commerce shopping process; and (ii) generating and filing sales tax returns in all US jurisdictions (state and local). This plug-in was developed to enable businesses to incorporate and benefit from the Exactor sales tax compliance service within their X-Cart shopping cart versions 4.3.2 pro and 4.4.0 pro.

The Exactor Sales Tax Compliance Service is a fully automated, end-to-end sales tax solution that helps businesses regain time lost to sales and use tax administration while minimizing risks associated with these taxes. The service provides a single solution that: (i) Calculates sales taxes in real time accurate to the street level addresses; (ii) Prepares and files tax returns on behalf of the merchant in ALL jurisdictions (state and local); (iii) Reduces costs associated with sales tax compliance efforts; (iv) Reduces processing and human error; and (iv) Reduces liability.

The Exactor Sales Tax Compliance Service is certified by state taxing agencies for its accuracy and reliability.

Once installed, the user does not need to perform any additional functions to obtain sales taxes. The taxes are calculated and seamlessly displayed in the X-Cart shopping cart, and because the shopping cart communicates with the Exactor System, the Exactor System generates tax returns without the merchant having to transfer data from one system to another."

[JoyUnltd]

And hopefully, many more will be developed for all types of carts. I'm sure there's WP plug-in developers working on this.

[AffiliateHound]

I'm sure there are dozens, if not hundreds, more already available. I found those two in 15 seconds when the question came up in another thread.

[Dan76]

Yes, but correct me if I'm wrong, aren't there sales that would be exempt from tax collection? Also , would you need to collect sales tax for referrals in a state if it's not from an affiliate program? I'm hearing conflicting info, and if some sales are exempt it might be difficult for a plugin to work accurately due to the conflicting state requirements.

[AffiliateHound]

Originally Posted by Dan76

Yes, but correct me if I'm wrong, aren't there sales that would be exempt from tax collection? Also , would you need to collect sales tax for referrals in a state if it's not from an affiliate program? I'm hearing conflicting info, and if some sales are exempt it might be difficult for a plugin to work accurately due to the conflicting state requirements.

If a merchant has affiliates in a state with an affiliate-nexus tax law and any threshold amount of sales is met, then all sales to residents of that state are subject to collecting the tax, regardless of the source of any referral, affiliate or otherwise.

I would be astounded if such plugins did not include the ability to "turn on" and "turn off" tax computations and collections for sales to residents of any state.

[Dan76]

Thanks for your reply. Then if all sales are subject to the tax, technically most all default shopping cart can do the job by setting up multiple tax jurisdictions. I guess the real question for merchants is just whether or not they want to go down this road.