Use Tax Exempt Symptoms

Some states waive use tax on chemicals used to control listed issues — invasive species such as Eurasian watermilfoil is the usual case. SettingsTaxes Exempt Symptoms is how you tell OpsVara which issues that waiver covers for one jurisdiction.

Use tax is what you owe when you buy a chemical without paying sales tax and then consume it on a job. The amount is based on what you paid for the product, not what you billed the customer, and it is owed where the chemical was applied. Rates themselves are entered once per jurisdiction; this article is the exemption chips on those rows.

SettingsTaxes is on every plan (Admin and Office Manager). ReportsUse Tax needs Advanced Reporting.

1. 1

   Set up the jurisdiction if it is not there yet

   Open SettingsTaxes. The worklist is the places your crews applied chemicals this Period (Quarterly, Monthly, or Yearly), ranked by cost basis. On a row, click Add Rate (or Add Jurisdiction under Rate Table). Fill Name, Level (State, County, City, Special District), and Rate (%). Local layers Match On ZIP Codes, City Name, or County Name. Click Save.

2. 2

   Tick Exempt Symptoms

   Click Edit on that jurisdiction. Under Exempt Symptoms, tick every treatment symptom this jurisdiction does not tax. The helper reads Optional. When a visit records one of these, the products applied for it are not taxed by this jurisdiction — some states waive use tax on invasive species control such as Eurasian watermilfoil. A product tagged only for other symptoms on the same visit is still taxed.

   Chips come from SettingsSymptoms (Treatment Symptoms), including archived ones you already ticked. Click Save.

3. 3

   Tag products so mixed visits stay accurate

   Open each chemical under Inventory and set Symptoms to the issues it treats. An untagged product on a visit that recorded an exempt symptom is treated as applied for that symptom (and is exempt). A product tagged only for other symptoms — the algaecide on a milfoil visit — stays taxable.

   A whole product can also skip use tax everywhere: tick Use tax exempt (Agricultural or resale exemption — this product owes no use tax in any jurisdiction.). A jurisdiction can skip inventory categories under Exempt Item Categories (comma separated, placeholder herbicide, dye).

Exemption order for one application: product Use tax exempt, then this jurisdiction's Exempt Item Categories, then Exempt Symptoms.

Verify it worked

1. Complete a visit that records a ticked symptom and logs a product tagged for it (or an untagged product).
2. Open ReportsUse Tax (or finish rates now and open the report after Advanced Reporting is on). Switch View to By Application.
3. That row's Jurisdictions cell reads Exempt or Partly exempt with Exempt symptom (or the symptom's name). Download CSV includes columns Exempt, Exempt Reason, and Symptoms.
4. A second product on the same visit tagged only for a different symptom still shows tax owed.