Tax compliance has become an increasingly tangled web. To manage sales tax in the US alone, your finance and accounting team must undertake a 50-state strategy—OK, 45 states if you only include where state sales tax is collected—that involves assessing the tax implications of new products and locations, staying up to date on rules and requirements, and reconciling data across systems and teams.

Last year, we launched Shopify Tax, which solves this challenge for new and emerging businesses operating within the US.

If you’re a larger or enterprise retailer, you could be dealing with these same challenges but on a global scale and with the additional complexity that comes from running a modern omnichannel business. In the past, some retailers felt that choosing Shopify to power their business took away the agency to choose the tax service of their choice. Today, we’re bringing more flexibility to the table with the launch of the Shopify Tax Platform.

On the Shopify Tax Platform, enterprise-grade tax services you know and trust will be able to manage your store’s end-to-end compliance within Shopify’s existing infrastructure. Whether you’re looking to rapidly activate your existing tax rules within Shopify or go deep customizing new workflows, the tax platform has the flexibility to meet those needs.

How it works

The Shopify Tax Platform expands the commitment Shopify made to enterprise retailers like you at the start of 2023. By integrating your preferred tax service directly into Shopify, you can build the best commerce solution for your business, and your customers.

At its core, the Shopify Tax Platform is more than just a tool—it’s a robust infrastructure designed to seamlessly integrate the tax services you trust directly into Shopify. We don’t take this task lightly. We vet every tax partner to ensure that only the highest quality services are available on the platform. Once a partner is approved, Shopify works closely with the partner’s team to rigorously test the integration across a variety of speed, accuracy, and compliance standards.

But it doesn’t stop there. You’ll receive comprehensive support to ensure your needs are met before you go live. Once live, ongoing support and optimization are handled directly by your selected tax service—eliminating confusion and keeping you confident in your tax compliance. As we roll out the platform, we’re excited to welcome Vertex, Inc. as our first tax platform partner.

Welcome Vertex, Inc.

With Vertex, a leading global provider of indirect tax software and solutions, businesses like yours can now use a unified solution to streamline global tax management. If you use Vertex, you already know its ability to achieve the level of compliance and customization required by your finance and accounting teams—regardless of channel, location, or scale. If you don’t, you can feel secure knowing that more than 60% of Fortune 500 companies have put their trust in Vertex.

"By welcoming Vertex as a Shopify Tax Platform Partner, we are addressing the unique complexities of selling across multiple global tax jurisdictions, and in niche categories with a service that is flexible enough to grow with enterprise businesses. Together, Vertex and Shopify are expanding on the value we bring to enterprise retailers, empowering companies to transact, comply, and scale with confidence—however and wherever they do business."

- Bobby Morrison, Chief Revenue Officer at Shopify.

Shopify Tax Platform: The benefits

Keep your preferred tax service

With the tax platform, there’s no need to switch tax services or manage multiple compliance solutions. For, example, when you activate Vertex within your tax settings, it becomes the default tax service for your business. Your configured rates, rules, and processes are all transferred into Shopify without disruption. You can expect the same level of quality in the near future from other tax providers as they join the platform.

Unleash the power of Shopify’s Checkout

Shopify has built the best-converting checkout on the internet, outpacing the competition by 15%.¹ With the tax platform, your preferred tax calculation engine now connects directly to Shopify’s checkout, so your configured calculations, exemptions, and adjustments are automatically applied. You get all the benefits of Shopify’s checkout without the compliance risk that comes from managing multiple tax engines.

Maintain your source of truth

Tax and accounting teams feel the burden as your business navigates growth and changing regulation. Adding a new technology to the stack can bring fear of compliance risk and the stress of additional reconciliation. By integrating your preferred tax service, your tax source of truth stays in one place.

What’s next for the Shopify Tax Platform?

We started our journey with Vertex. because we know the value it offers to so many enterprise retailers, and we’re actively working with other top-requested tax service providers to integrate with our tax platform. Additionally, we’re working on enhancing the platform to better cater to your business. Soon, you’ll be able to design a totally custom solution and have multiple tax services that serve specific product, channel, or regional needs.

Embrace simplicity with the Shopify Tax Platform

With the Shopify Tax Platform, you no longer have to compromise between a robust commerce solution and efficient tax compliance. Streamline your tax processes while growing your business. Ready to get started? Get in touch with sales or your merchant success team today.

¹Shopify’s overall conversion rate outpaces the competition by up to 36% and by an average of 15%, based on a study completed in April 2023 in partnership with a Big Three global management consulting company.

David Toper