My conversation with Avalara support (API for taxing):
Me: Hey I'm implementing your API for a client. The requests are going through, I get a valid response back but all goods are taxed with $0. Can you please give me a hint what I might be missing?
Sup: You're using Salesforce Commerce Cloud, requests might be blocked through their firewall
Me: I don't think so, here are some sample requests and responses I just created. The object returned matches the one in your API Doc.
Sup: This isn't a system controlled by us, no support.
Me: So how in the world can it be you don't control your own endpoint?

Seriously, if you don't want to help, next time just say fuck you...

Hi there! I got sent your comment by some friends who noticed my company's name mentioned in a developer context.

I'm really sorry you had a bad experience with our support team. Tax of $0 is a very interesting issue; there are about seven main reasons that tax would be zero on a transaction. My first guess is that, when your company was set up in AvaTax, it was set up without any nexus.

The way tax laws work in the US, you are not legally required to collect tax in any jurisdiction where you do not have nexus. As a result, AvaTax makes nexus optional, and each company can configure where they have nexus. This may seem unusual compared to VAT, but in the US, collecting tax without reporting it is a bigger problem than not collecting in the first place.

@ted-spence hi there, thanks for reaching out, I really wouldn't have expected to get real feedback here😁
I definitely did not set up too much besides a Developer API Key and an Organisation. I'm not yet sure about what a nexus is in this context, but I'll look into it! Any chance you could give me your contact address if I have further questions?
Thanks in advance!

@kb88 - Sure, the best way to get ahold of me is on the forums - https://community.avalara.com/avala... - I work with a team of people that respond to developer questions. I do try to make sure everyone responds politely and provides useful information.

If you just had an API key, it's very likely that the account wasn't ever set up with nexus, or it was possibly only set up in one state. We're working on publishing a developer guide that covers these features in more detail soon!

@ted-spence thank you, much appreciated 😉

@ted-spence btw, welcome to DevRant 😁