Tax Mode: Manual Rates vs. Stripe Tax

CPR Enroll offers two tax engines: fixed manual rates you maintain yourself, and automatic calculation via Stripe Tax based on the customer’s address. This article explains both and how to choose.

Before You Begin

• Find it at Payments → Payment Settings → Taxes.
• If you are considering Stripe Tax, have your nexus registrations set up in Stripe first.
• Know which of your products and courses are taxable in your jurisdiction — see the note below.

✔ This is not tax advice. Whether educational services are taxable in your jurisdiction is a question for your accountant. CPR Enroll gives you both mechanisms; the choice of treatment is yours.

Step 1: Choose a Mode

Step 2: Configure Manual Rates

Rates are listed beneath the mode selector, each showing its name and treatment — for example Exc · Exclusive · 5% or Inclusive · Inclusive · 20% — with Edit and Delete buttons and + Add rate to create a new one.

The footer describes the model: fixed rates, attachable per product or applied at checkout — the legacy engine, kept intact.

Step 3: Or Switch to Automatic (Stripe Tax)

Stripe calculates tax at checkout based on the customer’s address, your nexus registrations and the product’s tax code. Nothing is entered manually.

✔ If automatic tax reports a configuration problem, CPR Enroll surfaces guidance and a link to the unresolved item. Resolve it in Stripe, then return.

Step 4: Control Tax Per Product

Products and courses can be marked non-taxable.

• On the course form, the Sales Tax toggle explains when to use it: calculated by Stripe based on the customer’s address and your nexus registrations — most courses don’t require tax, so enable it only when your jurisdiction taxes educational services.
• Store products show their tax treatment in the Tax column of the Products grid — Legacy rate or a dash.

✔ Finding the toggle. Open any course at Course Builder → Courses, choose Edit, and scroll past Pricing to Add-ons. Sales Tax sits directly beneath the Add-ons Description field, with its helper text underneath. It is off by default on every course.

Best Practices

• Ask your accountant whether educational services are taxable where you operate before configuring either engine.
• Stay on manual rates if you sell in one jurisdiction and your rates are stable. Complexity you do not need is still complexity.
• Move to Stripe Tax when you start selling across state or national lines — that is the point where manual rates start being wrong.
• Be deliberate about Exclusive versus Inclusive. It changes the price your customer sees, not just the arithmetic.
• Check the Tax column on the Products grid after any mode change — it is the quickest audit of what is actually being taxed.

Frequently Asked Questions

✔ You’re all set. Next, read Adding a Processing Fee to Each Transaction — a separate setting from tax, on the same Payment Settings page.