question

Maybe this will help - https://community.clover.com/questions/11871/tax-not-appearing-in-receipt-in-order-created-by-a.html

Update:

Actually, I don't see the above being accurate. The tax rates are set on inventory items. What API are you using to create and pay for the order?

Our orders API is, well, a bit confusing to say the least. There are two scenarios, the first is if you are using the line_items endpoint (one line item at a time, which is not recommended if you have many items to add). The second scenario is if you are using the bulk_line_items endpoint to add multiple items at once.

Scenario 1: https://docs.clover.com/reference/orders-1#ordercreatelineitem-2

For this scenario the above endpoint is used to add a single line item to an order. The POST body can be as simple as:

{
    "item": {
       "id": "QV...X6"
    }
}

This request assumes the merchant has set-up inventory/tax rates, etc. QV...X6 is the id of an existing Clover inventory item (for the merchant). When the line item is posted the item from the merchant's inventory will be associated with the line item (name, price, taxRates, etc.). E.g. - QV...X6 correlates to the merchant's hotdog (5$) inventory item and the merchant has set a flat tax of .10 cents for this item. If this is the only line item on the order the receipt will show "hotdog" with a price of 5$ and a tax of .10 cents. You must (* see note below) properly set the total on the order (5.10 in this case, calculation details here - https://docs.clover.com/docs/working-with-orders#section-calculating-order-totals).

Scenario 2: https://docs.clover.com/reference/orders-1#orderbulkcreatelineitems-2

Now, things get a bit messy with the bulk_line_items endpoint. Regardless of what the API docs indicate, the item (inventory) being passed is ignored and all items are treated as custom. This means that the name/price/taxRates must be specified. So the request will need to look like:

{
    "items": [
        {        
            "name": "hotdog",
            "price": 500,
            "taxRates": [
                {
                    "name": "hotDogTax",
                    "taxAmount": 10,
                    "rate": 0,
                    "id": "J4W1A09QZJRJ8" // Must be an existing tax rate id.
                }
            ]
        }
    ]
}

Generally, your application will want to pull in the inventory taxRates upon inventory retrieval (expand on taxRates). As per the prior case, your application will also need (* see note below) to update the order total accordingly (https://docs.clover.com/docs/working-with-orders#section-calculating-order-totals).

*Note - You can get by without setting an order total if you use the Ecomm v1/order/pay endpoint - https://docs.clover.com/docs/ecommerce-accepting-payments#section-step-01-creating-an-order. If the order does not have a total and you use this endpoint, the order total will be calculated for you.