When running a tax report from the Finances tab, you will receive a lot of valuable information.
Here's how you can break down the tax report to show you the information you need.
Starting at the very top...
1 - The method you ran your report. Learn more about Cash and Accrual reporting here
2 - The date range and period of this report
3 - Export this report to a CSV/Excel document
Next, let's look at the Summary sections...
4 - This row shows you the different tax types in your account. For example, Sales Tax and Rental Tax. You will also see any projects that didn't have tax applied as 'Untaxed' sales. Projects that didn't have tax because the client, company, or project was either Tax Exempt or marked as having a Tax Resale Certificate will show in the final column. You can learn more about marking Tax Exemptions here
5 - This row will show you the total amount you owe for each tax type for the entire country. This is especially useful for Canadian users who need to track GST VS PST
6 - In this example, I can see I did a total of $2088.00 that was marked with 'Rental Tax'
7 - In this example, I can see I owe $96 for my 'Rental Tax'
8 - Here's where you can see a breakdown by State and Tax Type. In the example above, I can see I owe $96 to DC in Rental Tax
Then, let's look into the Detailed section...
9 - Here again I can see this row is dedicated to breaking down the different tax types in my account on a state level
10 - Here's where I can see the total taxable sales and amount owed for each tax type by state. In this example, I see I did $30,737 in total sales in the state of DC at a rate of 6%, with a total of $1844.22 owed to the State
11 - Here again I can see this row is dedicated to breaking down the different tax types in my account on a city level
12 - Here's where I can see the total taxable sales and amount owed for each tax type by city. In this example, I see I did $1920 total sales in the city of DC at a rate of 5%, with a total of $96 owed to the city
Note: You may see the total taxable sales or owed tax not match if you add all the city totals in a state. This can happen if tax isn't charged on a specific city in a state, or if a city has multiple tax rates that aren't charged at a state level.
For example, Entertainment tax may only be charged in Philadelphia, but not collected by Pennsylvania.
Finally, let's look into the Projects section...
13 - Show/Hide projects included in this report
14 - Change the different states included in this report
15 - This row shows you the Project Information and different tax types
16 - These rows show you the details of the specific projects
Note: Hovering over the Project ID will show you the Tax Location used on this project.
I will also be able to jump right back into the project by clicking the ID.
Note: I can see that I had a project that had Rental Tax, but also included some Untaxed Sales. That'd be a prompt that I need to revisit that project to ensure everything that needs tax has tax applied.