--- title: "Setting up tax rates" description: "Create the GST, VAT or sales tax rates you apply to payments, splits and commissions—inclusive or exclusive, by country." lastModified: "2026-08-27" lang: "en" wordCount: 1986 url: https://qualyhq.com/training/settings/tax-rates --- ## Site navigation - [For schools](/international-education/for-schools.md) — For international education schools - [For agents](/international-education/for-education-agents.md) — For international education agents - [Explore](/training.md) — Watch videos on how to use Qualy - [About](/about.md) — Learn about Qualy's mission and values - [Pricing](/pricing) - [5-min demo](/demo.md) - [Login](https://dashboard.qualyhq.com) # Setting up tax rates > Define a rate once, then apply it wherever tax is charged. ## At a glance - **Intended for:** Admins & accountants - **Available in:** All plans - **Reading time:** 5 minutes - **Last updated:** 8th August 2026 ## Quick summary Settings → Tax rates holds every rate you charge, split across two tabs: Sales tax and Vat. A rate is a public name, a percentage, a country, and an inclusive or exclusive setting. Exclusive tax is added on top of the amount; inclusive tax sits inside it and leaves the total alone. Editing a rate never changes it in place—Qualy archives the old rate and creates a new one, so anything already using it keeps the old percentage. Removing a rate archives it too: it disappears from the pickers, but every payment, split and commission rule already pointing at it carries on unchanged. ## Overview A tax rate in Qualy is a small, reusable record: a name your customers see, a percentage, a country, and a decision about whether the tax sits inside the price or on top of it. You create it once in **Settings → Tax rates**, then attach it wherever tax is actually charged — a payment, a payment split, a partner's commission rule. The rates themselves do nothing until they are attached. Creating a 10% GST rate does not put GST on anything. Adding, editing and removing rates is limited to **admins** and **super admins**. Anyone can see the rates and pick them when raising a payment. ## The two tax types There are two, and only two: **Sales tax** and **Vat**. The page shows them as separate tabs, and a rate appears only on the tab matching its type. That is narrower than it looks, because the type is a filing category rather than a calculation. GST, HST and ISS all belong under **Sales tax**; VAT, IVA, TVA and MwSt belong under **Vat**. What the customer sees is the **Name** you give the rate, so an Australian rate named `GST` at 10% is a GST rate in every way that matters to a customer, a tax invoice or an accountant. ![The Sales tax tab listing GST, HST and Sales Tax rates for Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the US and Brazil](/images/training/settings/tax-rates/01-sales-tax-list.png) The **Vat** tab holds the same shape of rate for VAT, IVA and MwSt jurisdictions. ![The Vat tab listing UK, Irish, Spanish, French, Italian and German VAT rates](/images/training/settings/tax-rates/02-vat-list.png) Nothing in the tax maths reads the type. Only the percentage and the inclusive setting change the numbers. ## Creating a tax rate Go to **Settings → Tax rates** and click **Add new tax**. The form has six fields: 1. **Name** — required, and public. Customers see it, so write `GST`, `United Kingdom VAT`, `New Zealand GST`. 2. **Description** — optional, internal. Useful for the detail that would clutter the name, like `Standard UK VAT on agent services`. 3. **Tax type** — **Sales tax** or **Vat**. It always opens on Sales tax. 4. **Inclusive** — a checkbox: 'Select this options if the tax is already included in the total price.' Leave it unticked for exclusive tax. 5. **Percentage** — a whole number. Type `10` for 10%, `8.25` for 8.25%. Maximum 100. 6. **Country** — optional. Pick one and a **state/province** field appears if that country has them. Then **Save**. The Tax type field defaults to **Sales tax** every time, including when you opened the form from the Vat tab. If you are creating a VAT rate, change it before saving, or the rate lands on the other tab and looks like it vanished. ![The Create tax rate form opened from the Vat tab, with Tax type still showing Sales tax](/images/training/settings/tax-rates/05-create-form-defaults-sales-tax.png) ## Inclusive or exclusive This is the field people get wrong, and it is the one that changes what your customer pays. ### Exclusive The tax is added on top of the amount. A 10% exclusive rate on A$1,000 produces a total of **A$1,100**, of which **A$100** is tax. The subtotal is untouched and the total goes up. Use this when your prices are quoted before tax. ### Inclusive The tax is already part of the amount. A 10% inclusive rate on A$1,000 leaves the total at **A$1,000** and reports **A$90.91** of tax sitting inside it — the amount is divided by 1.1 to find the pre-tax figure of A$909.09, and the difference is the tax. Use this when your advertised price is the price the customer pays. Because an inclusive rate never moves the total, a payment with inclusive tax shows no added amount; the tax is reported, not charged. An enrolment fee advertised at A$450 including GST needs an **inclusive** rate. Set it exclusive and Qualy will invoice A$495, which is a A$45 error on every enrolment until someone notices. ## Editing a rate Open the row menu on any rate to reach **Edit** or **Remove** — the same menu drives both actions covered in this section and the next. ![The row menu on a tax rate showing Edit and Remove](/images/training/settings/tax-rates/03-row-actions-menu.png) Editing does not change a rate in place. When you save an edit, Qualy **archives the rate you edited and creates a new one** carrying your changes. ![The Edit form pre-filled with an existing rate's name, description, tax type, percentage and country](/images/training/settings/tax-rates/04-edit-form-prefilled.png) Everything that already used the old rate — payments, splits, partnership commission rules — keeps using the old rate at the old percentage. The dashboard tells you as much when you save: *'Tax rate saved. Payments created before this update will continue using previous rate.'* Editing a rate is how you change what **future** documents charge. It will not correct a payment that has already been raised. To fix those, change the tax on the payment or the split itself. This is usually what you want. When a rate changes on a legal date — an agent registering for GST partway through the year, a jurisdiction moving from 20% to 22% — the documents raised before that date should keep the old figure, and they do. ## Removing a rate The **Remove** action on a rate archives it. Two consequences, and the second one surprises people: - The rate disappears from every tax picker, so it can no longer be applied to anything new. - Everything already using it **stays attached and keeps calculating**. A partnership commission rule pointing at an archived rate still deducts that percentage. A pending payment still charges it. Archiving is a way to stop a rate spreading, not a way to remove tax from work in progress. On a partnership's commission rules, an archived rate is flagged with an **Archived** badge and the tooltip 'This tax has been archived, and is most likely outdated' — that badge is your worklist of rules to repoint at the replacement. Remove takes effect immediately, with no confirmation step and no undo. To make the rate selectable again you have to create a new one with the same values, and it will be a different rate as far as reporting is concerned. ## Where rates get used A rate on its own charges nothing. Attach it to: - a **payment**, where it applies to the whole payment - a **payment split**, where it applies to money moving to a partner or supplier - a **partnership commission rule**, where it becomes the default that flows into every new payment involving that partner The mechanics of each — including the split type whose tax is calculated on a different base, and the most common way GST goes missing on an agent commission — are covered in [How tax applies to payments, splits and commissions](/training/settings/tax-on-payments-splits-and-commissions.md). ## Frequently asked questions ### Where do I set up tax? Settings → Tax rates, at /preferences/tax. Only admins and super admins can add, edit or remove a rate. The page has two tabs—Sales tax and Vat—and each rate lives on the tab matching its tax type. ### Does Qualy support GST? I only see Sales tax and VAT Yes. Sales tax and Vat are the only two tax types, and GST belongs under Sales tax. Create the rate, name it GST, set the percentage to 10 and the country to AU, and GST is what your customers and partners see on documents. The same applies to HST in Canada, ISS in Brazil and NZ GST. The type is a filing category and a tab—it does not change any calculation. ### What is the difference between inclusive and exclusive tax? Exclusive tax is added on top: a 10% exclusive rate on A$1,000 makes the total A$1,100, with A$100 of tax. Inclusive tax is already inside the price: a 10% inclusive rate on A$1,000 leaves the total at A$1,000 and reports A$90.91 of tax sitting within it. Inclusive never moves the total, which is why an inclusive rate shows no added amount on a payment. ### I edited a tax rate—did it change my existing payments? No, and this is deliberate. Editing a tax rate archives the rate you edited and creates a new rate with your changes. Every payment, split and commission rule that already pointed at the old rate keeps pointing at it, at the old percentage. The dashboard says so when you save: 'Tax rate saved. Payments created before this update will continue using previous rate.' To change what an existing payment or commission charges, change the tax on that payment or commission directly. ### What happens to payments and commissions when I remove a tax rate? Nothing detaches. Remove archives the rate rather than deleting it. It stops appearing in the tax pickers, so nobody can apply it to anything new, but every payment, payment split and partnership commission rule already using it carries on with the same percentage. On a partnership commission rule the rate shows with an Archived badge and the tooltip 'This tax has been archived, and is most likely outdated', so you can see at a glance which rules still need moving to the replacement rate. ### Can I undo removing a tax rate? There is no undo, and Remove archives immediately without asking for confirmation. Nothing is lost—documents already using the rate are unaffected—but to make the rate selectable again you create a new one with the same name, percentage, country and inclusive setting. The new rate has its own ID, so it is a different rate as far as reporting is concerned. ### Can I apply more than one tax rate to a payment? Not to a single payment. A payment carries exactly one rate, applied to the whole payment rather than per line item. You still end up with several tax lines on one transaction, because each payment split and each partner commission rule carries its own rate independently of the payment. ### I created a tax rate and cannot find it in the list Check the other tab. The Sales tax and Vat tabs filter by tax type, and the Create tax rate form always opens with Tax type set to Sales tax—even when you opened it from the Vat tab. A rate saved without changing that field lands under Sales tax. Clicking either tab re-applies the filter if the list looks like it is showing both types. ### How do I enter the percentage? As a whole number, so type 10 for 10%. Decimals work for rates like 8.25. The field defaults to 10 and the maximum is 100. ### Do customers see the tax name? Yes. The Name field is public—Qualy shows it to your customers on payments and documents—which is why it should read GST or VAT rather than an internal code. The Description field is optional and is there for your own team, so use it for things like 'Standard UK VAT on agent services'. ### Do I need a country on every rate? No, country and state are optional. They exist so you can keep one rate per jurisdiction straight when you charge in several markets, and a state or province field appears once you pick a country that has them. A rate with no country still calculates and applies normally. ### Is this where I put my own ABN or VAT number? No. Tax rates are what you charge other people. Your own tax identification numbers live in Settings → Billing information and in Compliance, and they appear on the documents Qualy generates for you. ## Prefer doing this via the Qualy API? Head over to our developer docs for everything you need—endpoints, examples, and simple how-tos. 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