Knowledgebase
How to display the tax in the cart in PrestaShop
In PrestaShop there are a couple of options that determine whether and how the tax is displayed in the cart and in the product catalog on the frontend. In this article we'll focus primarily on the shopping cart, but we'll pretty much explain how the tax display options affect how tax is displayed everywhere on the frontend.
For the sake of clarity and so that we can describe everything more thoroughly and precisely we'll make the distinction between the checkout process and the shopping cart block. When people refer just to the shopping cart they usually mean the checkout process. That's the process that customers go through when they place their order. It's usually divided into a few steps (e.g. Summary, Address, Payment, etc.), but it can also be configured to be a one-page checkout. In this article we'll refer to it as the checkout process. The shopping cart block is a small block that's displayed on most frontend pages, and shows the products that are currently in the cart. It's usually displayed either at the top of the page or in the left or right column (this is theme-specific).
Tax Display Options
As we mentioned, there are a couple of options related to tax display:
- One of the options that affects tax display is Display tax in the shopping cart. As the name suggests it affects the shopping cart: both the checkout process and the cart block. In PrestaShop versions older than 1.5 the option is located in Payment menu>Taxes sub-menu. In PrestaShop 1.5 and newer versions the corresponding location is Localization menu>Taxes sub-menu. At the bottom of the page that opens you'll find the option. You can enable and disable it.
- Another option that affects how tax is displayed is the Price display method for the customer group. As you know you can have many different customer groups. So for each group you can have this option configured differently. It can be set to Tax included or Tax excluded. It affects how tax is displayed during the checkout process, in the cart block, and it also affects how product prices are displayed in the catalog. To edit this option, go to Customers menu>Groups sub-menu and edit the particular group. If the customer belongs to more than one group, there's one that's the default for the customer and it's the one taken into account when determining whether prices should be shown with tax included or excluded.
What complicates things a bit is that the two options interact, so the way the tax is displayed, particularly in the checkout and cart block, depends on how both options are configured.
Here we'll show you how the combinations affect the tax display during the checkout and in the cart block.
Checkout Process
Usually it's divided into several steps. The price of each of the ordered products, the total price, shipping fees and optionally the tax are shown at the Summary step (the first one) and the Payment step (the last one). Here we'll describe the ways the two tax display options affect how tax is displayed at these two steps.
- Display tax in shopping cart option is disabled and the Price display method is set to Tax excluded: the total tax amount for the ordered products is shown on a separate line at the Payment step of the checkout.
- Display tax in shopping cart is enabled and Price display method is set to Tax excluded: the tax amount is shown on a separate line at the Summary and Payment steps of the checkout.
- Display tax in shopping cart is disabled and Price display method is set to Tax included: the total tax amount is not shown as a separate line at any of the steps of the checkout.
- Display tax in shopping cart is enabled and Price display method is set to Tax included: the total tax amount is shown as a separate line at the Summary step of the checkout.
Of course, in addition to the tax amount being displayed or not as a separate line, the checkout shows the price of each of the ordered products, the total price of the ordered products and the grand total (the price of everything after the taxes and shipping fees are added). The option Price display method also affects how the prices of the products and the total product price are shown at the Summary and Payment steps. When it's set to Tax excluded they are shown without the tax, and when it's set to Tax included they are shown with the tax.
Shopping Cart Block
Where exactly on the frontend the cart block is shown depends on the theme. Usually it's at the top, but it can also be in the left or right column. It lists the products that are currently in the cart, their price, the total product price, shipping fee and optionally it displays the total tax amount as a separate line. Here we'll show you how the tax display options affect whether the tax amount is shown as a separate line:
- Display tax in shopping cart option is disabled and Price display method is set to Tax excluded: the tax amount is not shown as a separate line in the cart block.
- Display tax in shopping cart is disabled and Price display method is set to Tax included: the tax is not shown as a separate line in the cart block.
- Display tax in shopping cart is enabled and Price display method is set to Tax included: the tax is shown on a separate line in the cart block.
- Display tax in shopping cart is enabled and Price display method is set to Tax excluded: the tax is not shown on a separate line in the cart block.
As with the checkout, the Price display method also affects how the price of each product in the cart and the total price are displayed (either with or without the tax).
Product Catalog
From the two tax display options only the Price display method option affects how product prices are shown in the frontend catalog. If the Price display method option of the group to which the customer belongs is set to Tax excluded, then the product prices are shown without the tax; if it's set to Tax included they're shown with the tax added to the price. The tax is based on the default address of the customer, provided that the product also has a tax rule added to it with a tax that matches the customer's address. Since guests don't have registered addresses, this affects registered customers.