An 8 step process I'm using in my gift shop to apply the tax break holiday to the items that will be exempt between Dec 14, 2024 and Feb 15, 2025. Note: Instructions are for Shopify backend on a desktop computer and may differ if done on a tablet.
Leading up to Dec 13th:
Optional Pre-step: Read over below instructions and create some test products to apply the below steps to as a test.
1. Review Canada.ca's list of items exempt during the holiday and make a list of the items you'll need to exempt.
2. In your Shopify dashboard on a desktop computer, go to Products and create a search with things like "tagged with" keywords, or "product vendor" or even product names (like book or bib) for the item types that will be on a tax holiday for your business. Select all applicable items and from the "... "button (see image below) for more actions (beside "set as draft" button), near the top right above the columns. Select "add tags" and create a new tag (i.e. "taxholiday" or something you'll remember and not confuse with pre-existing tags you use for collections and navigation). Note: if you're new to tags, they're not visible to customers, but help with back end organization.
2. Repeat step 2 for all types of items (i.e. onesies, bibs, baby hats, books, food items, etc) applicable to the tax holiday.
3. Once you've created this new tag for all items to be exempt, do a search for the tag to bring all products up. Select all. (It will most likely give you an option to select more than 50 items. You can choose to select this OR do 50 (or less) at a time. Whichever your comfort level. Next click the "Bulk edit" button (near the top right of the columns.
4. Late on Dec 13, 2024: In bulk edit mode, click "columns" in the top right and uncheck any column not needed. For this, I like to keep product title (visible by default), status, product category, product type, vendor and add "charge taxes". You probably don't need any other column data for this process. (Maybe inventory quantity, if you're curious of levels on hand?)
5. Visually scan the page to confirm all of the products are correct and that you don't have a product that shouldn't be in the list (ex: an art print with books in the image that had the tag books)
6. Scroll through your list and uncheck "charge taxes" from each product. OR uncheck the top and then drag the blue square, OR highlight the column to remove the tax from all products on the page. It depends on how quickly you want to complete the page(s).
7. Hit save.
8. Repeat until all products with your new "taxholiday" tag have "charge tax" removed.
To reinstate the tax at midnight when the tax holiday ends (February 16, 2025), repeat steps 3-6 and then select the check box to charge tax again and save. To save time, you can also click the top product check box and drag or select the whole column to do them all at once.
The tag will do no harm if you keep it. It might even come in handy if the Government ever implemented a tax holiday again.
