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Last updated on Aug 28, 2026
Sphere calculates tax using information from your Maxio site, product catalog, customer records, and Sphere account. Use this article to prepare the data Sphere needs before you create taxable subscriptions or invoices.
Your tax origin address represents where your business operates from. Sphere uses the origin address to determine sourcing rules for each transaction.
Set the tax origin address in your site's tax settings. Without a valid origin address, Maxio won't call Sphere, and invoices generate with no tax calculated.
Define items, products and plans in Maxio as usual. Mark them as taxable when sales tax should apply.
Product tax codes map Maxio items, products or plans to the correct taxability category in Sphere, such as SaaS, digital goods, or professional services. Sphere manages the code mappings to determine whether and at what rate the line item is taxable in each jurisdiction.
| If the product is... | Then... |
|---|---|
| Fully taxable everywhere you sell | A product tax code is optional, but recommended for cleaner reporting. |
| Partially taxable and varies by state | A Sphere product tax code is required to apply the correct rate. |
| Exempt from tax | A Sphere product tax code is required to apply the exemption correctly. |
Tax codes are maintained in Sphere. Maxio record IDs are used to map them on each invoice line.
Customer shipping and billing addresses are captured in Maxio. Your site's Tax Destination Address setting determines which address Maxio sends to Sphere:
Your site's Tax Destination Address setting has four options:
For the two mixed options above, Maxio falls back to the alternate address only if the primary address is missing, not because Sphere rejected it. For best results, keep customer shipping and billing addresses complete and standardized.
Tax exemption is typically used for resellers, government agencies, non-profits, or other entities that qualify under jurisdictional rules.
On the customer record in Maxio (Invoicing and Taxes section), select the Tax Exempt checkbox to mark a customer as exempt. Maxio sends this flag to Sphere with every tax calculation for that customer, so no taxes are assessed on any of their subscriptions.
Finer-grained exemption categories, such as wholesale, government, or non-profit, are managed in Sphere and respected on Maxio invoices. When configuring an exempt customer's category in Sphere:
Sphere can override an applied exemption in certain scenarios, such as when a customer is exempt in one region but subject to tax in another. This is expected behavior and is determined by Sphere at the time of calculation.
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