Taxes...again

[Charley Tiggs <..hidden..>]

Howdy folks...

I'm stuck on taxes again.  I've been trying to find every which way 
possible to use the default simple taxes within LSMB 1.2 to accomplish 
my tax needs to avoid making things complicated but it's not working. 
Taxes are only applicable if the shipping address is in New York state. 
 Here's the scenario, however:

1) There are two types of taxes: exempt and non_exempt.  Exempt taxes 
apply to apparel over $110.  Non_exempt taxes apply to all apparel below 
$110 as well as all other product except food.

2) non-exempt taxes are state tax (4%) plus county tax (variable 
percentage between 3% and 5%).

3) exempt taxes are a variable percentage determined by the county and 
ranges from 0% to 5% but are exempt from the state tax rate.

4) tax rates can change roughly every 3 months.

5) shipping is taxed at the non-exempt tax rate (state tax rate + county 
rate).

6) county tax rate for exempt and non-exempt taxes can differ.

Given the above scenario, I don't think I can really set up taxes using 
the simple tax system, which seems to expect a flat percentage applied 
to all items.  I tried applying it by customer only and not by product 
and, as you can guess, the simple rate just didn't since the tax rate 
has to change to fit the county of residence for the shipping address. 
It also seems impractical to set up 164 (or more) separate tax accounts 
and figure out which city goes to which county. Even if I did that, I'd 
have to select two tax accounts per user and then the tax calculations 
would be wrong.

On the e-commerce side of the application, I have the tax calculating 
correctly and there's no need to adjust taxes so long as the table 
specifying the correct percentages is kept up to date.

My questions:

1) Do I need to create a separate tax module?  If I do need to create a 
separate tax module to handle this, can someone give me some general 
guidelines on how to go about creating the module?  I couldn't find 
anything in the documentation that would set me on the right path.

2) I'm think that I'd be better served by setting this up a service and 
approaching it from that manner, especially since the e-commerce side of 
the application already handles the tax issues easily and correctly.  It 
would be a simple matter to pass in the total.  But when setting up a 
service, you need both an income and an expense account.  I'm assuming 
the income account would be the tax account.  Do I need to create a new 
expense account?  If so, how should I set it up?  If not, what expense 
account should I attach it to?

Thanks in advance for any help,

Charley