Setting a Tax Exemption in Prestashop 1.5

Occasionally, there will be a need to add a tax exemption for an individual or group within Prestashop.  Unfortunately, there is no direct provision for this within the Tax options given by Prestashop.  However, there is a paid addon that you can obtain directly through PrestaShop's Addons Website.  Although the paid addon is the best option there is a way to accomplish the exemption using the existing options within Prestashop.  The option will require that you use the Multishop option, modify the taxes to 0%,  then assign only the tax exempt users to that shop.  The following article explains how this can be done within the PrestaShop interface.

Using the Multishop Option to Create a Tax Exemption in PrestaShop 1.5

1. Login to the PrestaShop 1.5 Administrator Dashboard
2. If you have not done so already, Enable Multistore in PrestaShop 1.5 by hovering over PREFERENCES in the menu bar and clicking on GENERAL. 
3. Scroll down and then click on ENABLE MULTISTORE.
4. Click on SAVE in the top right hand corner.
5. If MULTISTORE is enabled, then the menu item for MULTISTORE will appear in the ADVANCED PARAMETERS.  Hover over the ADVANCED PARAMETERS in the menu bar and click on MULTISTORE.
6. Next you will need to add a new shop based on your existing shop.  You can find instructions on adding a second shop here:  Adding a Shop in Multistore for PrestaShop 1.5. You can select to import your store data so that you are not having to reproduce your users or inventory.
7. Next you can setup the taxes for all locations so that they are set to 0%.  You can change all the taxes at the state level to 0% (Setting Taxes in PrestaShop 1.5), or you can setup a new tax rule (Setting the tax rule for a product in PrestaShop 1.5). 
8. Finally, you need to assign the group to have access to the store.  Hover over CUSTOMERS in the menu bar and then click on GROUPS in the drop-down menu.  At the bottom of the form you can set the store for the group access.
   
9. Make sure to click on SAVE after your changes.
   
   

Creating a multistore lets you have the SAME exact store but with the option to set all taxes to 0% to allow for tax exemption without allowing interfering with the shipping module functionality.  The main disadvantage is that you have two stores that you must maintain if you will continually have users using the tax exemption option.  The cleanest option is still using the paid addon to manage the tax exemptions, but the multistore option does give you a viable option until Prestashop decides to include this feature in their future releases.