Tax Checkout
Legislation • Compliance
COMPANY
Rakuten Viki
MY ROLE
UX Designer
Duration
1 month
Overview
Problem:
Our Stripe web checkout was tax-inclusive in the US and Canada, meaning Viki absorbed consumer digital taxes on every transaction. App stores already operate tax-exclusive — so as Stripe volume grew, so did the cost. BizOps estimated we were absorbing roughly $660K/year across the US and Canada.
Goal:
Enable tax-exclusive pricing with accurate state- and province-level tax calculation across new checkouts and renewals — with minimal disruption to the purchase experience and full legal compliance.
My Role:
I weighed two implementation paths with engineering — an out-of-the-box solution via our payment vendor (future-proofs non-Stripe processors) versus Stripe Tax (faster to ship). We chose to prioritize the vendor route with the US first, because tax exposure there was largest and we didn't want to rebuild the flow when new processors were added later.
Requirements
Maintaining valid billing addresses on Stripe
Accurate state, county, and city-level tax calculation requires a complete billing address — card issuer country alone isn't enough. This meant we had to collect and backfill full addresses (street, city, state/province, postal code) for existing subscribers before tax could be enabled.
Legal Considerations
External counsel advised that disclosing "plus applicable sales tax" before payment confirmation is generally acceptable; where the exact amount can be determined at payment, best practice is to itemize it. This guidance directly shaped the display decision below.
Key Touchpoints
Before Introducing Tax
Marketing Communication
Notify users a month in advance; primary CTA is updating their billing address.
Backfilling of customer's address
Ensure every customer has a valid billing address so we can identify taxable US/CA regions. Entry points: email and account settings.
After enabling Tax
Checkout
Tax charged for all US/CA customers, clearly indicated, and applied consistently across every scenario (promo codes, upgrades, renewals).
Billing History
Full breakdown of each charge, including tax and discounts.
Before
Implementing tax
Marketing Communication
We emailed all customers one month before enabling tax. I designed the email around a single job: get users to update their billing address, while setting the expectation that tax would appear in their next billing cycle. I deliberately led with the action (update your address) rather than the news (tax is coming) — burying the CTA under a policy announcement would have tanked completion.uld be charged in their next billing cycle.
NEW Billing Address Form
We built a new form for users to update their billing address manually, reachable from the email and from account settings. The form validates state/province and postal code at entry, because a bad address here silently breaks tax calculation downstream.
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Enabling Tax on Checkout
Checkout journey
When tax is enabled, users expect to find the tax amount in the payment summary. The design question became: "how much tax detail belongs in a subscription checkout?"
When tax is enabled, users would expect to find the tax breakdown in the payment summary modal (highlighted).
How might we displayed the tax in a clear and concise manner?
Simplified vs Itemised Tax
Context:
This was the core tension of the project. Some stakeholders advocated full itemisation for transparency; others pointed to OTT industry convention, where a simplified display is standard.
Rather than let it stall in debate, I built a side-by-side comparison across five criteria — compliance, UI/UX, industry alignment, clarity, and risk — and brought it to the executive team for a decision.
Otion 1:
Itemising Tax
Option 2:
Simplified Tax
Option 1:
Simplified Tax
Option 2:
Itemised Tax
Legal / Compliance
Compliant
Compliant, and external counsel reccomended
UI / UX
Clean, Streamlined, more scalable
Cluttered, especially in mobile view
Industry Alignment
Common practice
(OTT and Subscription Services)
Not commonly found in OTT services
Clarity
Base price + disclaimer
High transparency
(full breakdown shown)
Risks
Potential perception of less transparency
Additional technical complexity and overhead
Final Choice
Billing History
in the checkout journey
History
User Story
As a subscriber, I want to view my past charges with a clear tax breakdown, so I can understand what I paid and download records if needed.
Data that can be shown:
Subtotal
Discount (if any)
Tax
tax_description and taxRate
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