[HOLD for payment 2025-01-13] Distance - Inconsistency in Tax field when both distance rate and category have different tax

[IuliiaHerets]

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Version Number: 9.0.78-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught on HybridApp, is this reproducible on New Expensify Standalone?: Yes, reproducible on both
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from TestRail: Exp
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): [email protected]
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Device used: Windows 11
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Rules, Distance rates, and Taxes are enabled.
• There are two non-zero tax rates - Tax rate A and Tax rate B.
• Track tax is enabled.
• Distance rate is assigned with tax rate A.

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace settings > Categories.
3. Click Advertising category.
   4 Click Default tax rate.
4. Select Tax rate B.
5. Go to workspace chat.
6. Click + > Submit expense > Distance.
7. Enter waypoints > Next.
8. On confirmation page, note that the distance tax rate is Tax rate A (follows distance rate track tax).
9. Click Category.
10. Select Advertising category from Step 3.
11. Note that the distance tax rate is Tax rate B (follows the category).
12. Submit the expense.
13. Go to transaction thread.
14. Note that the distance tax rate is back to Tax rate A.

Expected Result:

When submitting distance expense with distance rate that has tax rate and category with its own tax rate, the tax field should follow the tax rate from distance rate.

Actual Result:

In Step 12, after selecting category with own tax rate, the Tax field changes to the rate from the selected category, while the tax amount remains unchanged.
In Step 15, after submitting the distance expense, the Tax field changes back to the tax rate that follows distance rate.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: Standalone
• Android: HybridApp
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: Standalone
• iOS: HybridApp
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari
• MacOS: Desktop

Screenshots/Videos

Bug6701707_1735032557064.bandicam_2024-12-24_17-18-24-974.mp4

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Issue Owner

Current Issue Owner: @Christinadobrzyn

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @Christinadobrzyn (Bug), see https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/questions/14418 for more details. Please add this bug to a GH project, as outlined in the SO.

[melvin-bot]

Triggered auto assignment to @youssef-lr (DeployBlockerCash), see https://stackoverflowteams.com/c/expensify/questions/9980/ for more details.

[melvin-bot]

💬 A slack conversation has been started in #expensify-open-source

[github-actions]

👋 Friendly reminder that deploy blockers are time-sensitive ⏱ issues! Check out the open `StagingDeployCash` deploy checklist to see the list of PRs included in this release, then work quickly to do one of the following:

1. Identify the pull request that introduced this issue and revert it.
2. Find someone who can quickly fix the issue.
3. Fix the issue yourself.

[Christinadobrzyn]

hum... maybe related to - #53789? Asking

[Christinadobrzyn]

Neil and the contributor of #53789 don't think it's related... I'll keep digging to see if I can find the culprit..

[nkdengineer]

Edited by proposal-police: This proposal was edited at 2024-12-25 08:13:40 UTC.

Proposal

Please re-state the problem that we are trying to solve in this issue.

In Step 12, after selecting category with own tax rate, the Tax field changes to the rate from the selected category, while the tax amount remains unchanged.
In Step 15, after submitting the distance expense, the Tax field changes back to the tax rate that follows distance rate.

What is the root cause of that problem?

Here, we always update tax code and tax amount when we change the category without checking the correct tax is the distance rate tax or not.

App/src/libs/actions/IOU.ts

Line 601 in 12e0941

const {categoryTaxCode, categoryTaxAmount} = TransactionUtils.getCategoryTaxCodeAndAmount(category, transaction, PolicyUtils.getPolicy(policyID));

What changes do you think we should make in order to solve the problem?

Since the distance rate tax should be prioritized, we should update getCategoryTaxCodeAndAmount to return categoryTaxCode and categoryTaxAmount as undefined if the current tax code is distance rate tax.

const taxRules = policy?.rules?.expenseRules?.filter((rule) => rule.tax);
const currentTaxCode = getTaxCode(transaction);
const customUnitRateID = transaction?.comment?.customUnit?.customUnitRateID ?? '-1';
const policyCustomUnitRate = getDistanceRateCustomUnitRate(policy, customUnitRateID);
const taxRateExternalID = policyCustomUnitRate?.attributes?.taxRateExternalID ?? '-1';
if (!taxRules || taxRules?.length === 0 || taxRateExternalID === currentTaxCode) {
    return {categoryTaxCode: undefined, categoryTaxAmount: undefined};
}

App/src/libs/actions/IOU.ts

Line 601 in 12e0941

const {categoryTaxCode, categoryTaxAmount} = TransactionUtils.getCategoryTaxCodeAndAmount(category, transaction, PolicyUtils.getPolicy(policyID));

What specific scenarios should we cover in automated tests to prevent reintroducing this issue in the future?

Add a test case for getCategoryTaxCodeAndAmount and confirm that it returns categoryTaxCode and categoryTaxAmount as undefined if the current tax code is distance rate tax.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

Reminder: Please use plain English, be brief and avoid jargon. Feel free to use images, charts or pseudo-code if necessary. Do not post large multi-line diffs or write walls of text. Do not create PRs unless you have been hired for this job.

[youssef-lr]

@bernhardoj could this be coming from your PR?

[youssef-lr]

I reverted the PR locally and I can't reproduce. Please take look when you're online @bernhardoj

[bernhardoj]

@MonilBhavsar can you help clarify the expected behavior here? Should we ignore the tax rules for a category if there is a distance rate tax?

[bernhardoj]

I assume we want to ignore it since we don't allow the user to manually change the tax rate when it's a distance request. The PR is here: #54579

[melvin-bot]

⚠️ Looks like this issue was linked to a Deploy Blocker here

If you are the assigned CME please investigate whether the linked PR caused a regression and leave a comment with the results.

If a regression has occurred and you are the assigned CM follow the instructions here.

If this regression could have been avoided please consider also proposing a recommendation to the PR checklist so that we can avoid it in the future.

[jasperhuangg]

The PR fixes this issue mostly in the front-end, but we still need a back-end PR to fully solve this issue, so I'm adding the Web blocker label.

[MonilBhavsar]

@MonilBhavsar can you help clarify the expected behavior here? Should we ignore the tax rules for a category if there is a distance rate tax?

Confirmed from oldDot, we don't need to update category when updating tax

Screen.Recording.2024-12-26.at.1.38.48.PM.mov

[MonilBhavsar]

The PR fixes this issue mostly in the front-end, but we still need a back-end PR to fully solve this issue, so I'm adding the Web blocker label.

Self assigning and working on a backend PR

[MonilBhavsar]

Removing the Deploy blocker label as it is not really a Web blocker. The logic lies in Auth

[MonilBhavsar]

Sent backend PR https://github.com/Expensify/Auth/pull/13644

[melvin-bot]

Reviewing label has been removed, please complete the "BugZero Checklist".

[melvin-bot]

The solution for this issue has been 🚀 deployed to production 🚀 in version 9.0.80-6 and is now subject to a 7-day regression period 📆. Here is the list of pull requests that resolve this issue:

• Don't apply the category tax rules for distance request #54579

If no regressions arise, payment will be issued on 2025-01-13. 🎊

[melvin-bot]

@youssef-lr / @MonilBhavsar @Christinadobrzyn @youssef-lr / @MonilBhavsar The PR fixing this issue has been merged! The following checklist (instructions) will need to be completed before the issue can be closed. Please copy/paste the BugZero Checklist from here into a new comment on this GH and complete it. If you have the K2 extension, you can simply click: [this button]