Shopify only lets one tax service calculate tax on your store at a time. Once you activate Kintsugi as your tax app, Shopify steps back and hands tax calculation over to us. To prevent the two systems from conflicting, Shopify locks its own native tax rate tables so they can't be edited manually and shows them to you as read-only.
Seeing that label means the connection is working as designed. You only need to act if checkout tax amounts look wrong, or if you deliberately want to stop using Kintsugi.
So, yes, your tax collection is still working. "Read-only" means Kintsugi has taken over tax calculation from Shopify's built-in settings. It is a confirmation that the handoff worked, not a sign that something is broken.
What Shopify Does | Why |
|---|---|
Detects that a tax app (Kintsugi) is Active in Settings > Taxes and duties | You can only use one tax service per store, so you have to choose between Shopify's built-in rates, or a tax app like Kintsugi |
Greys out its own manual tax rate tables by country/region | Prevents a merchant from setting a rate in Shopify while Kintsugi is calculating a different rate at checkout |
Labels those tables read-only | Signals that the values shown are historical or informational only. They are no longer the source of truth |
The read-only label applies to Shopify's native rate tables. It does not apply to Kintsugi, which calculates tax live outside that screen.
Setting | Who Controls It | Read-Only in Shopify? |
|---|---|---|
Tax rates by country/region | Kintsugi | Yes |
Nexus and economic threshold tracking | Kintsugi | Yes |
Product- and shipping-level tax rate calculation at checkout | Kintsugi | Yes |
Tax-inclusive pricing (global or by country) | Shopify | No (still editable) |
Marking an individual product as taxable | Shopify | No (still editable) |
Marking a customer as tax-exempt | Shopify | No (still editable) |
Duties and import taxes at checkout | Shopify | No (still editable) |
If you need to change something in the second column, you can still do that directly in Shopify. Everything else now flows through Kintsugi.
Go to your Kintsugi dashboard and check the Shopify integration status; it should show Connected with a recent sync timestamp.
Place a test order (or check a recent live order) and confirm tax was charged at checkout.
In Kintsugi, open Transactions and confirm the order appears with a calculated tax amount.
If all three check out, tax collection is working normally regardless of what the Shopify admin screen shows.
Shopify keeps your last manual tax settings on file as a backup. If Kintsugi is ever temporarily unreachable, Shopify automatically falls back to those stored rates so checkout is never left uncollecting tax.
This is the one reason it's worth keeping your native Shopify tax settings reasonably current, even though they're read-only day-to-day because they're your safety net, not a duplicate system you need to maintain.
If you deactivate or uninstall Kintsugi in Shopify, tax calculation reverts immediately to Shopify's built-in settings (or Shopify Tax, depending on your prior configuration). The read-only lock lifts as soon as Kintsugi is no longer the active tax app.
If you recently added or removed a US location, Shopify may briefly re-evaluate which tax service applies to your store. If the read-only label disappears unexpectedly, check that Kintsugi still shows as Active under Settings > Taxes and duties.
If you imported historical orders, imported orders sync to Kintsugi by default for filing purposes. If you don't want specific imported orders counted, tag them import or imported in Shopify before they sync.
Q: Does "read-only" mean my Shopify tax settings were deleted?
A: No. Your original settings are still stored; they're just locked from editing and used only as backup if Kintsugi is ever unavailable.
Q: Can I turn off read-only mode without disconnecting Kintsugi?
A: No. Shopify only unlocks these tables when no third-party tax app is active. As long as Kintsugi is active, the native rate tables stay read-only by design.
Q: My checkout tax amount looks wrong. Where do I check it?
A: Check your Kintsugi dashboard for the transaction in question. That's the system actually calculating the rate.
Q: I need to mark one product as tax-exempt. Can I still do that?
A: Yes. Product-level taxability, customer tax exemptions, tax-inclusive pricing, and duties/import tax settings all remain editable in Shopify even while Kintsugi is active.
Q: What happens to tax collection if I uninstall Kintsugi from Shopify?
A: Tax calculation reverts immediately to your prior Shopify tax settings, and the read-only lock is removed.
If you can't find the answer you're looking for, click the chat bubble in the bottom-right corner of your dashboard. We're always happy to help.
