Defining tax rates and zones is mostly taken care of right before launch and such an effort and configuration is typically specific to your business requirements and rules. Importing tax rates using the CSV import is an frequent issue. Users were editing with Microsoft Excel, will creating the CSV file to import. All the CSV file to be enclosed with double quotation marks and Excel removes these, since Magento requires double quotation. Magento will not be able to read the CSV file properly (Applicable to all CSV import files in Magento).
Example of files edited in Excel (while opening on notepad or any other text editor
Code,Country,State,Zip/Post Code,Rate,default
US-NY-12007-Rate 1,US,NY,12007,4,
US-NY-12009-Rate 1,US,NY,12009,4,
US-NY-12023-Rate 1,US,NY,12023,4,
US-NY-12041-Rate 1,US,NY,12041,4,
Proper file format with double quotation marks
"Code","Country","State","Zip/Post Code","Rate","default"
"US-NY-12007-Rate 1","US","NY","12007","4",
"US-NY-12009-Rate 1","US","NY","12009","4",
"US-NY-12023-Rate 1","US","NY","12023","4",
"US-NY-12041-Rate 1","US","NY","12041","4",
Magento’s default setting is the complete opposite, please keep in mind, if you need to apply tax to the shipping fees. However this can be modified by selecting on the dropdown located under System> Configuration > Sales > Tax > Tax Classes > Tax Class for Shipping the desired tax class for your selected carrier’s fees.