Expense - Tax rate shows empty row as selected after keeping duplicate with deleted rate

[jponikarchuk]

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Version Number: 9.3.60-0
Reproducible in staging?: Yes
Reproducible in production?: No
If this was caught during regression testing, add the test name, ID and link from BrowserStack: #87943
Email or phone of affected tester (no customers): soidjsnodjsoidnjso@gmail.com
Issue reported by: Applause Internal Team
Bug source: Exploratory - Significant User Experience Deterioration
Device used: Mac 26.2 / Chrome
App Component: Money Requests

Action Performed:

Precondition:

• Enable Taxes in workspace settings.

1. Go to staging.new.expensify.com
2. Go to workspace chat.
3. Create an expense with 0% tax rate.
4. Create another expense with the same amount and 5% tax rate.
5. Go to workspace settings > Taxes.
6. Delete 5% tax rate.
7. Open the expense report.
8. Click Review duplicates.
9. Click Keep this one on expense with 5% tax rate.
10. Proceed to confirm page > click Confirm.
11. Open the expense.
12. Click Tax rate.

Expected Result:

Tax rate will show the disabled tax rate as selected.

Actual Result:

Tax rate shows an empty row and it is marked as selected.

Workaround:

Unknown

Platforms:

• Android: App
• Android: mWeb Chrome
• iOS: App
• iOS: mWeb Safari
• iOS: mWeb Chrome
• Windows: Chrome
• MacOS: Chrome / Safari

Screenshots/Videos

Video.mp4

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[melvin-bot]

You have been assigned to this deploy blocker because you recently merged this PR: #87943

[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.

[OSBotify]

Investigation Summary - Classification: Frontend bug - Causing PR: #87943 Use threadReportID for report lookup in ReviewTaxCode by @MelvinBot (High confidence) - Recommendation: REVERT - PR 87943 introduced a regression by clearing taxName and taxValue from the transaction after duplicate review. The assumption was MoneyRequestView would re-derive these from the policy, but this fails when the tax rate has been deleted from the policy, resulting in an empty row displayed as selected. Assigned: @MelvinBot, @dmkt9, @stitesExpensify. Labels: DeployBlockerCash kept.

[MelvinBot]

Proposal

What is the root cause of that problem?

When resolving duplicates, Confirmation.tsx:76-83 computes taxValue by looking up the selected taxCode in policy.taxRates.taxes. For a deleted tax rate, that lookup returns undefined, so taxValue is stored as '' (empty string) on the merged transaction.

Later, when the user opens the expense and taps "Tax rate", TaxPicker.tsx correctly detects the tax has been deleted and builds a deletedTaxOption — but uses taxValue as the display text. Since taxValue was stored as '', the row renders empty.

A secondary issue is in compareDuplicateTransactionFields: deleted tax codes are filtered out of validTaxes, so when only one valid tax remains the user is never asked to choose — the first transaction's (potentially deleted) tax code is silently auto-kept.

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

In Confirmation.tsx, when looking up taxValue for the merge, fall back to the transaction's existing taxValue (from reviewDuplicates or the original transaction) when the policy rate is not found. This ensures the deleted rate's percentage string (e.g. "5%") is preserved on the merged transaction rather than being replaced with an empty string.

Something like:

taxValue: taxRate?.value ?? transaction?.taxValue ?? ''

This way TaxPicker's deletedTaxOption will have the correct display text (e.g., "5%") instead of an empty string.

What alternative solutions did you explore? (Optional)

An alternative would be to fix TaxPicker to look up the tax rate name from the taxCode directly (e.g., via a cached/historical tax name) when taxValue is empty. However, this is a downstream workaround — the real problem is that we lose the taxValue data during the merge step. Fixing it at the source in Confirmation.tsx is simpler and more correct.

Related issues & investigation details

Related open issues:

• Expensify/App#83082 — Tax field is blank after merging with expense with invalid tax rate (same root cause)
• Expensify/App#85218 — Review duplicates display empty when using 2 tax rates (likely related)

Evidence chain:

1. compareDuplicateTransactionFields filters deleted taxes from choices → user never picks a tax code → deleted code is auto-kept
2. Confirmation.tsx looks up deleted code in policy.taxRates.taxes → undefined → taxValue set to ''
3. mergeDuplicates/resolveDuplicates stores taxCode='deletedID' and taxValue='' on the transaction
4. TaxPicker detects hasTaxBeenDeleted=true, builds deletedTaxOption with text: taxValue → empty row

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Next Steps for Contributor+ team: Reply with @MelvinBot implement this to create a draft PR, @MelvinBot <your feedback> to refine this analysis, or explain why you are rejecting Melvin's proposal.