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Washington DOR Site and ZIP+4 tax collection

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/RetailSalesTax/DestinationBased/OnlineSellers.aspx

“The Department of Revenue recognizes that sellers using online shopping carts face unique challenges to change to destination-based sales tax. Some shopping carts have limited capabilities in calculating sales tax. For example, some will only accept one tax rate per state; others apply tax rates only using a 5-digit ZIP code. As you may know, Washington has about 16 different sales tax rates within multiple taxing jurisdictions (about 355) and 5-digit ZIP codes do not accurately correspond with tax rates or taxing jurisdictions.

It is ideal if the shopping cart can use the actual delivery address or the corresponding ZIP+4 code, either of which will deliver an accurate tax rate and taxing jurisdiction. However, that is not available to many sellers at this time.

Although calculating sales tax by address or ZIP+4 codes is most accurate, we understand that it is currently not possible for everyone. In the interim, the Department’s expectation is that sellers will do their best to determine the correct tax rates to collect and to report the sales to the correct jurisdictions when filing their tax returns. If the sales tax collection method used results in the over- or under-collecting of tax, sellers are still required to remit all tax to the Department of Revenue, or if requested, refund the over-collected tax to the customer.”

lifted unceremoniously from the DOR site for your review.

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You can read the whole article on the DOR site, but we wanted to be sure to state emphatically that there IS a zip+4 sales tax collection solution that is NOT only available, it’s in use today. If you have a store that needs the most accurate tax collection mechanisms available today, AccurateTax is here.

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Posted in Washington Sales Tax | 1 Comment »

Aloha…Hawaii moves closer to taxing all sales

Thursday, May 7th, 2009

A really great affiliate site tracking all the different laws coming down the pipe since New York started it’s battle with Amazon.

http://nyaffiliatevoice.com/2009/05/hawaii-inches-forward/

Apparently, Hawaii is just one of the states to be hitting on this issue now. It’s starting to look like more and more states are going to at least put their toes in the Internet Taxation water.

The practical issue for storeowners is apparent. Most (if not all) of these laws are being written to say that storeowners are responsible only if gross sales are over 10,000 in a given 12-month period. Of course, none of us have a magic crystal ball to accurately determine if we will or won’t have gross sales totaling 10,000 for a year, so what is a storeowner to do? Obviously, we’ll start collecting the tax … JUST IN CASE.

Between the Streamlined Sales Tax Project and all these independent efforts to tax affiliates it appears the writing is on the wall and we may be saying “aloha” to the days of a tax-free Internet.

Posted in Hawaii Sales Tax | No Comments »

Washington State Sales Tax – Streamlined??

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

In July 2008, Washington State decided it wanted to join the Streamline Sales Tax effort (an issue we’ll cover a lot in other posts), but the big crux of what this meant to storeowners was that they wanted to move to a destination-based sales tax…meaning that the sales/use tax should be collected not based on where the storeowner’s location is, but rather where the products are delivered.

Generally speaking, this probably makes a lot of good sense for the local communities. Charging sales/use taxes based on the actual destination means that items being purchased by local people benefits the local community, not just the state. Of course, that’s just one perspective. From the storeowner’s point of view, this action is tantamount to opening Pandora’s box.

Two sides of this equation that affect storeowners – compliance and reporting. On the compliance side, clearly the storeowner is now expected to manage their sales tax information for the entire state as rates can fluctuate widely across counties, not to mention that rate changes can occur at any given point in time. So, keeping tax rate data current and properly configured is one issue. The other side of the equation is reporting. Knowing what was collected and what needs to be reported to the state is where the “rubber hits the road” so to speak. Having accurate tax reports that show what amounts were collected, from which counties/areas and for what time periods becomes a godsend.

Back in July 2008, NetBlazon received quite a few calls from Washington State storeowners in need of a solution to handle their compliance and reporting needs, which is why we decided to create the AccurateTax TaxTools product suite. Of course, it now seems that there are a great many states that are interested in getting in on this action, so we will continue to document those tax rules here and as always, we’re open to your own interpretations of these laws.

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Posted in Tax Rules, Washington Sales Tax | 1 Comment »

Florida Sales Tax – Discretionary Tax Rules

Saturday, March 7th, 2009

There are lots of fancy names given to taxes these days. In our very own Florida, we have a humdinger … the discretionary tax. Now, Florida for a long time has kept it simple…6% sales tax, paid by all, easy, clean done…but it seems many counties have decided there’s some revenue to be generated through sales tax collection, hence the introduction of the discretionary tax rules.

The discretionary tax is really just a fancy way of saying county sales tax, but what’s really interesting about this tax is that its supposed to be collected by any and all vendors who make sales into the designated counties…even OUT-OF-STATE vendors. Now, like many of these taxes, the issue for many storeowners is one of likelihood that the Department of Revenue in the State of Florida is going to track you down to get you to pay. Some interesting charts on this from the state’s own website are below:

Florida Sales Tax page

Florida Discretionary Taxes

If you have a business in the state of Florida and collect sales tax, you should definitely check out the rules, as the discretionary tax rules seem pretty clear.  In all honesty, I don’t think the state of Florida is making any kind of concerted effort to collect these taxes above and beyond the standard 6%, but then with economic times being what they are, one shouldn’t bet on things remaining that way.  Besides, the point of a solution like AccurateTax is to make it simple for storeowners to be compliant with the tax laws, not skirt them or shirk them.

If you’d like to learn more about AccurateTax’s TaxTools, please feel free to contact us at 866.400.2444 or info@accuratetax.com.

Posted in Florida Sales Tax, Tax Rules | 2 Comments »