For the 45 out of 50 states that have some form of sales tax, the June Supreme Court decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. was a watershed moment – overturning more than 25 years of precedent that kept them from collecting sales tax on online sales from out of state. The original Quill ruling…
One of the most complicated aspects of a small business to navigate is taxes, including sales tax. Increasing this challenge is the fact that different types of products each have unique sales tax rates depending on their classification. This is why many ecommerce companies have misclassified products that lead to incorrect sales tax calculations. Here…
How does sales tax apply to streaming services like Netflix, Spotify, and other similar services? The rise and expansion of the internet has vastly changed the way many sectors of the economy work. From facilitating ecommerce to allowing for the download of digital media, this technology has greatly expanded the reach of all types and…
Any discussion of climate change these days generally involves questions about how to incentivize transitioning away from fossil fuels to more renewable forms of energy production. One option that’s long been on the table is the introduction of a carbon tax to make burning fossil fuels more expensive. Of course, instituting a new tax is…
Possibly some of the most difficult and confusing tax laws that online sellers have to deal with are sales tax laws. Part of what makes these laws such a headache is that they are different for every state, and the nature of your business combined with a particular state’s laws will determine if you have…
While most people are aware of how their state law applies to them in various situations they’re likely to encounter in their everyday lives, these laws have to be built to accommodate all eventualities. This can lead to some strange interpretations and applications of statutes, as well as some interesting stand-alone policies. Some of these…
Each state is a little different in terms of the way it handles sales tax, and this includes the determination of whether or not shipping charges are taxable. The following is a state-by-state breakdown of the taxability of shipping, handling and any other charges associated with the delivery of taxable items shipped to the purchaser….
As technology evolves, there emerge more and more situations that our current sales tax laws were just not designed to deal with. Selling remotely over the internet is one of these, and when that selling involves digital products like apps, the issue of how and when to apply sales tax becomes even more complicated. That’s…
The battle between states and online retailers about when they are responsible for collecting and remitting sales tax to individual states took a new turn recently, as Amazon added Hawaii, Idaho, Maine and New Mexico to the list of states it collects sales tax in. This brings its total to 45 states plus the District…
Since the enactment of most state sales tax laws in the middle of the 20th century, the economies in these states have grown and evolved considerably. It used to be that the sale of tangible goods from brick-and-mortar stores made up a bulk of the economic activity across the country, and so sales tax laws…