This article was written with contributions by Clark Calhoun of Alston & Bird. 

In response to the uncertainty around COVID-19, I felt it was important to share our response to this rapidly developing situation.  Along with the safety of our employees, our top priority is maintaining a high-quality, uninterrupted service to support your business.  Your sales tax compliance continues to be our responsibility.  As we’ve always said, your sales tax compliance is all on us. 

I am excited to announce that we’ve partnered with Service 2 Software, a registered 501c(s) organization that exists to equip service members with the necessary skills to gain employment in the technology industry.  This partnership gives us a great opportunity to support our veterans while also providing skilled talent to our growing team. 

It happened.  You received a sales tax audit notice from a jurisdiction.  What do you do?

It’s been over a year since economic nexus was put into effect, and state and local jurisdictions have started knocking on doors to start collecting. Whether you are intentionally or unintentionally neglecting your sales tax obligations, the chance of audit is continuing to grow.

Businesses that sell into various states now have to contend with the sales & use tax regulations and requirements of thousands of jurisdictions nationwide. One big question for these businesses is how much time, effort and money do they need to devote to compliance – and do they need to pay attention to it at all?

Sales and use tax nexus has become a major headache for any business that sells into the United States. But what exactly is nexus for sales and use tax purposes, and where does it come from, anyway?

Businesses who sell over the internet must pay a lot of attention to far-flung economic tax thresholds – almost all states and more than a few localities enforce them now – so it’s easy to overlook a more-obvious tripwire.

You might be thinking, “Sales tax. Let them find me.”

If you thought 2019 was a confusing year for sales tax, wait for 2020, as more states continue to adjust their sales-tax laws.

Twenty-four states and the District of Columbia added enforcement of economic nexus in 2019, in addition to the 19 that added the burden to online retailers in 2018 after the Supreme Court overruled the physical presence rule in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. More than ever, out-of-state sellers with threshold limits of sales in a given state must collect and remit sales tax.

Economic nexus laws are expected to continue to change in 2020 with updates projected from several states and with the addition of more states adopting Marketplace facilitator laws there is even more to keep watch for.  

As we enter 2020, we have a lot to be thankful for at TaxConnex™.  In fact, 2019 was a record-breaking year for our company, and we couldn’t have done it without all of our partners, employees, and clients. 

Online retailers definitely have something to be smiling about this season. Cyber Monday saw Americans drop $9.4 billion. That figure is up 20% from last year’s $7.9 billion in online sales and it beat this year’s Black Friday’s sales.

As if sales tax wasn’t enough for online retailers, some states are working to make retailers pay corporate income tax as well.

The amount of corporate income taxed will be based on the retailer’s local economic activity, similar to how many assess sales tax.  Many of these new laws will kick in next year, giving retailers a Happy New Year gift of more forms to file, more money to shell out and more compliance traps to fall into.

Another tax notice just landed on your desk. Ouch. You thought you had this solved with the “fully-integrated, simple, seamless, comprehensive, customized sales tax solution” that you paid an arm and a leg for. It sure sounded great at first. This was going to make sales tax unbelievably easy – and free up your time for more strategic stuff. So why are you still scrambling to correct errors, confirm nexus, send payments, manage tax calendars, and double check everything your provider does?

Why would states go through all the trouble of enacting economic nexus to grow their tax coffers and then ease off on the restrictions - especially big states like New York and California, which were once expected to garner nine and even ten figures in tax revenue from nexus legislation?

In the 17 months since the South Dakota vs Wayfair decision, some states have begun reporting their revenues against predicted numbers. Among the first are South Carolina, Iowa and Massachusetts – and results are mixed.