In light of recent legislation changes, you’ve determined you meet sales tax nexus thresholds outside of just your home state and now you have to collect, file, and remit sales tax in multiple states. What a headache. To make matters worse, this is a compliance issue, so you must act.

Drop shipments are more prevalent in today’s marketplace than most realize –many purchases made online today are commonly drop-shipped to consumers, transactions that typically involve multiple states and parties. Navigating the application of sales and use taxes and related exemptions in a drop shipment scenario is tricky for both the retailer and the drop-shipper. 

Technology companies frequently engage in sales tax nexus creating activities without realizing it.  Many different activities can create “nexus”, the link that establishes the need for a seller to adhere to the jurisdiction’s sales tax rules.  And with the introduction of economic nexus in 2018, it has become even more confusing.

Once you’ve determined your requirement to collect and remit sales tax, you’ve set-up a process to charge sales tax, and you have registered with each required state, you need to consider how you will manage the return filing process.  Some key areas to consider are the following:

Sales and use tax nexus is a connection between a person or entity and a taxing jurisdiction.  Sales tax nexus is the basis for all your sales tax decisions because without sales tax nexus you have no further obligation to a state.  If you do have sales tax nexus, then you need to dig a bit deeper.  But what exactly defines when you have sales tax nexus?

Sales tax is confusing, but this season of thankfulness (and recent developments in the world of nexus) have created things to look forward to and be thankful for heading into the holiday season and new tax year.