Sales and Use Tax Compliance - Deadlines, Deadlines and More Deadlines

'Tis the season…and it never seems to end. We have been communicating with many CPA firms during the month of August regarding numerous client issues and partnering opportunities. Almost without exception, the firms we contacted indicated they did not have the capacity to do anything new until after the September 15 and October 15 income tax deadlines. This is indicative of the life of most CPAs. We schedule our lives around a never-ending list of deadlines.

After a few decades as a CPA, my family finally knows when vacation and other time off is possible. It just so happens, I am writing this blog from a family vacation that had to occur the last week of the month because of August compliance deadlines.

It seems like the income tax deadlines never end – there is practically a 15^th due date each month. Believe it or not, it is five times as bad with sales and use tax compliance.   With sales and use tax compliance, there are about six deadlines a month – 7^th, 10^th, 15^th, 20^th, 25^th and 30^th – without considering the odd due dates for certain states – 12^th, 23^rd, 24^th, etc.   When you add these to the income tax due dates, you barely have any workday where a taxing jurisdictions doesn’t expect a filing!

The CPA firms we talk to rarely want to do sales tax filings for their clients – in part because of these deadlines. TaxConnex is a great partner to handle the sales and use tax compliance for CPA firms. We have built the processes and systems to make the due date management easy – or more importantly, risk free. Perhaps you or your clients should consider sales tax outsourcing with TaxConnex and remove that deadline from your list. A family vacation may be right around the corner!