Getting the right sales tax on your invoice is a pivotal step in managing your sales and use tax obligation. Sales and use tax is a tax imposed on the use or consumption of a product or service and meant to be paid by the end consumer. In certain situations (when you have sales tax nexus), it is your obligation to collect and remit it. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. With cities, counties and states having their own tax rates, taxability rules changing among states and even local jurisdictions, it is almost impossible to ensure you add the correct sales tax to your invoice for a more complex organization. But how do you know what is the best solution for your business to get the correct sales tax on your invoices?

When you sell across multiple states – or even within various localities in a single state – one striking observation emerges: the consistent inconsistency of sales tax rates.

Ecommerce couldn’t exist without shipping (and probably not without shipping’s partner “handling,” either), but do either incur sales tax?

Have Home Rule Jurisdictions Made the Burden of Managing Sales and Use Tax Too Much?

Businesses have new ways to sell today, as marketplaces such as Amazon, TikTok and the business’s own website have joined established channels like direct retail sales and wholesale sales. Each brings different sales tax implications – and retail and ecommerce businesses aren’t always aware of their obligations.

We hear a lot about nexus and various thresholds... but what is a tax situs?

The landmark 2018 Supreme Court decision transformed state sales tax for online businesses, and it continues to do so. Wayfair isn’t going anywhere.

Six years ago this Friday, the U.S. Supreme Court decided, narrowly, to complicate life for online sellers.

Managing your sales and use tax process can be difficult for businesses of all sizes and industries. Unlike most countries, there isn't a nationwide sales tax. So keeping up with the continual changes in states and local jurisdictions and maintaining a fully accurate compliance process for a complex business could make even the best of sales tax experts dizzy.

Selling your products/services into the US opens a sizable range of sales opportunities, but it could also open the door to significant complexity in managing your US sales tax obligations.  Once you understand when you have established a US sales tax obligation and know your products and services are taxable, it’s time to set up a filing process to ensure on-going compliance.

The United States has possibly the world’s most complex sales tax regime. This is due to each state setting its own sales tax rules, and states often take widely varying approaches. As a result, each state has a different tax framework, with varying rules around everything from tax liability and tax rates to exemption categories and reporting requirements. On top of this, some local area tax jurisdictions also have powers over some aspects of taxation and can set different rules for their city or county.

Economic nexus thresholds in many states depend on two numbers. Now, almost six years after the landmark Wayfair case ignited sales tax obligations for more remote sellers, one of those numbers might be falling out of favor.

Every now and then something comes along that transforms sales tax. The 2018 Wayfair decision was such a milestone. Another was the advent of the likes of marketplace facilitators such as Amazon, Etsy and eBay, among others.

What’s the latest brewing today in sales tax? A lot, spanning many hot topics – and if you can believe it, not all the news is bad.

Adding a new product is great, new revenue streams are wonderful. Just don’t let sales tax turn the situation into a nightmare.

In part 1, we looked at the mounting financial costs of maintaining sales tax compliance with the thousands of tax jurisdictions nationwide. Now let’s look at how some companies have tried to game the system – and what to do so you don’t have to run that risk.