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Agreed. I envision "tax compliance as a service" being offered by processors or third parties. My only question is then whether individual municipalities in st

by pwned1 8y ago

Agreed. I envision "tax compliance as a service" being offered by processors or third parties. My only question is then whether individual municipalities in states that allow them to have their own sales tax will also now be able to force compliance. If that's the case, what a nightmare for online retailers.

lovich 8y ago
That's how large retailers do it already. I worked at a company that created software for calculating sales and use tax for large retailers. It was an incredible headache and I doubt any retailer would do it themselves since they can also point to the vendor as the liable party when a mistake is made, and those mistakes will be made. We even had areas where we could not find the correct tax because the government in charge refused to tell us
- mgkimsal 8y ago
  And... I've conflicting info from different states as to when the sales tax should be calculated. I'm dealing with a project right now that is both "pay now" and "delivery and services paid for later". At least one state said they'd prefer us to calculate the tax both at 'time of sale' and after money is collected after the service is provided/delivered, and because the rate may have changed (between months, for example) and they want the higher amount.
  - lovich 8y ago
    And there was that standardized sales tax system that the states were going to adopt but only ~15 did if I recall correctly. I can't remember the name but I do remember that each state then added their own idiosyncrasies to the "standard" and they inserted incorrect data we had to catch. Or the 100s of thousands of literal exceptions such as "windows 98 physically shipped to a customer once in California on CD so you need to calculate the tax on it as a physical good forever, even when it's sold and received over the internet"
Spivak 8y ago
I mean if you're already offering a tax compliance service for 50 different sets of books does it really get that much more complicated adding more?
URSpider94 8y ago
Already done, Google AvaTax and TaxJar.
gnopgnip 8y ago
The supreme court decision was basically a refinement of what constitutes a nexus with respect to common carrier shipments. 200 sales, or $100k in revenue per year is what is reasonable here. It will be interesting to see what LA, Chicago, and NYC do to handle this specifically.

by pwned1 8y ago

lovich 8y ago

That's how large retailers do it already. I worked at a company that created software for calculating sales and use tax for large retailers. It was an incredible headache and I doubt any retailer would do it themselves since they can also point to the vendor as the liable party when a mistake is made, and those mistakes will be made. We even had areas where we could not find the correct tax because the government in charge refused to tell us

mgkimsal 8y ago
And... I've conflicting info from different states as to when the sales tax should be calculated. I'm dealing with a project right now that is both "pay now" and "delivery and services paid for later". At least one state said they'd prefer us to calculate the tax both at 'time of sale' and after money is collected after the service is provided/delivered, and because the rate may have changed (between months, for example) and they want the higher amount.
- lovich 8y ago
  And there was that standardized sales tax system that the states were going to adopt but only ~15 did if I recall correctly. I can't remember the name but I do remember that each state then added their own idiosyncrasies to the "standard" and they inserted incorrect data we had to catch. Or the 100s of thousands of literal exceptions such as "windows 98 physically shipped to a customer once in California on CD so you need to calculate the tax on it as a physical good forever, even when it's sold and received over the internet"

Spivak 8y ago

I mean if you're already offering a tax compliance service for 50 different sets of books does it really get that much more complicated adding more?

URSpider94 8y ago

Already done, Google AvaTax and TaxJar.

gnopgnip 8y ago

The supreme court decision was basically a refinement of what constitutes a nexus with respect to common carrier shipments. 200 sales, or $100k in revenue per year is what is reasonable here. It will be interesting to see what LA, Chicago, and NYC do to handle this specifically.