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Thankfully, we have computers! Any online sales program worth paying for includes automatic sales tax collection by jurisdiction. Note, this ruling doesn’t mea

Thankfully, we have computers! Any online sales program worth paying for includes automatic sales tax collection by jurisdiction. Note, this ruling doesn’t mean that all businesses will immediately be taxed. The law over which this suit was filed requires collection if your annual business in the state is $100,000 or >200 sales, which means you’re already doing a sizeable business.

supertrope 8y ago
Compliance is far more complex than a simple look up table. Rates vary by state, county, city, school district, mass transit zone, water district. And each of these political subdivisions and the sales tax they assess changes with every ballot issue! There's a lot of faxing, forms to fill, etc. So most of the value is the vendor doing the legwork in keeping up with details and fixing corner cases. And leveraging their pre-existing trust network and economy of scale.
- MBCook 8y ago
  Don’t forget type of product, if it’s a sales tax holiday, phase of the moon...
- lolsal 8y ago
  Also they vary by time - taxes can be added/removed/changed on any particular item.
Retric 8y ago
A computer program can't tell what category your product falls under. Does a smock qualify as an Apron and thus it's free from sales tax? What if I print 'kiss the cook' on a smock? Sales tax has a single set of rules that if you are in a specific physical location, but it becomes 50,000+ wildly inconsistent rule sets when you look nationwide.
- vixen99 8y ago
  'category' / 'fits in' (no possession or abbreviation involved so no apostrophe)
toast0 8y ago
Jurisdictional boundaries are very complex. The city field in an address really identifies the post office that serves the address, not the city that the address is in. Many people live outside of city boundaries, and "simple" processing may charge them city sales tax surcharges. From experience, the city of San Jose barely knows what its border is, so I wouldn't expect others to either.
sidlls 8y ago
What's to stop the powers that be from lowering those threshold requirements, though, now that this has happened? Also, "jurisdiction" is terribly complicated when it comes to sales taxes. A jurisdiction can be defined by the type of goods sold, date of sale, location, and sometimes (often?) there are overlapping jurisdictions. Full compliance is incredibly hard to achieve without a relatively pricey sales tax software solution that is actively maintained and updated every time a city, township, county, state, etc. decides to adjust something. If applied strictly this would essentially work to lock-in established, wealthy concerns and stifle entrepreneurship.
ghaff 8y ago
That's just one state. There's nothing to keep the 49 other states from passing laws that apply it to any dollar amount. ADDED: Though the decision has some language that would seem to imply there has to be some lower bound.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

supertrope 8y ago

Compliance is far more complex than a simple look up table. Rates vary by state, county, city, school district, mass transit zone, water district. And each of these political subdivisions and the sales tax they assess changes with every ballot issue! There's a lot of faxing, forms to fill, etc. So most of the value is the vendor doing the legwork in keeping up with details and fixing corner cases. And leveraging their pre-existing trust network and economy of scale.

MBCook 8y ago
Don’t forget type of product, if it’s a sales tax holiday, phase of the moon...
lolsal 8y ago
Also they vary by time - taxes can be added/removed/changed on any particular item.

Retric 8y ago

A computer program can't tell what category your product falls under. Does a smock qualify as an Apron and thus it's free from sales tax? What if I print 'kiss the cook' on a smock? Sales tax has a single set of rules that if you are in a specific physical location, but it becomes 50,000+ wildly inconsistent rule sets when you look nationwide.

vixen99 8y ago
'category' / 'fits in' (no possession or abbreviation involved so no apostrophe)

toast0 8y ago

Jurisdictional boundaries are very complex. The city field in an address really identifies the post office that serves the address, not the city that the address is in. Many people live outside of city boundaries, and "simple" processing may charge them city sales tax surcharges. From experience, the city of San Jose barely knows what its border is, so I wouldn't expect others to either.

sidlls 8y ago

What's to stop the powers that be from lowering those threshold requirements, though, now that this has happened? Also, "jurisdiction" is terribly complicated when it comes to sales taxes. A jurisdiction can be defined by the type of goods sold, date of sale, location, and sometimes (often?) there are overlapping jurisdictions. Full compliance is incredibly hard to achieve without a relatively pricey sales tax software solution that is actively maintained and updated every time a city, township, county, state, etc. decides to adjust something. If applied strictly this would essentially work to lock-in established, wealthy concerns and stifle entrepreneurship.

ghaff 8y ago

That's just one state. There's nothing to keep the 49 other states from passing laws that apply it to any dollar amount. ADDED: Though the decision has some language that would seem to imply there has to be some lower bound.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]