State and local sales tax news — rates, exemptions, and the rules retailers and shoppers need to know.
A few moments ago, there was a knock on my door. It was a delivery from Amazon.com. My daughter’s 5th-grade class requires that students get their hands on the book, Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko, this semester for classroom reading. The book was published in 2006 and I assumed it would not…
Submitted by DAVID CAMPBELL Is it fair to require online retailers to collect and remit state sales tax? In a word, yes. Most governors who have taken a stance on the issue have supported online sales tax collection, including New Jersey’s Chris Christie, Tennessee’s Bill Haslam, Iowa’s Terry Branstad, and Michigan’s Rick Snyder (all Republicans,…
Submitted by KARA HAAS In recent years online shopping has become an unspoken tax haven. It seems as though it is similar to offshore bank accounts for the rich, but this dealing with unpaid sales tax. It is only when I decided to venture out to the stores during Florida’s “Back to School Sales Tax…
Submitted by STEN R. WILSON Everyone seems to think that online sales tax collection is about large online companies, like Amazon, trying to crush small online businesses. My experience as a small business owner has been exactly the opposite. State efforts at online sales tax collection have made it much, much easier to run my…
I don’t do the whole Black Friday thing. There is nothing (and I mean nothing) that I want/need/crave/desire enough to stand in line with a bunch of total strangers – who may or may not have showered recently – to buy. I do, however, do Cyber Monday, the online version of Black Friday. I’m not…
Like you didn’t see this coming… Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), together with Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), will, if all goes according to plan, announce intentions to impose a sales tax on internet sales. The bill, referred to as the Main Street Fairness Act in the Senate, is a companion piece to legislation bearing the same…
William Gifford, MBA, writes: Congress should eliminate the current system altogether. Throw out the federal income tax because it’s too broken to be fixed. In it’s place, I think we should pass something like the VAT in Europe: a federal sales tax. Think about it. Rather than penalize people for making more money, a federal…
Taxpayer asks: We think we might need some tax advice, regarding the teen’s CD. Obviously we’re charging sales tax (.0655%) so that his $9.99 CD sells for $10.65… but that’s IL tax. Do we have to worry about other states’ taxes if someone from another state orders from him? Taxgirl says: The short answer is…
A New York judge seems to think so. Administrative Law Judge Catherine M. Bennett has ruled that the eloquently named Nite Moves, a strip club in Albany, NY qualifies for the “dramatic arts” sales tax exemption under New York tax law. Why? The choreography, of course. It takes a simple stripper and makes her an…
Illinois residents have been willing to deal with some pretty steep tax increases. But Gov. Pat Quinn may have gone too far this time: Quinn wants to tax coffee and sweetened tea products in grocery stores in the same manner as soft drinks. Gov Quinn has also suggested raising taxes and fees on driver’s licenses…
