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General discussion

Do I need to collect sales tax for other states?

by engguy58 May 22, 2009 12:53AM PDT

My state tax department (NY) would not answer my question. I am thinking of running a web site to sell items. I know I have to collect and pay sales tax for residents of my state. But when residents of other states buy my products, what is my legal obligation for handling sales tax payments for residents of other states?

Discussion is locked

4 Posts
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Sales tax for other states
by juice4dman May 27, 2009 2:46PM PDT

As far as I am aware of, you do not need to charge other states for sales tax. Companies do not do this. They have been talking about trying to make this the law, but companies are stating that they would not be able to compete as then people would have to pay sales tax and shipping for products ordered, and that would make online companies not have any competitive edge.

I hope this helps. Good luck to you.

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Sales tax for other states.
by engguy58 May 28, 2009 12:11AM PDT

Thank you, juice4dman, for your reply. My own NY state tax department finally replied and gave essentially the same answer. For the benefit of this forum, I am posting the NYS Tax department reply:

"As far as NY is concerned you would only be required to collect sales tax on the New York State sales. If you ship to another state, it is the other state who would collect the sales tax.

"As you indicated it is most likely the responsibility of that individual to pay his or her state sales tax, however, it is possible that you would have to collect and remit the sales tax for another state. That would be up to any other state that you are shipping to. At this point I am not sure what other states are requiring, so to be on the safe side I would recommend that you check with the state you are shipping to."

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Sales tax
by royhunters Sep 3, 2009 12:47PM PDT

You typically do not have to collect sales tax unless you have a physical business presence in the state you are shipping to, I was charged sales tax by HP for my servers even though the servers were not shipped from a Florida address simply because they have a business in Florida.

Roy Hunter
http://www.mymarketingcompany.com/

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Reposted answer (without ad).
by Kees Bakker Sep 3, 2009 5:40PM PDT

You typically do not have to collect sales tax unless you have a physical business presence in the state you are shipping to, I was charged sales tax by HP for my servers even though the servers were not shipped from a Florida address simply because they have a business in Florida.

Roy Hunter

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