Understanding Sales Tax in the Post-Wayfair World

If your business operates in two or more taxing jurisdictions, the Supreme Court’s decision in South Dakota v. Wayfair applies to you.

In June 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court decided on South Dakota v. Wayfair. Since then, businesses that operate in two or more of the nation’s 10,000-plus tax jurisdictions have been struggling to understand what they need to do to comply with the new definition of economic nexus. Wayfair affects all businesses, from strictly online sellers to manufacturers and wholesalers to brick-and-mortar retailers.

The Court’s ruling was vastly different from its 1992 ruling in Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, which found that sales tax did not have to be collected unless the company had a physical presence in the state. Then again, Quill was decided when the Internet was in its infancy.

Understanding Wayfair

Wayfair did not expressly state a threshold for collecting sales tax, but the South Dakota statute in the case stipulates that any out-of-state business that makes $100,000 in sales or that has 200 or more sales in South Dakota must collect sales tax. Although that is a good guideline, businesses need to remember that not all jurisdictions follow it: some are higher and others are lower.

This creates problems for businesses for a number of reasons, including the following:

• Business registration. Every state has different rules about how businesses must register as taxing entities. In some states, it is enough to register at the state level, whereas in others, the business needs to register at the county and municipality level as well. Some jurisdictions may ask businesses to prove they do or do not meet its thresholds. Noncompliance with these requests can lead to steep penalties. Other jurisdictions have voluntary disclosure programs that can help limit exposure.
• Goods and service exemptions. There is no one standard for taxing goods and services. For example, clothing is not taxed in New Jersey, but in New York, a neighboring state, the only clothing that costs more than $110 is taxed. There is a never-ending list of discrepancies between jurisdictions, and this list can change quickly.
• Other factors. Your business may need to rethink its operations. For example, is your inventory stored in another jurisdiction?
• Effective dates. Just as there is no universal list of which goods and services are taxed, there is no one list of effective dates. A new effective date takes effect every time a jurisdiction decides to tax a good or service, exempt one from taxation, or impose a new dollar limit.
  
  

Analyzing Exposure

The Wayfair ruling is not going away, so businesses need to take several steps to analyze their exposure. Businesses need to:

• perform a detailed analysis of the business’s annual sales and number of transactions in every jurisdiction in which it operates;
• determine which goods and services are taxable in each of those jurisdictions;
• figure out when and where to register, what penalties it may incur, and whether registering will make it subject to other taxes, such as franchise taxes; and
• determine how it will manage sales tax compliance going forward.
  
  

Businesses do not need to do this on their own. Contact us today for professional help in figuring out your business’s sales tax responsibilities.