Starting, growing, and running a successful business is one of life’s truly great pleasures. With that pleasure, however, comes various laws and record-keeping requirements. As States look to grow their revenue base, they are continually modifying their sales tax laws. In recent years, the sales tax laws have grown more complex since it has become easier and easier to complete interstate transactions online.
For instance, during its inception, Amazon correctly omitted sales tax from many of its interstate sales. The States quickly realized this and have begun to update their sales tax laws accordingly. Most states now require a business to collect and remit sales tax if the business has nexus. Nexus is the term used to refer to whether or not a business has a presence in the state. To make this determination, most states first look at if the business has a brick and mortar (rent still counts!) –physical presence in the state. Additional factors include whether or not the company has employees or salespeople in the state, or the manner in which the product was delivered and payment by the customer made.
Amazon has a team of employees dedicated to its state sales tax research and compliance. This team, in conjunction with the Amazon software developers, have created processes and applications to track sales by jurisdiction and automatically charge, collect, and remit sales tax when applicable. This is fine for a large company with the resources needed to fulfill this mandate, but what about small and medium sized business that are still subject to the same laws but aren’t large enough to hire one dedicated person much less an entire department?
There is a simple answer with extraordinary results: Outsource your sales tax compliance!
By outsourcing, your business will have a dedicated sales tax team at an affordable price. Cornwell Jackson’s sales tax team builds on our combined experience with clients from across the United States to offer you the same expertise you would find at any large corporation. By partnering with our outsourcing team, you get a dedicated team to manage your filings, payments, research, exemption certificates, and develop solutions in real time. Additionally, we stay up to date with the increasingly complex tax law changes and keep you in compliance, so that you can focus on the success of your business.