Scott Bryce wrote:
- quote -

I kinda think you've answered your own question <G> .

Katie in San Diego

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Katie wrote:

- quote -

Or the possibility of an auditor determining that we
reported sales tax collected for the wrong jurisdiction? For
the amount of sales tax I expect to be collecting, it would
cost a state more to run an audit than what they might
collect in additional sales tax. The only thing I expect an
audit to find is that a few dollars went to tax jurisdiction
A when they should have gone to tax jurisdiction B.

- quote -

Fewer than 10. We are working on determining the exact number.

- quote -

Less than $50,000. But most of that will be to public
schools, so the amount of sales that will be subject to
sales tax could be close to zero and certainly not more than
a few thousand dollars.

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Scott Bryce wrote:

- quote -

snip

No one but you can answer that question. You have to weigh
the potential exposure from getting it wrong against the
cost differential.

How many states are you going into that tax your kind of
service? What are the local rate differentials there? How
much do you expect your annual sales to be in those states?

Katie in San Diego

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Scott Bryce wrote:

- quote -

They assume everyone in the ZIP lives in one jurisdiction,
and pick either the most common one or the highest-tax one.

- quote -

Lots of people do it, but if your customer complains of
being overcharged, you're either going to have to eat the
loss or cobble a manual solution together.

Phoebe

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I have an income producing web site. Currently I don't
collect sales tax because:

1) I only have nexus in one state.

2) I sell a service.

3) Any items obtained from me by my customers are documents
in digital format that are downloaded from the internet.

4) In the one state where I have nexus, services and
non-tangible goods are not subject to sales tax.

I am in the process of hiring sales reps in other states. In
some states, my service will become subject to sales tax as
I establish a nexus there. For those states where I will
have to collect sales tax, I want to purchase a database of
sales tax rates. The databases available have differing
amounts of information.

The simplest ones match one zip code to one state rate, one
county rate and one city rate. The problem, of course, is
that one zip code may span several different taxing
jurisdictions. How these simpler databases do one-to-one
match, I don't know.

The more complex databases map a zip code and city name to a
specific taxing jurisdiction. The more complex databases
cost more.

Can I get away with using one of the simpler databases?

I want to keep things simple because:

1) The code will be easier to write and maintain.

2) The sign up process will be simpler for my customers (I
don't currently collect any information pertaining to the
location of my customers. That will change if I need to
record where a sale took place.)

3) The vast majority of my sales will be exempt from sales
tax.

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting > << messages to this newsgroup are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >