Sales Tax – Is QuickBooks Enough?

I cannot believe that Scaling New Heights is less than a month away; it is such a short time. But on the other hand it has been so long since our group has gotten together. I am excited to be attending SNH this year, especially since it is my home state of TEXAS.

I am excited to be teaching a couple of new classes this year, the first one being Sales Tax. Sales Tax has become a new passion of mine after the Wayfair Ruling was passed a couple of years ago when I learned that anything that I knew about sales tax was now up for revision, and things I knew about sales tax yesterday were not really true today.

Let’s take a look at a couple of things that we will be talking about…

Knowing when, and why, your business must collect and remit sales tax is a complicated affair. The key is understanding when and where sales tax collection and remittance are required – how much, how often, state triggers, the list can be quite long. Sales tax can be seen as a cycle that follows this path.

• Understanding when and where to collect and remit sales tax
• Registering to collect and remit sales tax
• Calculating the correct sales tax amount
• Tracking and managing sales
• Remitting sales tax to the proper taxing authority

Another factor to consider is how well your bookkeeping software enables you to perform sales tax functions. If you are using QuickBooks only for sale tax purposes, you need to keep in mind that sales tax calculation within QuickBooks is limited and tracking nexus thresholds is very tricky. In fact, you need to understand that there are a number of sales tax pitfalls with QuickBooks (and I’ll be describing them during this Scaling New Heights session).

Sales taxes at the state and local levels are often cumbersome and complex. Given the level of complexity of collecting and remitting sales tax, it is recommended that both retail and service businesses subject to state sales tax employ a Certified Service Provider to verify that state and local sales taxes, where applicable, are collected and remitted properly.

As always, for tax compliance done right… it is important to know the facts. And remember, you can be proud to pay taxes in these great states, but could be just as proud for half the amount.