Screen-Shot-2018-06-26-at-4.10.19-PM TaxJar to Host Free Webinar June 27: Tax Experts Answer Questions on State Tax Compliance for Online Stores design tips

TaxJar, a company that offers automated sales tax software, is hosting a free webinar June 27 at 11:30 AM CDT to answer questions regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on South Dakota v. Wayfair. The court ruled in favor of South Dakota on June 21st, 2018, allowing any state to require online sellers to collect taxes for sales made from customers in that state.

The provisions identified in the South Dakota vs. Wayfair ruling identifies retailers making $100K+ or 200+ transactions in the state as having an “economic presence” that would require out-of-state retailers to render sales tax. However, it’s not yet clear how other states will measure sales tax liability.

TaxJar has gathered a panel of tax experts to discuss the requirements of the new sales tax compliance burden for online businesses. Nearly 2,000 people are currently signed up to tune in and attendees can also submit questions in advance. A few popular questions submitted so far include:

“How will we know which states we are required to pay taxes in, and do we have to create accounts in every state and pay for returns in all 50?”

“I read that South Dakota, Colorado and Louisiana have a threshold of 100K in sales in their state to start collecting taxes. Is this really the case, and where can we find the threshold for other states?”

“Does each state that wants to participate have to pass a law like South Dakota or is this now automatic for all states with a sales tax?”

WooCommerce has created a guide to help users set up and collect taxes as required by the tax jurisdiction where their stores are located. Online store owners in the US and Canada can set enable automated tax calculations using either the WooCommerce Tax or TaxJar add-ons (both free), depending on whether the merchant operates within a single tax nexus or multiple nexus locations.

Automatic sales tax calculations are also available for merchants using Easy Digital Downloads. Pippin Williamson built a free integration for EDD and TaxJar that passes all tax rate determinations to TaxJar to calculate automatically, eliminating the need for manual tax rate entry.

The Supreme Court’s ruling is very new and many state-specific details are yet to be worked out, but state legislatures are likely to be highly motivated and eager to rake in this new source of revenue. The TaxJar blog will be a good source for updates as more compliance information becomes available.