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Selling online: tax?

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Selling online: tax?
« on: December 09, 2012, 05:14:39 AM »
 

Adriaan

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Hi all

allthough I only just registered to this forum, I've been reading it for some time now.

At the moment I'm looking into having a deck of my own produced. Before starting the creative process I'm working out the financials. I have one question about this for people that already sold cards in the US (and produced them in the US):

I'm based in Belgium, but the cards will be produced and distributed in the US.

When I sell the cards in the US (so they never leave the country) via an online store: do I need to pay sales tax?
If so, how much?

Grtz

Adriaan
« Last Edit: December 09, 2012, 05:15:19 AM by Adriaan »
 

Re: Selling online: tax?
« Reply #1 on: December 09, 2012, 06:43:50 AM »
 

Don Boyer

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Sales taxes are charged at the state level.  It will depend on the physical location of the web store.  If the state it's in charges a sales tax, and residents of that state must pay that sales tax when ordering.

For out-of-state orders, in most cases, you won't be charging sales tax.  Some states, such as New York, have laws on the books that ALL out-of-state purchases, be they online or at a store, are charged NY sales tax.  But in most cases, the law is nearly impossible to enforce and it's left to the purchaser to report the sale on their taxes (or not).  But NY is making arrangements with major web retailers such as Amazon to charge the state tax for them rather than relying on the kindness of NY taxpayers.  I'm sure they use some sort of "carrot versus stick" approach, threatening legal difficulties if the retailers don't comply.

The US doesn't have anything like VAT in Europe.  Sales taxes are paid by the buyer.  There's probably business licensing fees and business taxes, but they're tied to overall income rather than a specific product or sale.
« Last Edit: December 09, 2012, 06:45:50 AM by Don Boyer »
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