Join our new blog email announcement mailing list
& our website lists too: GoToGreaPanes.com
New York Sales Tax Annual filers:
If you haven’t already, get your March 1 2012 through February 28 2013 sales tax returns in by midnight tomorrow–March 20, 2013!
See the schedule here:
.
If you’re from NY & filed sales tax returns online, you can find what you remitted to the state through your online Departartment of Taxation & Finance account:
1. Go to the NYS online account page (http://www.tax.ny.gov/online) & click the log in button:
2. This should put you on the the Account Summary Home page–if not click the tab/link in the gray/blue bar:
3. In the main part of the page go down to the “Filings” section of the page & click the drop down menu, select the type of tax record you’d like to see the records for & click the “Go” button:
(click for a larger view)
4. You’ll get a list of the tax returns you’ve filed online through the tax service. Click the blue link for the name of the form you’d like to open:
5. This should pop up a PDF file box for the completed version of the form you submitted–if you don’t have a copy yet, I recommend saving it and printing it.
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2012
This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.
I’ve grouped all the info I’ve posted for NY businesses in one easy to find place–find this page any time using the gold link on the right side of the page:
If you need help with sales tax & business laws for 33 other states in the USA, please see here:
Don’t see your state? Leave a comment on that post and I’ll update it as soon as possible for you.
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2012
As with all information from non-official websites please check your respnosiblities with your state & local authorities–I do my best to link directly to them here, but you should always go read the source yourself to be sure what you see here, or anywhere else, is accurate for you & your business.
Starting a business in NY? These will help you find out what you need to do it properly:
New York State’s Online Permit Assistance & Licensing Site (OPAL):
See the Click here to start link on that page for a questionairre of what types of issues your business may be involved with, and it will present you with your filing requirements and advisory sheets.
The hardest part of using this cool tool is the first step–picking your business type. The design for this section is really poor, and after a lot of clicking I settled on Craft/Hobby Vendor since I don’t have a public location and sell both handmade and supplies. You can use the search box to put in key words to see if there’s something that better suits you.
NYS Sales Tax
In NY you must register with the Dept of Revenue (before you start to sell) to collect sales tax for your on-line sales, for live events where you are a vendor, or for your brick & mortar store if you’ll sell tangible goods to the public:
http://www.tax.state.ny.us/sbc/starting_business.htm
Please note that sales tax is a tax on the buyer and is totally separate from any income tax you will owe at the end of the year for income made through your sales.
You should also contact your city/county offices to be sure you know what local business laws there might be in your area. City/county business offices are where you’ll register your “Doing Business As” name (DBA), which is a requirement in NYS for sellers who are not selling under their given/real name:
NY General Business Code Article 9-B, Section 130
While you can achieve selling without a DBA, it’s not allowed. And if you want to open a business bank account under your business name, a DBA is what you’ll need.
Also see the links on the right for more info on the IRS, Sales Tax and business registration and more.
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2010
NY State Forms
In New York your Certificate of Authority to Collect Sales Tax is needed before you can collect sales tax from in-state customers.
If you sell taxable items from New York State (NYS) should have one regardless of how little you sell, or whether or not you consider yourself just a hobby and not a business. You then remit the sales tax to NYS according to the schedule NYS gives you. It’s quarterly the first year, then the frequency is determined by the State based on how much you collected the first year.
Your Certificate of Authority to Collect Sales Tax is also what gives you the ability to purchase certain goods without paying sales tax. You can buy as a reseller, buy supplies and tools for use in producing tangible personal property that you will sell and buy some promotional materials without paying sales tax.
To purchase eligible items without paying sales tax, you need to fill out and present the proper form–see below. Most stores will keep a copy of your filled out form on hand if you will be buying from them regularly, others want a copy for each purchase.
You should never photocopy or otherwise reproduce your Certificate of Authority to Collect Sales Tax.
There’s a great chart at the end of this page listing exemptions by the type of certificate:
Exemption Certificates for Sales Tax
and the chart here lists them by the type of goods is also useful:
Quick Reference Guide for Taxable and Exempt Property and Services
NYS Dept. of Revenue Forms and Publications Page:
(sales tax forms, income tax, property tax…)
http://www.tax.ny.gov/forms/default.htm
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2010-2012
This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.
This post is a continuation of our “New York Sales Tax” post.
5. Employer Identification Number:
Your business may not be required to get a:
These all refer to the same thing, I don’t know why it goes by so many names!
You’ll need to check the IRS website to see if you have to get one–there’s a link in our “The IRS Website–Links for Businesses” post. While we didn’t need to get one, we chose to, see the linked post for my reason.
If you have an EIN and you register with NY to collect sales tax, your NY Sales Tax ID Number will be the same as your EIN. Just having an EIN does **NOT** mean you are allowed to collect NY sales tax, you must apply for a “Certificate of Authority to Collect Sales Tax” before you are permitted by the state to collect sales tax. (Links to apply for your NYS Certificate of Authority, EIN and other business info will be posted shortly.)
6. Certificate of Authority:
Having a NY Tax ID means you have a NY State “Certificate of Authority” to collect NY sales tax. (Links to apply: NY Business Info)
Certain business tool, supply & promotional purchases can be made tax exempt when you have NY tax id–see here:
7. Collect Sales Tax from Customers, then Remit it to the State
Once you have your NYCertificate of Authority, you collect sales tax from your customers who have packages shipped to New York addresses, and report and pay the sales tax you collect to NYS.
The New York State Department of Taxation & Finance sends you the paperwork once you have been approved to collect sales tax with instructions for collecting from your customers and remitting the money you collect to NYS.
For us, the first year we were required to file quarterly. After the first year, the state assessed our business to be small enough that now we only file once a year. Sales tax is completely separate from your annual state and federal income taxes.
8. You can’t over-charge or under-charge NY sales tax.
I asked the state employees, repeatedly, in hopes of learning it would be ok to so I could either charge a higher rate and refund any overage or I could charge a lower rate and make up the difference out of pocket. The response was always no.
Along that same line, the payment receipt, like the Paypal receipt, must show the accurate amount of sales tax collected:
“You must separately state the total amount of sales tax due on any receipt or invoice that you give to your customer.”
See it on this NYS web page–the last sentence in the paragraph under “Showing the sales tax on the invoice”:
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2010-2012
This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.
This information doesn’t cover all areas of sales tax and when/how to apply it. This is based on my knowledge of NY State business info, and I advise you to re-check the info with NYS publications and employees yourself which is why I try to link to the info on the state website for reference.
Please-please-please–Always double check info you get on-line with the authorities.
Each state has its own regulations–posts for other states can be found here: Sales Tax & Business Registration Help
This NYS document is a great place to start, it has the basics for NY Sales Tax–it’s a PDF file:
Be sure to register before you start collecting NYS sales tax. NYS start up info here: NYS Business Links
Some commonly asked about NY Sales Tax issues:
1. New York has destination-based sales tax:
Destination-based sales tax means you collect sales tax at the rate where the buyer takes possesion of the goods–if you mail an item that’s the rate at the address you mail it to, not the location you mail it from/the seller is located in.
To find the tax for a specific New York address use this on-line tool:
http://www8.tax.ny.gov/STLR/stlrHome
Don’t forget to make sure your items fall under the general sales tax rate by checking the blue “Limitations on Use” link on that page. Clothing, food items and other products may not get the same rate as everything else gets at a particular location.
Limitations on Use: http://www.tax.state.ny.us/e-services/stlr/stlrinfo.htm
2. What sales tax rate do I use?
In-Person Sales–Use the Local Sales Tax Rate:
For in-person sales, you charge the state and local tax for the location where the buyer takes possession of the item.
For example, when you are at a craft show, you charge the rate based on the street address of the show. It’s still destination based–as far as the tax rate is concerned the destination is where the seller hands the goods off. See it on the NYS website here:
Shipping Items You Sell–Use the Ship-To Address to Get the Rate:
If you sell through the internet, by mail or by phone, the location is the address to which the item is shipped regardless of the location of the buyer or seller.
This means that collecting the tax based on your location is not correct unless you happen to live in a zone with the same tax rate as the delivery address. (You’re also not allowed to over-charge or under-charge–see NY Sales Tax continued, link at the end of this post.)
See it on the NYS website here:
3. You can’t use Paypal’s sales tax calculator for NY Sales Tax
(nor Etsy’s sales tax feature)
NY has more than 10 different tax rates across the state based on our 60+ counties that can only be determined by using the buyer’s street address AND zip code, which means you can’t set up Paypal (or Etsy) to accurately charge NY sales tax.
Even if you put all the 5 digit zip codes for NY in the sales tax function, it will not charge sales tax appropriately for NYers because the sales tax rates are determined by political zones (counties) which are not defined by 5 digit zip codes since 5 digit zip codes can cross county lines–you’d need the full 9 digit zip code to determine the right zone. (You cannot put 9 digit zip codes in the tax calcualtor, so even if you wanted to spend a week doing it, you can’t.)
You can even have two houses next to each other in the same zip code and each has a different sales tax rate because they are in different counties and so they fall under different political jurisdictions. Here’s what we do for our NY Etsy sales:
4. There is Sales Tax on Shipping if items are taxable:
NY sales tax is also applied to shipping charges for taxable items, unless you use a third party service to ship your items, in which case they charge you tax on their service (so you don’t charge it to your buyer).
For example, a pack and ship store will charge you sales tax on their services, and you pass that cost on to your buyer in the total cost; you don’t re-tax that amount since sales tax has already been paid on it. That’s different than when you mail an item to a buyer.
See it on on the NYS website: http://www.tax.ny.gov/pubs_and_bulls/tg_bulletins/st/taxable_receipt.htm
It gets more complicated if only some of the goods in the transaction are taxable–see here for full details:
Technical Services Bureau TSB-M-92 (2)S–PDF
Commonly asked questions about NY sales tax is continued here:
Go To Great Panes, Kathryn Maloney ©2010-2012
This post is copyrighted–you do not have permission to repost this content elsewhere but you are welcome to link to it if you’d like to share the information.
NEW: Blog Email List--click here
Subscribe via feed:
Subscribe to our blog comments:
Bookmark our blog:
Visit our Etsy Shop: GoTo |