Washington State Substitute Senate Bill 5089: Streamlined Sales Tax
On July 1, 2008 Washington State adopted a new tax system where goods are taxed based on their delivery location rather than the point of sale. This may make collecting taxes for physical retail stores easier, but it is a nightmare for anyone selling goods online within Washington State. Imagine now as an online store owner, you have to keep track of over 35,000 tax districts that update quarterly and know what to charge each customer that purchases on your site. And you were supposed to have this done by July 1! Read more about this bill.
So what do you do now? Many ecommerce systems are not equipped to handle such a large quantity of tax rules. NigmaCommerce however is. With services from NigmaCommerce, your system will automatically be able to charge the correct tax rate based on the customers shipping address. With our Washington State Sales Tax Import Wizard, downloading the latest tax rates in excel format and then importing them into your ecommerce system is a matter of clicking a button.
Upgrading to NigmaCommerce is free and easy. Our team will manage the entire transition for you. To sweeten the pot, the Washington State Department of Revenue is offering a $1000 credit for some small businesses. Here is what they say:
“To help retailers transition to destination-based sales tax, the state Department of Revenue provides web resources, tutorials, and other assistance. In addition, after July 1, 2008, certain small retailers are eligible for up to a $1,000 tax credit (to offset any necessary changes to their accounting, point-of-sale, or other systems) or two years of assistance from a certified service provider (CSP) – a third party that handles the coding and files the sales tax returns for businesses. The credit will be available on the excise tax return, beginning with the July 2008 return.”1
You can read more about the tax credit here.
Get started with Nigma today and put these tax nightmares behind you now. If you still are not convinced that you need to upgrade to Nigma, contact us today and talk to a specialist.
1 Text taken from: http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/RetailSalesTax/DestinationBased/MoreSST.aspx