[palmer]

Yes, small volumes are clearly going to cost far more for filing than collection. It will cost you roughly 10 cents for each transaction to figure out what to collect. That service vendor will let you download 50 lists each month or quarter. Most times that will be blank. Other times you might have have one entry for some state.

Then at a monthly or quarterly interval you will have to file (probably e-file) in 50 states with the empty list or list of one or two sales. The list includes the jurisdiction and amount collected. To file in potentiallly 50 states and not lose your sanity, you will need to pay a service to do it for you. Some states make it easy to e-file, but not all and it is still time-consuming. I don't know how much those services cost. I have not seen a lot of open pricing info on the web for those.

[Be Free]

It’s a gross over-simplification to say it’s only 10-cents per transaction. I have more than 1000 products and services I sell. It will be my responsibility to determine which of them are taxable and which aren’t - at least in every state, if not each jurisdiction. I can’t simply go to their site and enter a zip-code & sale price - I have to know whether what I’m selling is taxable or not at the address to where I shipped or provided the service.

Also, I have multiple “channels” for selling: my own web-store; an in-house order-management system; Amazon; & eBay. For reporting & remittance, I would have to combine activity across all platforms first, THEN report/remit. If I integrate with a service directly, then it’s integration expense x2, if not expense x4.

Plus, I checked out The STC (dot) com - not exactly confidence inspiring:

- They state there are some 7000 unique tax jurisdictions in the US, while the Tax Foundation reported it as 9,998 back in 2014. Tax-calc vendor Avalara states there are more than 10,000 today.

- I looked up a sample zip-code here in NC (27012). It straddles 2 counties. STC reported only 1 county, meaning I’d be filing wrong for any transactions shipped to the other county.

- It’s June 2018, yet their web-site copyright date is still showing 2017.

You may not realize this, but small business sellers on-line have as much trouble competing with Amazon as brick-and-mortar sellers. They don’t have the buying power that Amazon does, nor teams of techies managing the marketplace. This Supreme Court ruling is being sold under the populist notion of saving local merchants. Hogwash. It won’t help them in the slightest, and it will help Amazon by eliminating a large number of SMB online sellers.

[jps098]

"To file in potentially 50 states and not lose your sanity, you will need to pay a service to do it for you."

Liberals think everyone business has a pile of money laying around. I trust you see that a little here and a little there, and there is no reason to try to keep a fledgling business going.

[M-cubed]

If I sell something to a “out of stater” at my yard sale..Do i legally have to pay taxes or does she?....Should I report her out of state license plate # to the state in case she doesn't stop and pay the taxes?......you seem pretty sharp...Id like to know..