#sales-tax
Sales tax compliance, nexus rules, filing requirements, and tax automation for businesses
Chicago's lease transaction tax rose from 11% to 15% in 2026 — Illinois businesses now owe $150 a month in city tax on every $1,000 of SaaS.
Season-pass cash is deferred revenue, not August income — and your maze crew is usually non-farm labor owed US overtime. A six-week bookkeeping playbook.
Hawaii has no sales tax — the GET taxes your gross receipts at 4.5% including county surcharges, and 4.712% is the most you may legally show a customer.
A reverse sales tax audit recovers US sales and use tax you overpaid to vendors or self-assessed — most states allow refund claims three to four years back.
Thirty-eight states exempt manufacturing machinery from sales tax, but the break works through exemption certificates you hand vendors, not automatic refunds. Alabama, Hawaii, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, and the Dakotas tax equipment in full or at reduced rates, while repair parts, utilities, and missing paperwork trip up makers everywhere.
Custom wig studios can bill medical clients under HCPCS code A9282 as a cranial prosthesis instead of a cosmetic wig sale — with insurance-ready invoices, physician prescriptions that unlock sales-tax exemptions, IRS Publication 502 deductions for clients, and separate books for cosmetic and medical revenue.
Americans spent a record $13.1 billion on Halloween in 2025, and seasonal stores capture about a third of it. This guide covers weekly cash forecasting, one-shot inventory buying, prepaid lease amortization, transient-vendor licensing, and stretching eight weeks of revenue across twelve months of bills.
Since 2018, trading in a business vehicle is a taxable sale, not a tax-free swap — the trade allowance minus your adjusted basis is gain, depreciation is recaptured as ordinary income on Form 4797, and the new vehicle's depreciable basis is its full cost.
A roller rink is six businesses under one roof — admissions, rentals, parties, concessions, lessons, arcade — and blending them into one revenue line hides which ones pay for the building. How to track each stream, handle admissions tax, capitalize a ~$37,600 skate fleet, book party deposits as liabilities, and fund the annual floor recoat at $0.50–$2.50 per square foot.
Offering layaway for holiday 2026 lets retailers keep the full ticket price instead of paying 4-6% BNPL merchant fees — but deposits must be booked as liabilities until pickup, every fee disclosed in writing before the first payment, and sales tax timed to delivery. This guide covers the accounting entries, state disclosure rules, and the layaway-versus-BNPL math.
A bundled dinner theater ticket is two sales — a taxable meal and an admission many states exempt from sales tax but hit with a separate admissions or amusement levy. This guide covers the three state models (split the ticket, operator-as-consumer, tax the whole bundle), the complimentary-drink rules that tax comps at your cost, and a chart of accounts that keeps ticket, bar, and deferred revenue auditable.
A $600 six-month hen rental collected in May is not $600 of May revenue — it is roughly $100 recognized per month against a deferred revenue liability. How seasonal coop-and-hen rentals price ($425–$650 per package), what one really costs to fulfill (a $900 coop over four years adds about $112.50 per rental in depreciation), and the Schedule C, sales-tax, and KPI setup that keeps the season profitable.
