#sales-tax
Sales tax compliance, nexus rules, filing requirements, and tax automation for businesses
Client wardrobe advances are pass-through funds, not revenue — the bookkeeping distinction that determines whether a freelance stylist's books reconcile. Covers Schedule C, why work clothing is almost never deductible, the home-office exclusivity test, sales tax on markup resale, 1099-NEC vs 1099-K, and a minimal chart of accounts.
Canada's GST/HST small-supplier exemption is based on worldwide taxable sales, not Canadian-only revenue, so a US seller with zero Canadian sales can already owe registration once global sales pass CA$30,000 in a quarter or over four trailing quarters.
City ordinances now require Airbnb and Vrbo hosts to register short-term rentals, display license numbers, and remit occupancy tax, with per-day fines reaching $2,000 in cities like Los Angeles and $484 in San Francisco for lapsed certificates.
U.S. shoe repair revenue is roughly $315.6 million and shrinking about 2% a year since 2020, yet job costing, split inventory tracking, and correct sales-tax treatment of repair labor are what let surviving cobbler shops price resoles profitably and diversify into leather goods and wholesale work.
US iOS developers can currently run external purchase links at 0% Apple commission while courts settle a replacement rate. This guide covers the bookkeeping fallout — the merchant-of-record shift, sales tax nexus, reconciling two 1099s, and Apple's 15-day transaction reporting rule.
California's SB 122, signed June 29, 2026, extends sales and use tax (7.25% state rate plus local add-ons) to prewritten software and SaaS starting January 1, 2027. Custom software and cloud infrastructure like AWS stay exempt; sellers over 5 million dollars in digital receipts shift collection to purchasers. Here is what's taxable, how billing-address sourcing works, and a compliance checklist.
Illinois eliminated its 200-transaction economic nexus threshold under HB 2755 effective January 1, 2026, leaving a single $100,000 revenue test and offering a limited amnesty window from August 1 to October 31, 2026 for unregistered remote sellers.
Petting zoo admission fees are Schedule C income, not Schedule F farm income — a split that affects self-employment tax, the farmer estimated-tax exception, and audit risk. This guide covers the USDA APHIS Class C exhibitor license ($30–$300/year), liability insurance from $545–$780/year, state admissions-tax traps for mobile trailers, and how to keep agritourism books separate from the farm ledger.
Print-on-demand sellers who are merchants of record (Shopify with Printful or Printify) owe sales tax themselves and can deduct real COGS, while royalty-based marketplace sellers (Redbubble, Amazon Merch, Etsy) owe no sales tax because the platform is a marketplace facilitator and have no deductible COGS at all.
State sales tax auditors use statistical sampling that extrapolates a small error rate across years of transactions, so running a self-audit on use tax accruals, exemption certificates, and nexus exposure before a notice arrives produces a materially better outcome than waiting.
About 30 U.S. states let businesses keep a percentage of the sales tax they collect — a vendor discount or collection allowance — for filing and paying on time, with Colorado eliminating its discount and South Dakota suspending its own heading into 2026.
One missing resale certificate can reprice years of sales as taxable — collect the right form at checkout, validate it on receipt, renew 60 days before expiry, and tie every certificate to its invoices.
