Living Free, Not Dead, New Hampshire Stays Tough

****Sales Tax Buzz breaking news**** UPDATED April 9 below This morning the New Hampshire Senate Commerce, Labor, and Consumer Protection Committee held a hearing on NH SB5, prohibiting retailers from disclosing private consumer information to foreign states in connection with the collection of certain sales and use taxes. This bill, which was sponsored by every [...]

Online Sales Tax Roundup: Internet Cowboys & Cowgirls, Open Your Eyes

UPDATED APRIL 14, 2009 It is my firmly held belief that as one state after another (no matter the size or perceived “importance” of any particular state) will possibly be able to pass Internet sales tax legislation, others are more likely to follow suit. Early adopters can pave the way towards the future in this [...]

ISO Unpaid Hotel Occupancy Taxes, This Time In Georgia

As local jurisdictions are searching high and low for tax revenues, one area they continue to target is unpaid occupancy taxes and, in this vein, yet another online hotel booking company sales tax case has caught my attention, this time coming out of the state of Georgia. For earlier Sales Tax Buzz discussions on this [...]

Minnesota’s Sales Tax Hall of Shame: tsk, tsk

It’s raining here in Seattle today (big surprise), so I’d rather be typing in a bit of a pick-me-up post this morning, but this recent headline from the Minneapolis/St. Paul Business Journal caught my eye: Minnesota’s Web-site-of-shame recovers quarter-million in back sales taxes Ouch! Evidently, the state introduced a practice last year to publish online [...]

Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act: How’s It Going?

In what could very well become historic times in the sales tax arena, I wanted to call attention to a draft federal bill that is set for consideration this Friday, March 20, in a final set of congressional meetings – namely the Sales Tax Fairness and Simplification Act (H.R. 3396 and S. 34), as can [...]

The Case for a SaaS Sales, Use, VAT Solution . . . Now More Than Ever.

Robert D. Kugel, CFA, SVP Research for Ventana Research makes such an eloquent case to CFO’s everywhere — no matter the size of their   businesses — for Software-as-a-Service sales, use, and VAT solutions, as seen in his recent blog entry here and excerpted here: It’s time your company looks into managing its sales and [...]

Today, a rather sardonic word from a guest blogger

This one was sent to me by “Maximus Leader, Esquire,” who is hoping to become a Sales Tax Buzz guest blogger. I’ve received numerous emails from him and although he wants to keep his corporate affiliation private, I will share that he handles sales tax compliance for a medium-sized company. He works on the East [...]

Digital Downloads Sales & Use Tax Cheat Sheet, circa early 2009

No matter how I try to slice or dice this topic, this one just isn’t easy. What was once tangible has become, or can be, intangible tomorrow, if it’s not already so today. The issues of nexus, taxability, and others keep shifting in the virtual world. In fact, just minutes after this post was published, [...]

All of the Sales Tax Marijuana Enjoyment – Without Inhaling, Of Course (updated)

UPDATED March 26, 2009 and July 16, 2009 (see below) Flashbacks are a funny thing. Especially the type that follow, many years later, from non-physically addictive, non-hallucinogenic drug usage. In this case, I’m talking about marijuana. Marijuana: Friend or foe to state lawmakers? And to state budgets? I’ve subscribed to Harper’s for years. It’s also [...]

Blog Wars, The Phantom Menace Tooth Fairy

My SEO guy (and let me note here that if you don’t have one, you just don’t know what you’re missing – mine is helpful, cute, sometimes fuzzy, and is expecting twins with his beautiful wife – so he’s probably going to grow even fuzzier in months to come) pointed me to what has quickly [...]