Are You Making Sales Tax Mistakes?

For many companies, when the topic of sales tax comes up, the first response from most of the staff will be, “What’s the big deal? I just need a rate.” But when you ask a Controller or Finance professional, their first response is usually, “They don’t understand. It’s so much more than a rate.”

Sales tax is more complex than ever and the rules of the game are constantly changing, making it increasingly difficult to maintain accuracy. Even the most seasoned tax professionals would have to be super human to be 100% on top of current rates, rules, jurisdictions, exemptions, and holidays.

Here’s why different responses in the same company are a problem: Over 70% of the time, the tax and accounting departments aren’t even responsible for managing tax compliance (charging sales tax, collecting exemption certificates, etc…). For many companies, it’s the credit department who carries that burden. This disconnect in how sales tax is managed and by whom, often results in tax rate, taxability, and jurisdiction errors.

What are the common misconceptions around sales tax compliance?

Misconception 1: Sales Tax is Easy

Downloading rate tables, visiting state websites, plugging numbers into invoicing systems, determining exempt sales and filling out complex tax return forms manually are all unbelievably time consuming and fraught with error. That’s because sales tax is hard. There are countless things that go into ensuring sales tax is being done correctly and when you tie in the fact that there are more than 12,000 taxing jurisdictions, thousands of product taxability rules in the U.S., and the rules are subject to change, it’s not easy.

Misconception 2: My ERP Already Automates Sales Tax

Most Enterprise Resource Planning Solutions (ERP) have built-in sales tax functionality, but it’s very basic. Not only does it require manual work to configure and update, you can’t be fully accurate as most sales tax functions provided by the ERP use zip-code based tax tables to drive the calculation. There is also usually limited support for handling specific sales tax rules tied to sourcing, product taxability or exemptions. In addition, the sales tax reporting available doesn’t expose the data in a format required to support the filing process and some “accounting gymnastics” are still required of the accounting team or CPA to try and pull it all together.

Misconception 3: Sales Tax Automation is only for Big Companies

“My company is too small” or “We only have to collect in one state” are common objections we hear. Companies of all sizes can benefit from sales tax automation as risk is risk whether you collect tax in one state or all states. Also, any time spent on it is wasted time that could be focused on the business versus the pass through activity of sales tax. Factor in a sales tax platform that is delivered as a SaaS solution with pricing based on usage and you have ROI for small businesses all the way up to the enterprise.

The bottom line is, fast, accurate calculation of sales tax impacts customer satisfaction and improves sales. Complete reporting of taxable and exempt sales saves time and lowers audit risk.

Read these Top 10 Tax Tips to learn easy ways you can avoid a costly audit.

Untitled-1

Want to learn more? Ask the tax experts at Avalara live and in person at FMT Consultant’s upcoming event nVerge on Thursday, September 25th, or contact FMT Consultants today

©
2024
 FMT Consultants
|
Privacy Policy
|
Your Privacy Choices
X
FMT

Contact Us

X
FMT

Newsletter Sign-up

menu linkedin facebook pinterest youtube rss twitter instagram facebook-blank rss-blank linkedin-blank pinterest youtube twitter instagram