Question on Sales Tax

Hello,

I know many of you run websites in the states that offer products. I was wondering how sales tax works. I notice some sites say that if you live in "CA" or "NY" there will be a x% sales tax added to the total. I can only assume this is because the persons business is registered in that state.

If this is the case, do you only need to collect sales tax for the state your business runs out of? I can't find a concrete answer on this.

 

How it is currently set up where my retail sites do business out of I only need to collect sales tax from those customers who live in my state. This of course changes if you have business locals throughout the country.

Some states such as the one I live in also have county taxes that you also need to take into account. When a customer is out of your state ordering it is usually up to them to pay the tax at the end of the year to their state via a 'sales and use' or similiar tax declaration.


---edit in any event you should of course contact your accountant.

 

Thank you for your reply. I am in the process of contacting my accountant but wanted to see what people here had to say. Its exciting starting a new business but also frustrating because it seems you need to hire a lawyer and accountant to start to make sense of everything.