unfortunately TaxJar only files state level sales tax returns, they won't file county, city or municipality jurisdictions in Colorado with our 638 different taxing jurisdictions and home rules.
Thank you for the helpful video. From my research, Avalara by far has the most comprehensive options, with cost-effective scalable solutions. Plus they can integrate with over 600 accounting platforms.
Hello one question Patti, for marketplace selling within the usa i understand we can use taxjar, stripe tax etc...., now what if we ship also outside the usa and cross border to europe and middle eats etc...do we need to do change to another platform maybe , or it is the buyers that pays the VAT and taxes and duties , like anormal export sale ?, this is for a B2B marketplace facilitator for apparel and accessories .thanks
For international sales that require VAT there are a few key items. • VAT is Tax Inclusive, so you need to add ~20% to the sale price of the product. (remember to set the VAT collected aside so you have it ready when it is due) • Inbound VAT, in most cases, when shipping into the EU / UK, there will be an Inbound VAT charge that will be credited when you pay your VAT. • We recommend partnering with a VAT provider to help with completing registrations (the Amazon process is on 33% to have a complete registration). Simplyvat.com has a good reputation, and we have worked with them for years.
This was great. I'm looking to find a solution for the construction trade in Washington State to file sales tax. Do you know of any of these that would handle that?
We work exclusively with ecommerce clients, so I can't help you out. I recommend you reach out to one of the companies in the video and see what they can do for you.
Patti, thank you very much for your work on this helpful video! I hope you can post an update soon - as you mentioned these technologies change rapidly! Much appreciate your assistance! :-)
Thanks for the video. Question for you. Who is actually physically collecting the sales tax from the orders? Is that Tax Jar or Amazon? I am just curious if that sales tax gets pulled aside. Or Does Amazon just collect it and pay it out to you with your bi-weekly payouts? Thanks
Good question. It's the shopping carts that collect the money based on the sales tax settings in each system. So... Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Magento, etc. You tell them what to collect, and they collect it and send it to you as part of the payouts. Btw, never, ever, ever collect sales tax without first registering for a sales tax license in whichever jurisdiction(s) you intend to collect. That's illegal.
So, I'm a digital photography seller. I have read it is tax exempt in my state. Am I correct in thinking that I don't have to charge sales tax if it gets sold in other states?
It depends on the volume of your sales (both number of transactions and dollar amount) as well as the states you're selling into and their rules. Different states have different rules, including what's called "economic nexus." If you're just selling a handful of things per state, I wouldn't worry about it, but if it's more than that, you should talk to a sales tax expert.
Hello. Quick question. What is the difference between tax jar (and the others mentioned in the video) and a2x? Also, is tax jar used for the same thing as quickbooks ? Thank you.
QuickBooks is what's called a "general ledger." You use it to keep track of all the finances related to your business - money coming in and going out for every single thing... credit cards, loans, deposits, expenses... the whole thing. You use it to know how your business is doing financially as a whole. A2X and TaxJar are specific tools used for specific purposes. A2X is used to pull information from different marketplaces (Shopify and Amazon, specifically) and easily and accurately summarize that information for use in your general ledger so you can track performance without overwhelming QuickBooks with tons of data it doesn't need. TaxJar is used specifically for filing sales tax returns.
@@AcuityEcommerce when signing up for tax jar as an amazon seller, would you recommend gong with the starter pack for $19/month or the professional pack for $99/month ?
Very helpful. I am a (1) employee biz that sells in (almost) all 50 states...registered in CA and NC (where we are located) I average about 50 - 80 transactions /month. Most of all are on my website (woocommerce) the rest are manually processed on Quickbooks. Any suggestion on which of the (3) would be best and most cost effective?
These are all about the filing of returns. It's up to each company and their sales tax advisors to determine whether they reach economic nexus thresholds and take action accordingly (i.e., register, collect, file).
@@AcuityEcommerce so none currently keeps track of current economic Nexus laws and alerts you when you've passed a threshold in a particular state? people are just manually tracking in Excel or whatever for every state? seems crazy also begs the question, how are states policing?
I suggest also mentioning the SST program. Of the companies reviewed only Avalara and Taxify are Certified Providers. A company may have the cost of processing transactions and filings paid by the state in 24 member states. The savings alone could offset the higher cost of AvaTax.
We don't support or recommend using SST for ecommerce businesses who have nexus and registrations in both the SST states and non-SST states. We strongly recommend that all ecommerce sellers outsource their sales tax to a SALT (Sales and Local Tax) expert.
Any advice regarding best solution to use when selling on a single channel (website only) and when 80+ % of sales are to tax-exempt entities? We're evaluating these three and Vertex Cloud. Thanks!
Hi Patty, do you integrate Taxify with BigCommerce? I'm on their website and don't see them integration list? Thank you in advance for your help, I learn a lot from your channel.
Taxify doesn't integrate with BigCommerce, but you can manually import the sales. Make sure you compare the BC data and orders to the data in Taxify to make sure there weren't any issues with the import.
Hi, thank you so much for this video. It was very helpful. Do you know if TaxJar does anything internationally? I am selling worldwide as well and I have no idea how to file those sales tax.
It sounds like you're talking about VAT (value-added tax). You'd have to ask TaxJar, but I highly doubt they're doing anything with that. US sales tax keeps everyone busy enough! :)
Thanks for the mention and in-depth overview, Patti. Very helpful. 👏Lots of great tips! As you mentioned, technology moves fast and we wanted to share a few notes on some of our features... -TaxJar has an integration with BigCommerce if sellers are looking an alternate to the built-in calculations: www.bigcommerce.com/apps/taxjar/ -We also recently launched support for exemptions/wholesale sellers. Learn more on our blog: blog.taxjar.com/feature-set-tax-exempt-wholesale-transactions/ -If you need past years data TaxJar can also help you look backwards by downloading historical data within your account: support.taxjar.com/article/23-once-i-sign-up-for-an-account-how-far-back-does-the-data-go. Depending on your situation, we typically don't support the *filing* of past returns, but you can always get your reports created based on data from previous years in just a few clicks. -You can find our pricing here: taxjar.com/pricing and we aways provide a free 30-day trial for all merchants or developers Thanks again!
So Let me get this right they want me to pay $200 and it's thick to get a license to claim taxes then I want eBay taxes PayPal taxes and taxes on the item and the store pay taxes on it and I bought it and pay taxes on it and when I sell it you want me to pay taxes on it and when they sell it that you want them to pay taxes on it is the tax for the item or for doing business
I didn't actually follow that, but it doesn't sound right. :) The only one who actually pays sales tax (when handled properly) is the final consumer of the product. The seller collects the sales tax from that final consumer and remits their tax to the state. Assuming the seller bought the product from their supplier, they also do NOT pay tax as long as they give the supplier proof (via a sales tax exemption certificate) that they will be collecting tax from the end user. Bureaucracy like crazy, but only one person should be paying the tax when it's working right.
@@AcuityEcommerce retail sellers get their product second hand so that means it has to come from Walmart or some store when I buy it from Walmart i Pay Texas and then if I sell it they want me to pay taxes on it again and they want me to a register for my tax license if I sell more than 200 items in each state$200 for the license and then they suggest I get a text helping tracker to help me keep track of all the taxes I'm supposed to be collecting how many times do you collect taxes on one thing and for what is the tax for that item or is it for doing business
@@AcuityEcommerce I bought something from Goodwill online and it was $15 they charged me $10 shipping $4 Handling fee and Taxes is that legal how do they make us pay taxes on something they don't even buy or they don't even got to pay taxes what are we paying taxes on
@@AcuityEcommerce Are nonprofit organizations like Goodwill allowed to charge you taxes on things that they didn't pay for and is the taxes on a shipping allowed to be more than what your item cost is there a thing called customer consumer protection because they don't pay taxes but they're charging me taxes and shipping and handling ain't handling their job why do I have to pay for it if their employer pays for that that's not my job to pay for you to do your job right
@@AcuityEcommerce and since a Goodwill is a second hand store how can we pay taxes when the person that donated the item already paid taxes on it when they purchased it from the store im i worng?
Do yourself a big favor and don't get involved with avalara! Do some research and you will find out why. Highly unprofessional borderline scam, be careful! I lost a lot of money.
I would not listen to anything this woman is saying. Avalara's AvaTax integrates with over 600 platforms and can steaming the information from the calculations straight to filing RETURNS. TrustFile is for only those few marketplaces or platforms we can not integrate with. It DOES NOTHING SHE IS TALKING ABOUT. Why would they file incorrectly for their customers. I doubt this woman has even used any of these solutions. She also said AvaTax takes a lot of manual work but this is also completely incorrect. You do have to map out your products but after that maintenance is minimal - Especially compared to Tax Jar. Listening to her will get you audited.
As I mentioned in the video, everyone should do their own research and figure out the solution that works best for them. This video is based on our company's seven years of experience following and/or using the tools with our multi-million dollar omnichannel clients. If AvaTax works for you, great. More power to you (and to Avalara). I appreciate you taking the time to provide your feedback.
Trustfile does not process sales tax correctly as it only remits the tax collected. It will automatically adjust sales numbers which would be a huge red flag in the event of an audit. Riddle me this John - if Avatax is so easy to use and doesn't take a ton of time to set up, then why are there always $1k+ initialization fees to assist with set-up?
@@AcuityEcommerce I think it's more regarding accurate information. I am not sure all the Avalara details you have provided are fully accurate. I don't think anyone integrates with Amazon for tax calculations, but I may be wrong. Avalara does integrate with Shopify+ and Magento 1 and 2 (thousands of customers using this connector and for years), and they do update their rates on a monthly basis or sooner if there is an out of turn change in taxability. I don't care to say who is better, but I know that Avalara has a large group of individuals who work to ensure tax calculations are as accurate as possible. Trustfile is more for customers who don't want to pay the prices for AvaTax, but still want assistance and an easier method to file their returns (not calculate tax). Trustfile has been upgraded significantly from 5 years ago, but I cannot speak to how great a product it is, but is like a lower tier product for a specific type of customer/filer.
@@alexoxfordcmi3114 You can ask a sales rep that if you'd like. He is not wrong. The initial set up can take some time considering the data being discussed; state registrations, product/service types and how to handle them (mapping to AvaTax tax codes, they have over 2000 based on state rules and regulations), multiple companies (some have thousands of companies under one account, which EACH company may require all the items listed in this post. Definitely not a one click process), location based filers, marketplace sales (yes Amazon), exempt customers (again some have tens of thousands, know an easy way to do this, let me know), VAT/international taxes, and more. If you have a simple solution on how to set these up in minimal steps, I would absolutely love to hear it. The information they are configuring is important and not something to be taken lightly. No one denies the set up may be lengthy and tedious, but once a customer is set up in AvaTax, it can literally be auto-pilot if you want it to be, IF your configuration is accurate, which the implementation team is here to do their best to ensure it is. I just thought you should know. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks!
Thanks for watching! Do you use one of these tools? Which one? And what do you like/dislike about it?
unfortunately TaxJar only files state level sales tax returns, they won't file county, city or municipality jurisdictions in Colorado with our 638 different taxing jurisdictions and home rules.
@@debscreations Avalara will file those for you. It may be pricey, but they do cover local returns as well as state level returns.
@@joshuaqueen2918 Avalara is WAY too expensive!
@@debscreations I can accept that, but they can file at the local level for their customers who opt into the filing service. CO is complex.
@@joshuaqueen2918 actually I don't find Colorado to be complex, it's easy when you know what you're doing.
Thank you so much. My CPA informed us about TaxJar. It's great to have a CPA who is working with ECommerce.
Glad it was helpful!
Thank you for the helpful video. From my research, Avalara by far has the most comprehensive options, with cost-effective scalable solutions. Plus they can integrate with over 600 accounting platforms.
Thanks for watching!
Lol guy has Avalara in the cover photo and has the guts to say "from my research" 🤣🤣🤣
Avalara is by far the strongest platform. Biggest in the world for a reason.
I always recommend everyone checks out all solutions (including ones not listed here) to find out what's right for you!
Yes thank you for the video. Watching in 2020.
Thanks for watching!
Hello one question Patti, for marketplace selling within the usa i understand we can use taxjar, stripe tax etc...., now what if we ship also outside the usa and cross border to europe and middle eats etc...do we need to do change to another platform maybe , or it is the buyers that pays the VAT and taxes and duties , like anormal export sale ?, this is for a B2B marketplace facilitator for apparel and accessories .thanks
For international sales that require VAT there are a few key items.
• VAT is Tax Inclusive, so you need to add ~20% to the sale price of the product. (remember to set the VAT collected aside so you have it ready when it is due)
• Inbound VAT, in most cases, when shipping into the EU / UK, there will be an Inbound VAT charge that will be credited when you pay your VAT.
• We recommend partnering with a VAT provider to help with completing registrations (the Amazon process is on 33% to have a complete registration). Simplyvat.com has a good reputation, and we have worked with them for years.
great value there! well done!! and keep going!!
Thanks so much!
This was great.
I'm looking to find a solution for the construction trade in Washington State to file sales tax.
Do you know of any of these that would handle that?
We work exclusively with ecommerce clients, so I can't help you out. I recommend you reach out to one of the companies in the video and see what they can do for you.
Gracias from Peru! ❤️ 😙
De nada!
Patti, thank you very much for your work on this helpful video! I hope you can post an update soon - as you mentioned these technologies change rapidly! Much appreciate your assistance! :-)
Glad it was helpful! When it comes to sales tax, the technologies haven't been adapting quick as quickly as I'd hope. ;)
Thanks for the overview! Appreciate your work for the community.
My pleasure, Matthew! :)
Thanks for the video. Question for you. Who is actually physically collecting the sales tax from the orders? Is that Tax Jar or Amazon? I am just curious if that sales tax gets pulled aside. Or Does Amazon just collect it and pay it out to you with your bi-weekly payouts?
Thanks
Good question. It's the shopping carts that collect the money based on the sales tax settings in each system. So... Amazon, Shopify, eBay, Magento, etc. You tell them what to collect, and they collect it and send it to you as part of the payouts.
Btw, never, ever, ever collect sales tax without first registering for a sales tax license in whichever jurisdiction(s) you intend to collect. That's illegal.
Thanks! I guess I got a little confused by Tax Jar because by their name alone it suggests they would be collecting and holding it for you.
So, I'm a digital photography seller. I have read it is tax exempt in my state. Am I correct in thinking that I don't have to charge sales tax if it gets sold in other states?
It depends on the volume of your sales (both number of transactions and dollar amount) as well as the states you're selling into and their rules. Different states have different rules, including what's called "economic nexus."
If you're just selling a handful of things per state, I wouldn't worry about it, but if it's more than that, you should talk to a sales tax expert.
Hello. Quick question. What is the difference between tax jar (and the others mentioned in the video) and a2x? Also, is tax jar used for the same thing as quickbooks ? Thank you.
QuickBooks is what's called a "general ledger." You use it to keep track of all the finances related to your business - money coming in and going out for every single thing... credit cards, loans, deposits, expenses... the whole thing. You use it to know how your business is doing financially as a whole.
A2X and TaxJar are specific tools used for specific purposes.
A2X is used to pull information from different marketplaces (Shopify and Amazon, specifically) and easily and accurately summarize that information for use in your general ledger so you can track performance without overwhelming QuickBooks with tons of data it doesn't need.
TaxJar is used specifically for filing sales tax returns.
@@AcuityEcommerce Thank you!
@@AcuityEcommerce when signing up for tax jar as an amazon seller, would you recommend gong with the starter pack for $19/month or the professional pack for $99/month ?
Don't know. You should reach out to TaxJar support with this question.
This was very informative. Thank you.
Glad it was helpful!
Very helpful. I am a (1) employee biz that sells in (almost) all 50 states...registered in CA and NC (where we are located) I average about 50 - 80 transactions /month. Most of all are on my website (woocommerce) the rest are manually processed on Quickbooks. Any suggestion on which of the (3) would be best and most cost effective?
Unfortunately, from here you're going to need to do your own research and/or consult with a State and Local Tax (SALT) expert.
which, if any, deals with economic nexus issues best?
These are all about the filing of returns. It's up to each company and their sales tax advisors to determine whether they reach economic nexus thresholds and take action accordingly (i.e., register, collect, file).
@@AcuityEcommerce so none currently keeps track of current economic Nexus laws and alerts you when you've passed a threshold in a particular state? people are just manually tracking in Excel or whatever for every state? seems crazy
also begs the question, how are states policing?
Avalara by far.
Thank you for the informative content of the 3 apps at least we can see the advantages of each apps
Glad it was helpful!
I suggest also mentioning the SST program. Of the companies reviewed only Avalara and Taxify are Certified Providers. A company may have the cost of processing transactions and filings paid by the state in 24 member states. The savings alone could offset the higher cost of AvaTax.
We don't support or recommend using SST for ecommerce businesses who have nexus and registrations in both the SST states and non-SST states. We strongly recommend that all ecommerce sellers outsource their sales tax to a SALT (Sales and Local Tax) expert.
@@AcuityEcommerce Why?
Any advice regarding best solution to use when selling on a single channel (website only) and when 80+ % of sales are to tax-exempt entities? We're evaluating these three and Vertex Cloud. Thanks!
Probably Avalara (AvaTax) so they could do the tax and filing both. (Because of the tax-exempt entities. TaxJar is weak on tax-exempt.)
If selling memberships to online discussion groups, are sales taxes applied according to where we are, or where each subscriber is located???
That sounds like a perfect question for your State and Local Tax expert. :) (Different states have different rules.)
Hi Patty, do you integrate Taxify with BigCommerce? I'm on their website and don't see them integration list? Thank you in advance for your help, I learn a lot from your channel.
Taxify doesn't integrate with BigCommerce, but you can manually import the sales.
Make sure you compare the BC data and orders to the data in Taxify to make sure there weren't any issues with the import.
Hi, thank you so much for this video. It was very helpful. Do you know if TaxJar does anything internationally? I am selling worldwide as well and I have no idea how to file those sales tax.
It sounds like you're talking about VAT (value-added tax). You'd have to ask TaxJar, but I highly doubt they're doing anything with that. US sales tax keeps everyone busy enough! :)
Avalara does!
I have windows 10 avalara MTD will not work on my computer & suggestions
I would reach out to Avalara's support.
Thanks so much for your insight.
You're very welcome!
Thank you so Much JOHN TENUTO
You're very welcome!
Thanks for the mention and in-depth overview, Patti. Very helpful. 👏Lots of great tips!
As you mentioned, technology moves fast and we wanted to share a few notes on some of our features...
-TaxJar has an integration with BigCommerce if sellers are looking an alternate to the built-in calculations: www.bigcommerce.com/apps/taxjar/
-We also recently launched support for exemptions/wholesale sellers. Learn more on our blog: blog.taxjar.com/feature-set-tax-exempt-wholesale-transactions/
-If you need past years data TaxJar can also help you look backwards by downloading historical data within your account: support.taxjar.com/article/23-once-i-sign-up-for-an-account-how-far-back-does-the-data-go. Depending on your situation, we typically don't support the *filing* of past returns, but you can always get your reports created based on data from previous years in just a few clicks.
-You can find our pricing here: taxjar.com/pricing and we aways provide a free 30-day trial for all merchants or developers
Thanks again!
Great! Thanks for giving everyone an update, TaxJar!
what is everyone's preference, Avalara or Taxjar?
I'm planning a follow-up video in another month or two. Stay tuned. :)
So Let me get this right they want me to pay $200 and it's thick to get a license to claim taxes then I want eBay taxes PayPal taxes and taxes on the item and the store pay taxes on it and I bought it and pay taxes on it and when I sell it you want me to pay taxes on it and when they sell it that you want them to pay taxes on it is the tax for the item or for doing business
I didn't actually follow that, but it doesn't sound right. :)
The only one who actually pays sales tax (when handled properly) is the final consumer of the product. The seller collects the sales tax from that final consumer and remits their tax to the state. Assuming the seller bought the product from their supplier, they also do NOT pay tax as long as they give the supplier proof (via a sales tax exemption certificate) that they will be collecting tax from the end user.
Bureaucracy like crazy, but only one person should be paying the tax when it's working right.
@@AcuityEcommerce retail sellers get their product second hand so that means it has to come from Walmart or some store when I buy it from Walmart i Pay Texas and then if I sell it they want me to pay taxes on it again and they want me to a register for my tax license if I sell more than 200 items in each state$200 for the license and then they suggest I get a text helping tracker to help me keep track of all the taxes I'm supposed to be collecting how many times do you collect taxes on one thing and for what is the tax for that item or is it for doing business
@@AcuityEcommerce I bought something from Goodwill online and it was $15 they charged me $10 shipping $4 Handling fee and Taxes is that legal how do they make us pay taxes on something they don't even buy or they don't even got to pay taxes what are we paying taxes on
@@AcuityEcommerce Are nonprofit organizations like Goodwill allowed to charge you taxes on things that they didn't pay for and is the taxes on a shipping allowed to be more than what your item cost is there a thing called customer consumer protection because they don't pay taxes but they're charging me taxes and shipping and handling ain't handling their job why do I have to pay for it if their employer pays for that that's not my job to pay for you to do your job right
@@AcuityEcommerce and since a Goodwill is a second hand store how can we pay taxes when the person that donated the item already paid taxes on it when they purchased it from the store im i worng?
Do yourself a big favor and don't get involved with avalara! Do some research and you will find out why. Highly unprofessional borderline scam, be careful! I lost a lot of money.
Thank you for sharing your experience.
I would not listen to anything this woman is saying. Avalara's AvaTax integrates with over 600 platforms and can steaming the information from the calculations straight to filing RETURNS. TrustFile is for only those few marketplaces or platforms we can not integrate with. It DOES NOTHING SHE IS TALKING ABOUT. Why would they file incorrectly for their customers. I doubt this woman has even used any of these solutions. She also said AvaTax takes a lot of manual work but this is also completely incorrect. You do have to map out your products but after that maintenance is minimal - Especially compared to Tax Jar. Listening to her will get you audited.
As I mentioned in the video, everyone should do their own research and figure out the solution that works best for them. This video is based on our company's seven years of experience following and/or using the tools with our multi-million dollar omnichannel clients.
If AvaTax works for you, great. More power to you (and to Avalara).
I appreciate you taking the time to provide your feedback.
Trustfile does not process sales tax correctly as it only remits the tax collected. It will automatically adjust sales numbers which would be a huge red flag in the event of an audit.
Riddle me this John - if Avatax is so easy to use and doesn't take a ton of time to set up, then why are there always $1k+ initialization fees to assist with set-up?
@@AcuityEcommerce I think it's more regarding accurate information. I am not sure all the Avalara details you have provided are fully accurate. I don't think anyone integrates with Amazon for tax calculations, but I may be wrong.
Avalara does integrate with Shopify+ and Magento 1 and 2 (thousands of customers using this connector and for years), and they do update their rates on a monthly basis or sooner if there is an out of turn change in taxability. I don't care to say who is better, but I know that Avalara has a large group of individuals who work to ensure tax calculations are as accurate as possible.
Trustfile is more for customers who don't want to pay the prices for AvaTax, but still want assistance and an easier method to file their returns (not calculate tax). Trustfile has been upgraded significantly from 5 years ago, but I cannot speak to how great a product it is, but is like a lower tier product for a specific type of customer/filer.
@@alexoxfordcmi3114 You can ask a sales rep that if you'd like. He is not wrong. The initial set up can take some time considering the data being discussed; state registrations, product/service types and how to handle them (mapping to AvaTax tax codes, they have over 2000 based on state rules and regulations), multiple companies (some have thousands of companies under one account, which EACH company may require all the items listed in this post. Definitely not a one click process), location based filers, marketplace sales (yes Amazon), exempt customers (again some have tens of thousands, know an easy way to do this, let me know), VAT/international taxes, and more. If you have a simple solution on how to set these up in minimal steps, I would absolutely love to hear it. The information they are configuring is important and not something to be taken lightly. No one denies the set up may be lengthy and tedious, but once a customer is set up in AvaTax, it can literally be auto-pilot if you want it to be, IF your configuration is accurate, which the implementation team is here to do their best to ensure it is.
I just thought you should know. Let me know if you have questions. Thanks!
John Daniell I integrated Avalara with Big Commerce. Does Avalara remit the Sales Tax for me to my state? I’m located in California.