Is there a polite way to say -

[Cia]

Dear Mush-for-Brains,

Pay your freakin' taxes!

Love, Cia

I'm so tired of end users, electricals and everyone under the sun thinking they are special so they don't have to pay sales, use and/or excise taxes.

Firstly you don't qualify as a not-for-profit, governmental or tribal entity; secondly the State hates you so you don't have the correct license and thirdly NEEEEE!

How hard is it to call the helpful Revenue people up in Pierre or the local Revenue Dept. office - if your town is large enough to have one - and ask them before deciding you are a very special pony so therefore you are gypping me out of taxes. That I have to pay anyways, mind you. Which then means I have to send you a letter, cause if I call I'll end up calling you a mush-for-brains, explaining chapter/verse and tax code number the reason why you have to pay the taxes we charge you.

Which reminds me I gotta look up Minnesota sales tax on labor again...does it apply to service labor, install labor or new construction labor.....freakin' non excise tax states.

[bean]

In Texas, most grocery store items are non-taxable. Food that's not prepared anyway (i.e. a lot of that stuff in the deli is taxable except for sliced meets/cheeses, so is alcohol).

Every now and then I'll get someone from out of the state buying groceries for whoever they're staying with, I'll ring up $200+ of stuff for them, and then they see the "Tax: .00" line on the customer screen and ask me why there's no tax, or very little tax and ask what the tax rate is (it's 8.25% in this area) and wonder why they didn't get charged for it. We get a lot of people from Oklahoma, apparently all groceries are taxable there from what a few have told me.

[tropicsgoddess]

Sometimes we have tax breaks/holidays for a short time for hurricane supply items and/or school supplies in my state (Florida) sometime before school starts.

[Andara Bledin]

We sometimes get those special snowflakes who don't have a valid resale certificate and who don't feel like paying the tax on their orders.

That's fine. We don't ship without full payment or a copy of either a resale certificate or the resale form. It's not like it's rocket science or some arcane mystery.

^-.-^

[jiarby]

Here is what we tell them...

We dont CHARGE sales tax.... we just COLLECT it. If you have your paperwork then we'll copy it to keep on file. If you don't then your accountant can deduct the tax you pay today from your monthly tax return.

[wagegoth]

Many years ago when I lived in Nevada the sales tax was about 3%, but they taxed everything. Then they removed the sales tax on groceries and quickly raised it to 6%.

Here in California, the sales tax is around 9% or so, depending on the country you live in, but there's no sales tax on groceries, except for prepared food and certain other items (it keeps changing).

[BookstoreEscapee]

In Texas, most grocery store items are non-taxable. Food that's not prepared anyway (i.e. a lot of that stuff in the deli is taxable except for sliced meets/cheeses, so is alcohol).

New Jersey is the same. There's no sales tax on groceries or clothing. (Prepared foods/restaurant foods are taxed.)

[EricKei]

Here in Luuuuuziana, it's 8.75% on most items in my area, and everything is taxed except for services. The only way to avoid tax is to either (a) be legitimately exempt, or (b) be buying non-prepared foods with a foodstamp card or WIC card.

[ottid]

In NZ we have Goods and Service Tax. Almost everything has 12.5% slapped on it, but we don't notice because most places don't advertise the price without tax

Is ay most because I'm sure there are the odd items that are exempt, but I would not know what they are. People keep popping up with the idea to not have GST on "good" food items, but then everyone argues as to how to term "good" food items.

OP: I'm sure they think that they can get away with it, that the IRS will never find out that they didn't pay you so that you could pay the tax...

[Cia]

It's State tax no Federalies involved.

Somehow the electrical has decided that the material they are buying on an install contract should be sales taxed and sent me a resale certificate. Their brain shorted out so they forgot that when labor and excise tax are involved you can't charge sales tax only use tax. Which doesn't make much sense since they also sent me their Prime Contractor Excise Tax certificate so we don't charge them excise......wait a minute that might be how.....no, no one is that dumb to think no excise tax charged changes the use into sales. I'm getting a headache just thinking about that kind of stupidity.

Next a hospital in Minnesota who didn't pay their use tax on material since the repair/install labor, I did look that up, is sales tax exempt.

And here I thought tax class in college was fun....the real world sucks.

[Dips]

We have the opposite problem. We only collect sales tax for Massachusetts (because that's where we are) and Indiana (because our accountant somehow let herself get talked into doing so and signed a from agreeing to it. We don't mention that mistake to her, she gets...upset).

So when people from one of the other 48 states ask us what the tax is we tell them we don't collect it for their state.

They insist on giving it to us anyway. So we issue them a refund for the tax amount. They are welcome to forward it to their state if they want to, but it's not our concern.

Drives the accountant nuts.