Sales Taxes

[salippert]

I live in New Hampshire do I need to charge sale tax on out of state orders.. The info I keep finding is not clear for a non-sales tax state.. Thanks

[Victor]

Hi @salippert,

Thank you for reaching out with your question. Whilst I am not able to tell you exactly what your tax obligations are, and would encourage you to contact a tax professional if you are unsure, generally you only need to collect sales taxes from customers based in states where you have a tax nexus. This means if you are based in New Hampshire and do not have a tax nexus in another state, such as a warehouse or office, you likely will not need to collect sales taxes for out-of-state orders.

I also believe New Hampshire is one of the few states that does not have a sales tax, meaning you may not need to collect or remit sales taxes at all if you and your business are solely based out of New Hampshire.

I'd recommend checking out the website TaxJar, which has a lot of information on sales taxes in the USA and even offers state-specific information. I'd suggest checking out the following articles:

• Sales Tax Nexus Defined
• How do I know where I have a nexus?
• U.S. States with No Sales Tax

Shopify's automated tax system will use the address(es) you have entered into your settings to calculate automatically when to charge sales tax, although ultimately it is your responsibility to know when you should and shouldn't be collecting sales tax and to check your orders to make sure it is being done correctly.

I hope this has helped but please let me know if you have more questions about this.

Kind regards,

Victor | Shopify Social Care

[Jroyce1180]

@Victor Thanks for your post and this is helpful. 

Have you run into merchants in Colorado dealing with the 700 or so different tax rules? I have a client that has Shopify Plus who turns off taxes for Colorado and is using an external tax engine as Avalara apparently does not always have accurate tax rates for Colorado.

I work with a company that was adopted by Colorado as the Source of Truth for sales tax and any merchants who use our tax engine are "held harmless" in the State of Colorado. I was looking at making a free plugin for Shopify to provide this to merchants since it is being offered for free by the state already. Do you know how I could go about getting this set up to assist companies in Colorado who use Shopify? 

If it is acceptable to Shopify I would help build this app that accessed the API that is now publicly available.

The system also provides up-to-date tax rates and accurate taxability rules (whether something is taxable or exempt) through a web portal as well as an API. The web portal can be accessed here: https://colorado.ttr.services/

Please let me know your feedback on this. 

[Victor]

Hi @Jroyce1180,

I have a basic understanding of the US tax system but my knowledge and understanding does not extend to state-specific tax laws, so I would not be able to advise directly on the laws you've referenced here in the state of Colorado. It may indeed be the case that merchants use external dedicated tax applications such as Avalara to better manage their taxes on Shopify to address problems like the one you have referenced.

In terms of building an app to help merchants with this issue, you are welcome to do this via our Partner program. You can read more on making and developing Shopify apps here.

Kind regards,

Victor | Shopify Social Care