How to determine if a company is forwarding their sales tax?
January 20th, 2009 | by Rick |
Brad asked:
I purchased a fairly expensive piece of equipment from a company over the Internet that in the description of the item claimed sales tax would have to be paid in several states including mine. I was fine with this except for in the end, they charged the wrong tax amount (3% more than my actual tax rate). After going back and forth with them and them finally figuring out I was correct on my tax amount, the refunded the difference. This made me wonder if they are even reporting/sending the tax amount to the state tax collectors. How would I go about determining if this company is even sending the tax on to the state or just pocketing the money. The whole process of dealing with them, they just seemed like a shady company.
GIOVANNI
I purchased a fairly expensive piece of equipment from a company over the Internet that in the description of the item claimed sales tax would have to be paid in several states including mine. I was fine with this except for in the end, they charged the wrong tax amount (3% more than my actual tax rate). After going back and forth with them and them finally figuring out I was correct on my tax amount, the refunded the difference. This made me wonder if they are even reporting/sending the tax amount to the state tax collectors. How would I go about determining if this company is even sending the tax on to the state or just pocketing the money. The whole process of dealing with them, they just seemed like a shady company.
GIOVANNI
One Response to “How to determine if a company is forwarding their sales tax?”
By NATHAN on Jan 22, 2009 | Reply
WILSON
You could contact the sales tax office in your state and inquire if this company pays sales tax.
It would be difficult for you to tract individual sale transactions. Companies who collect sales tax have forms and quarterly reports to submit. Periodically, they get audited. If they don’t have all their ducks in a row, they have to pay sales tax out of their own packets.
The company probably just keyed in the wrong county or something.