Washington State Enacts Use Tax Tattletale Bill with Very Low Threshold
The state of Washington has upped the ante regarding the risk to businesses who don’t pay attention to individual state laws requiring reporting on sales to residents of a state by a business with no connection with the state. Washington’s governor signed into law Washington H.B. 2163, a “tattletale” use tax bill that is triggered whenever a remote seller in a year has more than $10,000 in gross sales to Washington state residents.
A “tattletale” bill does not attempt to require remote sellers to collect sales tax for the state on their remote sales. Rather the bill requires that such sellers take various steps to “turn in” such buyers to the state and “motivate” the buyers to comply with their use tax obligations. The law will often require some form of notice to potential buyers of their use tax obligations, along with later reports given at the end of the year to both the buyers (listing items they bought for which use tax would be due) and the state in question.
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