WAHM Forums

This has probably been discussed before, but do you charge tax when you sell your products? How do you handle shipping/handling?


When I was with another candle company, I was told by a co-worker that because the items were out of state (I'm NY) that I should not charge sales tax. (He told me this as I was writing up his receipt) Is this correct? Probably one to take up with a tax advisor, you think? I've always charged tax on my Avon customers' orders and never heard a peep, so I didn't think candles were any different.


Do you all pass along the cost of shipping/handling to your out-of-statecustomers? I would lean toward doing so, when you consider that your customers pay s/h for anything else they have delivered to them.


Feedback welcomed smileys/smiley4.gif

If the sale</span> is in the
same state you reside in, then yes you charge the sales tax (the sale
is yours regardless of where the product is shipped from). If the sale
is in a different state (where you would send it to them), that is up
to them to claim (and pay) tax on internet purchases. I'm pretty sure
that is how it works, or at least that is my understanding so please
please correct me if I'm wrong!



I currently have MB do the tax for me but I am considering giving them
my tax certificate number so I can control the costs more. I would
prefer to pay tax at my cost on a dozen votives since I mostly use them
for promo material at the moment than to pay the tax on the retail
cost. I am still debating whether or not it would be just more
convenient to have them do it all. I realize if I lower the cost below
retail I'm actually paying more in tax than I should be, and in the
long run those pennies can add up. If I can just get into the habit of
doing the quarterly filing, I should be fine lol.

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Thanks for the info, Sandy.


So you simply charge your customers what MB charges you for taxes or do you just charge the tax rate for your state?

Hi Connie,


I charge the rate for the state. If you do that you are making up what you were charged from Scent-Sations! I also do charge for shipping.


Continued Blessings,


NatalieEdited by: southernbg

Thanks, Natalie!

My understanding of it is the same as Sandy. At least for California it is. I would check with your Board of Equalization, because you don't want to charge unnecessary sales tax to people in other states.

I just incorporate everything into the cost I charge my
customers. They don't see the $xx.xx for the candles and $x.xx
for the tax. It's all inclusive for my customers.<!--
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Hello Fellow Candle Lovers!


Everyone pleasenote - that if you pay sales tax to Mia Bellawhen you purchase your candles you do *not* need to collect sales tax at all!


The only time you need to collect taxes if you have your tax id or resale permit on file with corporate and they do *not* collect sales tax on your orders!

Thanks Alethea. smileys/smiley1.gif

Correct me if I'm wrong here (I know the first part is correct, I had inquired some time ago how the tax works)



We are paying sales tax on retail</span>
cost, for example, 18.95 x 6% PA sales tax - so in addition to our
wholesale cost no matter if we are a COTM member or Associate member,
we pay $1.14 tax to MB for each jar candle. Actually this is what
was e-mailed me from Charlie when I inquired about the tax:



cotm is based on the wholesale amount as we factor
it as a personal use purchase</font>

all other purchases we collect tax for YOU on
suggested retail</font>

Its always better to have your own tax id number</font>




What I do is incorporate my expenditures (the tax I paid to MB) into my
sales price of the products. Technically the customer is still "paying
tax" (someone has to pay it, and I don't want to foot the bill for my
customers) but it's more like a reimbursement to me</span>,
as the ind. distributor, because I've already paid it into the company.
That's why when they ask me what the tax is, I just tell them it's all
inclusive in this price. If they really want the breakdown, I'm sure I
can figure that out. Anytime I've said that, they've been satisfied.



The downside to that, (and it's a very very small downside), is since
you pay the tax on retail, you are paying that no matter how much or
little you sell the product for. Most of you sell for the $18 I
believe, so you are "eating" the tax on the .95 cents on each jar. The
jars isn't as big a difference as the votives are. I like to be a
little more flexibile on the cost of the votives, which is why I'm
considering submitting my tax certificate number. <!--
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another thought.......... you can look at it like this. If you
had someone ask you to purchase a few items, you'd give them the
receipt. That receipt would have the items and sales tax and they would
reimburse me for the total amount, not just the item amount.



So you are still "collecting" (getting reimbursed for) the tax, but
there is no need to report the tax because MB is doing that for you.

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