Understanding and Managing Sales and Use Tax (Sixth Edition)

Sales and use tax management is one of today's most dynamic areas of tax law and practice. Compliance with and planning for sales and use tax is more complicated and more important than ever. Transactions conducted across state lines, foreign sourcing, electronic commerce conducted over the Internet, and the proliferation of mail order businesses have increased both the complexity and the revenue risks and rewards for individual states. And with many state budgets deep in red ink, state legislatures are actively seeking new and additional sources of revenues, and state revenue departments have become increasingly more aggressive and far-reaching towards all industry segments, making the jobs of those responsible for managing sales and use tax increasingly more difficult and critical.

Understanding and Managing Sales and Use Tax by noted sales tax authority and consultant, Robert J. Fields, helps everyone involved understand and effectively deal with sales and use tax, with pinpoint explanations that make the complex - clear; practical insights that make the mysterious - rational; and charts, examples and case discussion that make the myriad of processes, players and principles come together as never before.

This real-world guidebook includes charts that provide state-by-state overviews of topics such as tax rates, the taxation of services, the tax treatment of machinery, credits for taxes paid to other states, electronic payment of taxes, interest rates, penalties, exemption and resale certificates, and mail order tax collection.

A special e-commerce section is devoted to the industry that encompasses the world of commerce using electronic rather than traditional means of buying and selling products and services. This coverage provides cutting-edge assessments of business being conducted over the Internet by breaking-down the language of e-business for everyone to understand, looking at states' approaches to this new business platform, and putting this understanding into the context of today's business environment.