Sales and Use Tax

Updates on an Ever-Changing Environment

Christopher R. Jones, PhD, CPA, and Yuyun A. Sejati, PhD

In May 2015, The CPA Journal published “Developments in the Sales Tax of Electronic Commerce: Recent and Proposed Legislation in New York Sets the Agenda” (Corey Rosenthal, Patrick Duffany, and Scott Smith, http://bit.ly/2c7po3p), in which the authors discussed the rapidly changing landscape of use-tax collection in the United States. Since then, there have been even more changes. As of mid-March 2016, 15 states have introduced 35 state tax nexus bills to better enforce use-tax compliance (Liz Malm, “Update: What's New in the World of Sales Tax Nexus Legislation?” Multistate Insider, Mar. 17, 2016, http://bit.ly/2cb28UH). Staying on top of these new and potential laws will help CPAs handle any compliance issues clients may have, and lead to new tax planning opportunities. This article provides a brief overview of several new and potential state and federal laws regarding use tax, as well as useful resources for CPAs and other tax preparers to keep informed on future changes.