Sales Tax Made Easy

What seems like such a simple thing can turn into a tax nightmare, and many online retailers don't even know they're doing this wrong.  The rule most online stores adhere to is to only charge sales tax on orders shipped within their own state.  This is fine if all of your products are shipped from your primary location in the state where you do business.

The problems start when you have inventory located in other states, or you're using one or more drop-shippers in other states.  What most online retailers don't know is that you need to collect sales tax on sales shipped to any state where you have a physical presence, or where your drop-ship supplier has a physical presence.  That means if you have an office in Florida and an office in South Carolina, even if all of your products ship from Florida you still have to charge sales tax for both Florida and South Carolina buyers. 

And it gets even more complicated than that.  Do you keep some products in stock in your Florida office, but other products come from a drop-shipper in California?  If so, you have to charge California sales tax when someone in California buys a product from that drop shipper.

Sound confusing?  Don't worry about it - the Cartooga shopping cart's multi-state tax table lets you enter a separate sales tax rate for every state, so no matter where you're doing business or where your products originate from, our system figures it out and does the math for you.