wine sales taxes

Sometimes I order online and the out of state seller does not charge sales tax. Sometimes I am charged on sales tax by other sellers. What goes??? It used to be a seller did not have to charge sales tax if the were not in same state and seller had no presence in buyers state. Is it different on alcohol??

A Supreme Court decision opened the door for states to require their retailers to collect tax on out of state shipments. Some retailers have chosen to take the ruling literally and started collecting tax on out of state orders. I don’t shop with those retailers. The rest still don’t collect tax.

There is no consistency that I can determine in which vendors collect sales tax and which do not. Two of my major suppliers are both located in California. JJBuckley collects sales tax and Envoyer does not. I suspect that JJBuckley is erring on the side of caution.

John,

Which state are you in? Some are states are more strict in the enforcement of sales tax.

The laws vary so widely there isn’t an exact answer. Some states require compliance with their state tax laws. For many wineries and a few retailers, they apply for a permit to ship to certain states and must collect that state’s sales and alcohol tax, (if there is any).

I have to file sales taxes on most of the DTC out of state sales where I’m licensed. Some monthly (like Texas), others yearly. I have a compliance firm that does this for me.

To legally ship alcohol, the winery needs a license for most states. The sales tax rules typically don’t apply to small businesses unless they have a nexus in that state. In the case of wineries, that license creates a nexus, hence the sales tax.