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Type of tax in the United States

A use tax is a type of tax levied in the United States by numerous state governments. It is essentially the same as a sales tax but is applied not where a product or service was sold but where a merchant bought a product or service and then converted it for its own use, without having paid tax when it was initially purchased. Use taxes are functionally equivalent to sales taxes. They are typically levied upon the use, storage, enjoyment, or other consumption in the state of tangible personal property that has not been subjected to a sales tax.

Use tax is assessed upon tangible personal property and taxable services purchased by a resident or entity doing business in the taxing state upon the use, storage, enjoyment or consumption of the good or service, regardless of origin of the purchase. Use taxes are designed to discourage the purchase of products that are not subject to the sales tax within a taxing jurisdiction. Use tax may be applied to purchases from out of state vendors that are not required to collect tax on their sales within the state. The use tax imposes a compensating tax equal in amount to the sales tax that would have been imposed on the sale of the property, if the sale had occurred within the state's taxing jurisdiction. The use tax is typically assessed at the same rate as the sales tax that would have been owed, and generally the taxability of the good or service does not vary. However, there are some instances where the sales tax rate and the use tax rate vary. For example, a resident of Massachusetts, with a 6.25% "sales and use tax" on certain goods and services, purchases non exempt goods or services in New Hampshire for use, storage or other consumption in Massachusetts. Under New Hampshire law, the New Hampshire vendor collects no sales taxes on the goods, but the Massachusetts purchaser/user must still pay 6.25% of the sales price directly to the Department of Revenue in Massachusetts as a use tax. If the same goods are purchased in a US state that does collect sales tax for such goods at time of purchase, whatever taxes were paid by the purchaser to that state can be deducted (as a tax credit) from the 6.25% owed for subsequent use, storage or consumption in Massachusetts. With few exceptions, no state's vendors will charge the native state's sales tax on goods shipped out of state, meaning all goods ordered from out of state are essentially free of sales tax. The purchaser is therefore required to declare and pay the use tax to his home state on these ordered goods. The assessing jurisdiction may make the use tax payable annually, but some states require a monthly payment. For example, where a Vermont resident has not paid at least 6% sales tax on property brought in for use in the state, Vermont law requires filing a tax return (Form SU 452 and payment) by the 20th day of the month following non exempt purchases to avoid a $50 late fee, a 5% penalty per month, to a maximum of 25%, plus statutory interest on the unpaid tax and penalties. There are currently over 14,000 tax jurisdictions in the U. S. and many of these jurisdictions have varying taxability on services. Given the volume of jurisdictions, the source of the sale may also need to be examined, in order to appropriately apply and remit the tax. For instance, states may require use tax based upon the location in which the service was provided, while other states may require use tax based upon the location of "benefit". In traditional repair and maintenance type services, these locations will typically be one and the same, however with complex technology transactions, these locations are often different. In most cases, this complexity is part of the underlying sales tax laws; but while a brick and mortar store has to deal with only the sales tax laws of its own location, remote sellers have to deal with the use tax laws of many jurisdictions—up to every US state and locality that assesses them, if the company has a presence or "nexus" in every state (as large "brick and mortar" sellers like Wal Mart and Best Buy do).

In 2007, 22 states, including New York, California, Ohio and Virginia have included an entry on their state individual income tax return for taxpayers to voluntarily calculate an amount for use tax liability. Taxpayers, however, have been reluctant to pay taxes to the state. A few of these states have tried another approach by pre determining the tax liability owed by every taxpayer by a tax table based on the individual's adjusted gross income. For example, a Michigan taxpayer with $45,000 of income can use the state's use tax table to estimate his use tax liability as $36. However, use of this table is limited to purchases of less than $1,000 and may be challenged during an audit. For purchases over $1,000, the taxpayer must calculate the tax for each item and add this amount to the use tax from the table. States using this method have seen an increase in voluntary compliance over those states that have the taxpayers calculate the use tax themselves. As the amount of e commerce sales continues to rise ($34 billion for just the second quarter of 2008) states recognize that the key to collecting these taxes rests not only in educating the individual taxpayer but with coordinating their efforts with other states. Currently, there are 19 full member states and 3 associate member states that belong to the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP). The SSTP assists states in collection of sales and use tax by registering merchants who charge out of state consumers the appropriate state sales tax and remit the tax to the appropriate state through a certified service provider. SSTP has also been in the forefront of an effort to push Congress to amend the laws to make collection of sales tax less burdensome. In fact, in May 2013, the United States Senate passed a bill that would give the states authority to require sellers to collect sales tax on out of state sales. The House of Representatives must still pass the bill and send it to the President of the United States before it becomes law. States may also work with adjacent states via interstate use tax agreements. These agreements allow states to exchange tax audit records from businesses that have shipped goods to out of state consumers. Reciprocal states will then use those records and send a tax bill including penalties and interest to the individual taxpayer. States have also pursued their collection efforts through the court system. In 2007, a California appeals court ruled that Borders Online owed California sales tax for online purchases that the store failed to collect from 1998 to 1999 since customers were able to return merchandise bought on line to Border's retail stores in California.

Direct pay permits are generally used by manufacturers that purchase tangible personal property for resale and their own use. They usually require the seller to exempt the purchases and pay use tax upon removal from inventory. Manufacturers will either use an exemption certificate or will rely on a state issued direct pay permit/agreement. A direct payment permit allows a business to purchase taxable goods and services without paying tax to the vendor and to remit the correct use tax directly to the DRS. That allows businesses the necessary time to determine how much tax to assess on their purchases.