We prepare and file your sales tax returns, remit the money, handle the notices, and make sure the systems feeding it all are configured correctly in the first place. You approve. We do the rest.
A controller doing this in-house isn’t slow. They’re being asked to run forty parallel processes that each change without notice, on top of a close.
The 20th in most states, the 23rd in some, the last business day in others — and your filing frequency changes when your volume does, usually by a letter you didn’t open.
Colorado cities, Louisiana parishes, and Alabama localities administer their own tax. One state can mean a dozen separate returns to a dozen separate offices.
What your platform collected and what the return says you owe rarely match on the first pass. Finding the gap is the actual work.
Several states require estimated prepayments once you cross a volume. Miss one and the penalty applies even though you filed the return on time.
A month with no sales in a state still needs a return. Skipping it is a late filing, and enough of them will close your registration.
Every state writes to you eventually — a rate change, a frequency change, a discrepancy. Left unanswered, routine mail becomes an assessment. We answer them.
Most filing services take the number your system produces and submit it. If that number is wrong — the wrong rate, the wrong taxability, an exemption that was never documented — they file the error faster than you would have.
We check the number first. That’s the difference between outsourcing a task and outsourcing the risk.
Onboarding starts with an audit of your setup. Filing correct returns on top of a misconfigured system just documents the mistake more neatly.
We check your registrations against your actual footprint. Gaps go to a nexus review; states you no longer need get closed properly rather than abandoned.
Rate tables drift, especially at the local level. We verify what your platform is charging against what the jurisdiction actually imposes.
Default tax codes are guesses. We map your catalog against real taxability research, so the engine stops charging tax on exempt items and starts charging it on taxable ones.
You owe the tax whether or not you charged it. Every month it continues, the liability grows — and you can’t go back and bill a customer from two years ago.
Quieter, and more common than people expect. You’re charging customers tax they don’t owe, remitting it, and carrying class-action exposure for the privilege. It’s also recoverable — see overpayment recovery.
Sales tax filing rarely has its own line item. It’s absorbed by a controller or accountant who is also closing the books. This puts a number on it.
Illustrative. Fully-loaded cost assumes salary plus benefits and overhead. Doesn’t include the cost of an error, a late penalty, or the close running a day longer.
Most clients come to us for monthly filing and find they needed one or two of these first.
Confirm where you’re required to file and what’s actually taxable before we start filing it.
We register you where you’re missing, and clean up back liability through voluntary disclosure.
If a state does come calling, the same team that filed your returns defends them.
Your returns are prepared by a named team that learns how your data behaves — which channel double-counts, which credit needs applying, which city files separately.
That continuity is why a reconciliation catches things a rules engine reports as clean.
Automation calculates and, if you let it, files. It does not tell you whether the configuration behind the calculation is right, and it does not answer a state’s letter. We do both — often alongside the platform you already pay for.
Yes. Colorado home-rule cities, Louisiana parishes, and Alabama localities are filed separately, and they’re the ones most often missed. We’ve filed in over 13,000 state and local jurisdictions.
Forward it and stop thinking about it. Notice handling is part of the service — we respond, resolve, and tell you what it was.
Per return, per jurisdiction, on a monthly engagement — so it scales with the number of places you actually file rather than your revenue. See pricing for current rates.
“It is a pleasure working with The Sales Tax People and their team. It is the best move we’ve made, engaging them to handle our sales tax return filings.”
Tell us where you’re registered and how you sell. We’ll come back with a quote and an honest read on whether anything needs fixing first.
