Hello: I don't live in USA, but I would like to know if companies have to charge sales tax for their online business, for example services like web design, template creation, etc. Regards.
Technically they should charge sales tax. If they do not charge sales tax, it's not illegal, but when they perform these services and earn an income they will need to claim that income on their personal or business taxes and pay out of pocket fees. If their income is moderate or their expenses are high it won't make too much difference at the end of the year because those expenses will be "written off" or taken off, of their expected tax payment.
Sales tax and income tax are two separate things. Sales tax is also sometimes called a "use tax" as it applies to the sale of goods. For example, a store sells a camera and the customer pays a 5% sales tax on the item. The store is responsible for collecting and keeping track of sales taxes owed and then paying them to the state. If a business were to sell say one million dollars of merchandise at 5% they would owe $50,000 of sales tax. If the profit on the merchandise was only $100,000 then that is a rather high tax rate...which is why this is paid by the consumer (as they are the ones "using" the item). Simply because your business is not profitable does not mean you are excused from paying sales taxes to your state. As far as services go- many states do not require sales tax on intangibles such as services but some do. The sales tax usually only applies to people who are located in the same state as the business. Out of state customers are responsible for their own sales tax (although this is near impossible to track and almost never paid). So the answer is "maybe" depending on whether the state applies use tax to services. If the online business is actually selling goods (even software) then yes, they are supposed to be collecting sales tax.
Yes, I know the difference between sales tax and income tax. I ask only about sales tax because I read that USA has a kind of law that can not force online commerce to charge sales tax because sales tax only can be charged to the same state clients, so it's hard to see where the clients are. So I don't really know in the practice how the online companies do, if they change or not the sales tax or if they have to see where the clients are from
if a business has a store in a state and you live in that state,you pay sales tax..an example.. i live in NC i buy something from newegg.. newegg does NOT have a store here.. i pay NO sales tax