It is a given that accountants and CPAs know everything there is to know about income tax. But when it comes to different states and sales tax, as an accountant or CPA do you wonder if you understand the rules and laws that govern this area of taxes completely?
The issue of sales tax across state lines was brought to the forefront of our concern due to a landmark decision by the US Supreme Court. The recent Supreme Court ruling on the South Dakota v. Wayfair case grants the state authority to impose sales tax obligations on out-of-state transactions even if physical presence doesn’t exist in the state of delivery. The Rules of Thumb blog from MoneyThumb wrote a post back in July of this year titled Heads Up Accountants: Online Businesses Now Taxed Across State Lines where we discussed this issue and shared a webinar designed to help educate accountants, CPAs, and bookkeepers about this issue. Hopefully, you attended that webinar and maybe even received free CPE credits for doing so. Today we would like to share with our readers who are in the accounting niche another important free webinar coming up in September that will further your education on sales tax. This free webinar also offers free CPE credits.
Do Accountants Completely Understand the Laws Regarding Sales Tax?
On Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018, CPA Practice Advisor is holding a free webinar titled, How to Start the Sales Tax Conversation with Your Client in Light of South Dakota v. Wayfair. Here is a description of the webinar from the registration page:
Middle market CPA firms typically specialize in tax and audit. But sales tax is often overlooked. Sales tax consulting (or even compliance) isn’t a specialty that most medium-sized firms offer. And yet, your client may expect you to be able to advise them in this area, particularly in light of the recent US Supreme Court ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair. When a client receives notification of an audit, CPAs may find themselves on defense, as clients ask “why didn’t you tell me?”
This course won’t make you a sales tax expert in 60 minutes, but we’ll share some state tax basics, history and hot topics in the sales tax world today, and provide some key questions to ask your clients as you are already meeting with them for year-end planning, or during your tax return pre-conference. We’ll discuss how to relatively quickly determine the potential scope of a multistate sales tax problem, when to partner with a state tax specialist, and how that relationship works best, including how both the CPA and the consultant can work to maximize benefit to the client while also expanding the scope of projects to offer your client.
Learning objectives:
- Understand nexus – the concept of taxable presence, economic nexus and how it’s easier than ever for your client to cross that threshold;
- Provide a roadmap for how to walk a client through the steps to determine possible multi-state tax exposure, including unrecorded sales tax liabilities, penalties, and interest;
- Understand the various ways for your client to come forward with states in cases of retroactive liabilities and possibly mitigate some of the costs;
To sign up for this important free webinar, follow this link to the registration page. The Rules of Thumb blog from MoneyThumb always encourages our readers to continue learning and growing as accountants, CPAs, and bookkeepers. Staying up to date on the latest sales tax rules and laws is one important way to do so. Another great way to stay on the cutting edge of the accounting world is by using the best PDF financial file converters on the market. By using these MoneyThumb tools you can save yourself tons of time and headaches by seamlessly converting your clients' bank statements and much more. Check out this link to learn more about our highly recommended after PDF financial file converters.
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