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Don't you hate it when they don't pay the Sales Tax!?!?!

3K views 27 replies 12 participants last post by  TPendagast 
#1 ·
So we have to charge sales tax on all lawn care related services. the only thing that is not taxed is snow removal (except salting) and landscape stone/hardscaping (they figure you will pay it in increased property tax when your home value goes up).....ANYWAY

Why don't people pay the sales tax. It is clearly included at the bottom of the invoice but its like they ignore the "total" box at the bottom and just pay the line item cost without the tax :realmad:

Its aggravating because you have to re-invoice and if they pay online your basically eating most of it anyway in transaction fees.
grrrrrrrrrrrr:angry:


sorry guys had to vent, just finished going through recording payments and had several of these accounts keep coming up short:wall:
 
#3 ·
Maybe, it only seems to happen when invoicing for 1 item/service. Quickbooks calculates the sales tax at the bottom.....usually not a big deal for our monthly customers as i just let it carry over but we just did a bunch of 1-time aeration/fall cleanups so it takes extra effort to get the sales tax.

plus most people I think would be slow to pay a $3 invoice
 
#4 ·
So we have to charge sales tax on all lawn care related services. the only thing that is not taxed is snow removal (except salting) and landscape stone/hardscaping (they figure you will pay it in increased property tax when your home value goes up).....ANYWAY

Why don't people pay the sales tax. It is clearly included at the bottom of the invoice but its like they ignore the "total" box at the bottom and just pay the line item cost without the tax :realmad:

Its aggravating because you have to re-invoice and if they pay online your basically eating most of it anyway in transaction fees.
grrrrrrrrrrrr:angry:

sorry guys had to vent, just finished going through recording payments and had several of these accounts keep coming up short:wall:
Change your invoicing habits.

no one says you have to charge sales tax, ONLY that you have to collect it/pay it right?
So make sire you charge enough to pay the sales tax.

Don't send them a bit for $100 plus $6 for sales tax.
Send them a bill for $106.
Dont quote prices as $35 plus tax.
Just tell them $38.
 
#16 ·
No it's not. It is the government wanting YOU TO PAY tax on the entire amount. Here a $100 dollar invoice becomes $108.25 with you owing the government the $8.25 for tax. If you just send a bill for the $108.25 the government will want $8.93 instead of $8.25 The difference adds up over millions of dollars worth of invoices.
 
#10 ·
Sounds good but when it comes time to report/pay the sales tax now you have to go back and recalculate the before tax price on everything. (unless quickbooks has a report to do that automatically)

As it is now i just run a report and it tells me exactly what my sales tax liabilities are.
What's your tax rate?
Multiply that by the amount you charged
If it's 6% and you charged 106 you need to pay 6.36 in tax
Just figure it all out ahead of time
If you need to get paid $100 for the service
Charge 107
At the end of the quarter you simply pay the estimated taxes
You don't actually have to calculate it by transaction
That's just a way of doing it.
Your responsible for paying (collecting) the tax on your taxable sales for that quarter.
If you didn't collect it at time of transaction , the government doesn't care, you still must pay.
Bulk sales
Per customer
Government is only concerned with quarterly eastonsyed taxes and reckoning at FY end.

In theory all the tax you have to pay could come from one single transaction,
Not that that would ever happen, but in theory.

Quickbooks is a crutch
It's great in ways
But it creates obstacles by trying to over simplify and make everyone conform to it.
I'm not a real big fan
Every time there's a problem on the office it always seems to be entangled with quickbooks.

It's like learning to cook with a microwave,
Suddenly there's no power and America can't feed themselves.
 
#18 ·
What's your tax rate?
Multiply that by the amount you charged
If it's 6% and you charged 106 you need to pay 6.36 in tax
Just figure it all out ahead of time
If you need to get paid $100 for the service
Charge 107
At the end of the quarter you simply pay the estimated taxes
You don't actually have to calculate it by transaction
That's just a way of doing it.
Your responsible for paying (collecting) the tax on your taxable sales for that quarter.
If you didn't collect it at time of transaction , the government doesn't care, you still must pay.
Bulk sales
Per customer
Government is only concerned with quarterly eastonsyed taxes and reckoning at FY end.

In theory all the tax you have to pay could come from one single transaction,
Not that that would ever happen, but in theory.

Quickbooks is a crutch
It's great in ways
But it creates obstacles by trying to over simplify and make everyone conform to it.
I'm not a real big fan
Every time there's a problem on the office it always seems to be entangled with quickbooks.

It's like learning to cook with a microwave,
Suddenly there's no power and America can't feed themselves.
I read: every time there's a problem in the office it has to do with how someone input the data in to QuickBooks.

Just messing with ya TP
 
#12 ·
My own accounting software does the same thing on invoices --- sales tax shows up way at the bottom. I had some occasions when clients did not look at the bottom of the invoice and neglected to pay the tax. Since then I merely hand draw a vertical line down to the sales tax line and I haven't had the problem since.
 
#13 ·
Our bills our highlighted for the total. I let customers know that they get one mistake on the house. After that, they pay a penalty. Most never make mistakes thankfully.
 
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