STATE TAX

[StallingsH]

Long time seller here ... we try to discourage all in-state sales ... more trouble than it's worth ... some years, though, a couple of sales are completed and we end up owing (literally) a couple of dollars. Anyway, long story short having an audit by our state ... they want to see all transactions (back about 6 years) WITH ADDRESSES to prove we aren't dodging state sales taxes ... and I don't know where to click to see if it's even possible to compile all this  ... HELP!

Howard at WAXPOETIC

[PayPal_JonK · Accepted solution]

Hi @StallingsH,

Thanks for reaching out on our Community Forum! You can look back up to 7 years of history in 2 year increments on your own, anything longer than 7 years ago would need to be requested from our Customer Support. I recommend checking out either the Financial Summaries (best viewed in .PDF format) in your Reports section, or you can download all of your activity in .CSV format (in 2 year increments) by clicking on Activity Downloads under Reports. Good luck!!

Cheers,

 - Jon K

[nmcollector]

I am encountering the same problem with my state.  I have digital sales that do not require a physical address so the transactions show no address information.  The state says I have to prove that the person purchasing the digital product did not reside in my state.  Otherwise they say I have to pay the gross receipts tax for any purchase that I cannot prove the state of residence for.  How do you all get that information for digital sales?

Thank you.

[nmcollector]

Unfortunately, since my sales are 100% digital (software downloaded from a server and activation sent via email) there is no shipping address in the reports.  Also, I sell directly from my web site with payment processing through PayPal so eBay is not involved in the sales.

I'm in New Mexico.  The coffers are overflowing with oil and gas money.  I just triggered flags because 99.9% of my sales are out of state.  They are very suspicious of me like I am trying to cheat them or something.  🙂

Thanks,

Clay

[Teslafan101]

do you get emails from Paypal when they make payment on your website? 

do you see their payments in your Paypal activities history?

Is there a name ?of the buyer,does it have his Paypal email address ??

[nmcollector]

I do get email addresses of the purchasers.  My automated system sends activation codes to those email addresses so they can activate the software they download from my site.

[nmcollector]

Also, individual transactions show no address.  However, PayPal does know if the purchaser is a state resident or not because PayPal charges sales tax for state residents.  In past audits by the State of New Mexico they have accepted whether PayPal charged tax or not as evidence for in-state purchases but they no longer will accept that.  They want proof that the purchase was out of state.  On Friday I submitted a request to PayPal to send me custom reports with the state or zip code of the purchaser.  That should not be a problem from a technical perspective since they obviously have that information since they can determine when to collect sales tax and when not to.  Hopefully they will provide those reports to me.  

[Teslafan101]

I am afraid they dont have more than what you can see in your download,did you try downloading and choose the report format like I suggest? 

[nmcollector]

"... did you try downloading and choose the report format like I suggest? "

Yes I did.  You can select address fields all you want but they are not provided for the Digital sales that I made, however, they knew enough to charge state sales taxes when appropriate.  I am a software developer for a living.  If they have access to the information needed to charge the customer the appropriate sales tax for their given location then they have access to the information required to determine what state the customer resides in.  I will be VERY DISSAPOINTED in PayPal and VERY VOCAL about it if they do not support their customers who are being audited by State Government for Sales taxes due in those states.

[Teslafan101]

I hope so,as this trend is spreading,more and more e sellers are being audited.