Tax-exempt, but not really

PeterGar

Yesterday I encountered a situation that, as a Pro user, I found frustrating. I'm a Smugmug Pro user, I have a California State Seller's Permit, and I have a W9 on file with Smugmug. I sell wedding packages that often include prints. When I sell these packages, I collect sales tax from my clients. Yesterday I put in a decent sized order for prints through Smugmug. These are prints that I want to deliver to my clients personally, so I'm essentially using SM as my pro fulfillment lab for these prints. However, the SM system charged me sales tax. I emailed support and was told that this is how it is -- all California residents have to pay sales tax on all orders. So this means that sales tax is being collected twice for the same sale, first by me from my client, and second by SM from me.

This means I have to take extra effort in my bookkeeping to make sure I don't pay sales tax twice, which is inconvinient. I have accounts with other labs that honor my tax-exempt status and don't charge me sales tax on orders intended for resale. Why can't SM do the same?

As Pro users with CA seller's permits, I really think that SM should honor our tax-exempt status to make doing business for pros easier. Other pro labs do this, and who wants to take chances at paying tax twice?

Just my 2 1/2 cents.

Andy

Hey Peter, I'm really sorry that this is the case, but we don't have a way yet to deal with tax exempt folks like yourself, in CA. I wish I had a better answer for you, I'm really, really sorry