Episode 43 is the first of four shows in a series on eCommerce and Sales Taxes. In this show, we talk with Jake Estes, Business Development Manager at Avalara, who is the sponsor for this series. Jake shares with us the big picture of sales tax for your online businesses and the essential needs you should be considering.

We chatted about:

* When a merchant needs to start collecting and paying sales tax

* Knowing which states you should collect tax in

* If you need to collect for both the local tax jurisdiction and the state level jurisdiction on every sale

* Whether zip codes really suffice for getting the right sales tax

* How to know which products you should tax and not tax

* What you need to do to help keep sales tax collection and filing on target for your business

The other shows in this series:

Charging Sales Taxes on Your Online Services with Scott Peterson

Learn How VAT Affects Your Online Sales with Colin Matthews and Matthew Harrison

Your eCommerce Site and Landed Cost with Amy Morgan

Thanks to Our Podcast Sponsor: Avalara

Transcript

You can also download the transcript of this show: the-wp-ecommerce-show-transcript-december-5-2016

Bob Dunn: Hey everyone. Welcome to our show. Bob Dunn here, also known as Bob WP on the web. Today is not only episode 42, but the first part of a four part series. For four Mondays, we will be talking with a special expert or experts and our sponsor about an important aspect of running an e-commerce site.

Since this is the second series we’ve had, the first being on security, what better topic to segue into than sales tax? Yep. You heard it right. If you sell online, you do need to know if you are responsible for sales tax and there are just so many variables, so many aspects of it and of course, so many laws, that you want to make sure you are heading in the right direction.

To help guide us through this maze, we have my friends over at Avalara and today we have Jake Estes, Business Development Manager from Avalara. Welcome to the show, Jake.

Jake Estes: Hey. Thanks Bob, great to be here. Thank you.

Bob Dunn: Jake, I’m just going to ask you, where are you located?

Jake Estes: Avalara is headquartered downtown Seattle, Washington, so I’m in the corporate office here. We also have offices all over the world now, but most of us are in Seattle.

Bob Dunn: Yeah. Very cool. I’m about a three-hour drive from Seattle, so I’ll have to come up and have a tour of your offices sometime.

Jake Estes: Absolutely. You’re welcome anytime.

Meet Jake Estes and the Avalara team

Bob Dunn: Cool. For the first show in this series, we’re going to look at the big picture and the sales tax essentials needed for an online small business and as we do more in this series, we’ll be focusing down on some really need to know topics...