Each state handles them differently, which means you’ll need to be well-informed. It’s crucial to understand whether participation is mandatory or merely recommended, whether the holiday affects state taxes alone or includes local taxes, and which specific items qualify for the exemption.

Sales tax holidays generally fall into one of three categories:

• Back to School – exempt clothing, computers, and school supplies
• Second Amendment – exempt guns and ammunition
• Weather Preparedness – exempt items useful during severe weather, such as generators, flashlights, and batteries
• Energy Star – exempt appliances and other home items that meet specific criteria to reduce energy expenditure

The availability and specific dates of the sales tax holidays change from year to year, so we’ve compiled an updated list for 2026 of holidays currently on the books. Early in the year, a lot of these have yet to be announced. As such, some of the dates below are anticipated rather than firm dates, and some links may refer to previous years.

We’ll update the table periodically throughout 2026 as new data becomes available.

States Without Sales Tax Holidays

The following states do not currently have a planned sales tax holiday in 2026:

• Arizona
• California
• Colorado
• Delaware (which has no sales tax)
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Idaho
• Illinois
• Indiana
• Kansas
• Kentucky
• Maine
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Montana (which has no sales tax)
• Nebraska
• New Hampshire (which has no sales tax)
• New Jersey
• New York
• North Carolina
• North Dakota
• Oregon (which has no sales tax)
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Dakota
• Utah
• Vermont
• Washington
• Wisconsin
• Wyoming

Tips for Retailers

In order to make sure you track your sales accurately during these sales tax holidays, you need to know whether or not you are required to participate in the sales tax holidays, and plan accordingly. This includes modifying tax calculations on your website or in-store as needed, and classifying exempt items properly. The use of sales tax software like our TaxTools product can help simplify the process and help you make sure you’re in compliance with tax holiday laws and regulations.

For a complete guide to helping you understand sales tax and your role in it, read our comprehensive Guide to Sales Tax.

Breaking it Down

If you analyze the list above, you’ll notice that there are really only 4 main types of tax holidays. These are:

• Back to School Sales Tax Holidays – These are the most common across the board. The holiday generally happens just before school-age children are set to return to the classroom in the fall. What gets exempted from sales tax differs somewhat by state, but it generally includes school supplies, clothing, shoes, and sometimes computers and software.
• Energy Star Appliance Sales Tax Holidays – This holiday encourages consumers to decrease their use of energy resources by purchasing appliances that are more energy or water efficient.
• Second Amendment Sales Tax Holidays – Despite the political divide over gun rights, several states exempt these items from sales and use tax with a holiday. In general, these occur just before the start of hunting season.
• Severe Weather Preparedness Sales Tax Holidays – This type of holiday exempts items that people would need when power goes out, severe storms hit, or during other types of emergencies. Think batteries, flashlights, and power generators.

The post 2026 Sales Tax Holidays by State appeared first on AccurateTax.

Colorado Retail Delivery Fees At-a-Glance

• The fees are effective July 1, 2022.
• The total fee is $0.28 (or 28 cents) per order, even if the order ships in multiple shipments. You can see the breakdown of the fees here.
• The fee amount may change yearly. The $0.28 amount is correct through for July 1, 2025 through June 30, 2026.
• The retail delivery fees themselves are not taxable.
• The fees should be charged to the customer, listed separately on order receipts, and be labeled “Retail Delivery Fees”
• If the entire transaction is non-taxable, then the fee should not be added to the invoice; however, if even one (1) item in the transaction IS taxable, then the fee should be included.

Implementation

Because the CO Retail Delivery Fees are a fee and not a tax, the AccurateTax system itself will not report this, at present. However, we have added the ability for our customers to include the RDF in your invoices as an option to our plug-ins to facilitate collection by our clients. If you use one of our provided sales tax plug-ins, you should upgrade to the latest version in order to support this fee.

In our plug-ins, the option to collect this fee can be turned on or off only at this time. If the option is turned on, and the conditions for including the fee are met, then the fee will be added to the order and displayed to your customer as a separate charge during checkout.

You should not change the “Retail Delivery Fees” wording. The Colorado Department of Revenue requires the proper wording to be listed on all affected orders.

Retail Delivery Fee Registration and Filing

Retailers who have an “active sales tax account, a retailer license, and any sales tax liability reported after January 1, 2021,” do not need to register; they will be automatically registered for the new fees. There is no process to opt out of the automatic registration.

There is also a new return to complete, which will be due on the same schedule as a retailer’s sales tax returns. This new return is DR 1786. For example, if you file monthly, your sales tax return is due on the 20th of the month following a given collection period. Your DR 1786 return and payment of the retail delivery fees will also be due on the 20th of the month.

A return is required to be filed every period, even if no fees were collected. In other words, even if you had no taxable orders to Colorado, you must file a zero dollar return using DR 1786.

You do NOT need to break down the fees by jurisdiction or location.

What You Need to Do

If you’re an AccurateTax customer using a platform for which we provide a plug-in, simply download the latest version by logging in to your account. You can also contact your account representative for an update.

Update your website(s) with the new version of the plug-in, go into Settings, and turn the retail delivery fee on.

Then simply make sure to submit your DR 1786 by the due date each period.

If you have a custom integration with AccurateTax, you will need to add support for the Colorado Retail Delivery Fees for all taxable orders shipping to a Colorado location.

For more information about the fees themselves, visit the Colorado Department of Revenue website.

The post Colorado Retail Delivery Fees appeared first on AccurateTax.

The case, South Dakota v. Wayfair, was a bellwether against which many other states will now measure and adjust their sales tax policies, some of which have already been passed into law and were merely waiting for this decision. But there’s been a consistent habit in media reports to describe this as a new tax, or as the Supreme Court giving states the permission to pass new taxes that will directly impact online businesses. In reality, Wayfair is more of an adjustment to who will pay an already existing tax in many of these states and the implications are far-reaching.

Online Sales Tax Before Wayfair

Before the Supreme Court’s recent ruling, online retailers were effectively exempt from collecting sales tax in any state where they did not have a physical presence. While eCommerce has been around for more than 20 years, it is only in the last decade that it has grown to represent a significant percentage of the economy, with Amazon processing hundreds of billions of dollars in orders every year. For companies that did not have nexus in all fifty states (which very few do), that meant states were unable to require them to collect sales tax on orders through their sites.

This applied to many major retailers, including Amazon for states in which they did not have fulfillment centers, eBay’s network of individuals and small businesses, and in the case of this particular legal case, the trio of Wayfair, Overstock and Newegg, which all resisted a new law that was passed in South Dakota last year. That new law would have shifted the onus to retailers with more than $100,000 in sales or 200+ transactions to collect the 4.5% sales tax levied by the state.

The tricky part of this situation is that this is not a new tax. The 4.5% sales tax that South Dakota charged (and many other states charge at comparable levels), always existed. The difference is that the company selling the goods was not required to collect it, unlike in the case of brick and mortar retailers who do collect it on the state’s behalf. In those cases, it fell to the consumer to report their use tax and pay it independently.

If the tax was still being charged, what was the problem then? In the 27 states that have a use tax line item in their returns, only 2% of taxpayers actually report it. Only in rare cases, such as the purchase of a car or truck across state lines is use tax enforced proactively. That meant billions of dollars in tax revenue shortfall as consumers started to buy almost everything online, from books and movies to paper towels and diapers.

Shifting the Legal Burden from Shoppers to Retailers

This relationship is not new. Already in all but five states (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon), brick and mortar retailers were required to collect sales tax on purchases by their consumers and submit it to the state in regular payments. The difference now is that these same states are now permitted to enforce online retailers to do the same, regardless of where they do business.

For states it is a major win, allowing them to recapture the billions in lost revenue, but for retailers, it represents a new technology and financial burden as they work to address the nearly 10,000 unique taxing jurisdictions in the US. For major companies like Amazon, this is not an issue (as they’ve already made this transition), but for small companies and those without significant resources, it represents a challenge that will require outside support and new technology solutions. The challenge is real, but the result of the court case is not entirely unexpected as it represents an adjustment of the status quo to address very real advancements in how we use the Internet as part of our daily lives.

The post Why Wayfair Isn’t Really a New Tax appeared first on AccurateTax.

The ruling came in the case of South Dakota vs. Wayfair, as South Dakota attempted to overturn the previous ruling. South Dakota cited their losses in not being able to collect sales tax on online sales, totaling nearly $50 million a year, and the Government Accountability Office citing nearly $14 billion in total missed tax revenue for all states. The case was a divisive issue that has been wrestled with by state governments, Congress, and large businesses alike for decades as online sales have ballooned to make up a larger percentage of commerce.

The Argument Against the Quill Ruling

The primary argument against Quill is that it was decided in 1992, before ecommerce and internet sales existed. The ruling at the time related to catalog sales and a very narrow slice of the economy. Today, billions in sales are made every year online, with large retailers like Amazon gaining an ever-greater foothold in dozens of industries.

Small retailers like local bookstores, clothing retailers, and others that have been pressured by online retailers came out in favor of overturning Quill, and President Trump has previously voiced his opposition to tax exemption for online companies.

For much of the last twenty years, Congress has intermittently brought forth potential bills to address the issue, but nothing has passed, with proponents often citing the impact of the online retail lobby.

The South Dakota vs. Wayfair Ruling

South Dakota’s challenge to the Quill ruling was precipitated by a new law passed recently that would charge retailers with more than $100,000 in sales or 200+ transactions to pay a 4.5% sales tax to the state, regardless of location. While 19 out of 20 of the largest online retailers already collect sales tax, the plaintiffs in the case – Wayfair, Overstock, and Newegg – do not, and South Dakota sued them after their new law was implemented.

Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote the majority in the 5-4 ruling, citing “startling revenue shortfall” for not just South Dakota, but other states who have been impacted by the Quill ruling’s ban on charging online sales tax. This was not the first such case brought before the court either. In 2015, Direct Marketing Association vs. Brohl, in which online retailers sued Colorado over a workaround law they attempted to implement. That case had a narrow ruling, however, and it was the South Dakota case that more directly targeted the decades old precedent.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., joined by Justices Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer dissented, with Roberts noting during oral arguments that the issue seemed to be working itself out independently. Amazon and eBay already collect sales tax voluntarily and others have started implementing similar systems. Nonetheless, Justice Anthony Kennedy, joined by Justices Samuel A. Alito Jr., Clarence Thomas, Neil M. Gorsuch, and Ruth Bader Ginsberg voted in favor of vacating and remanding the Quill decision, effectively allowing states to charge online sales tax in the future (and validating all current and pending laws).

What This Means for the Future

With the Quill ruling vacated, it is unclear how states will proceed. Congress has yet to implement legislation at any level to address online sales tax, but with nearly 10,000 taxing jurisdictions in the US, it may feel greater pressure from lobbyists to provide additional guidance or structure.

Another factor is the way in which the large retailers currently collect sales tax. Amazon, for example, does collect sales tax on all direct sales, but does not for third party sellers (except in Washington and Pennsylvania). Other retailers are in similar situations, and with this ruling, the 45 states that charge sales tax can now implement a new online sales tax or enforce recently passed laws more fully.

If you want to learn more about sales tax, we suggest taking a look at our Complete Guide to Sales Tax. In it, we’ve tried to cover everything you need to know about sales tax, from both an e-commerce perspective and the needs of traditional businesses.

The post The US Supreme Court Overturns “Quill” Ban on Online Sales Tax appeared first on AccurateTax.

Unfortunately, it also causes health problems. Diabetes. Heart disease. Obesity. All scary things to deal with.

That’s why, last October, the World Health Organization (WHO) called for countries to specifically tax sugary drinks. Their hope is that higher cost will load to lower consumption, which will in turn reduce obesity and its related diseases.

WHO believes that a 20% increase in the cost of sodas and related sugar-laden drinks, would lead to a 20% reduction in their consumption. In other words, if sodas costs more, people will drink them less. And, theoretically, if people drink fewer sodas, they will be less likely to be overweight. Hence, the so-called soda tax or sugar tax.

In case you’re one of the few who doesn’t know how much of a problem obesity is, consider the following United States statistics from the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases:

• More than 2 in 3 adults are considered to be overweight or obese.
• More than 1 in 3 adults are considered to be obese.
• More than 1 in 20 adults are considered to have extreme obesity.
• About one-third of children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 are considered to be overweight or obese.
• More than 1 in 6 children and adolescents ages 6 to 19 are considered to be obese.

Those numbers are staggering.

A Tax on Sodas is a Type of “Sin Tax”

What WHO is asking for – a tax on sugary drinks – is something known as a sin tax. A sin tax is just what it sounds like: A tax on something that’s bad for you. The logic behind a sin tax is twofold:

1. Reduce use of the unhealthy items by increasing the associated cost, and
2. Use the funds raised by the tax to fund public health programs, from education initiatives to research to health care.

The idea isn’t new. As Americans, we already pay sin taxes on cigarettes and alcohol. Specifically, this is in the form of an excise tax, not a sales tax. An excise tax is often rolled into the cost of the item you’re buying, so sometimes you might not be aware of it. But in states where liquor is taxed, every bottle has an excise tax applied and included in the cost. Same with a pack of cigarettes. And, lots of times, sales tax is then applied as well.

On the surface, a sin tax sounds great. Let’s raise the prices of things people shouldn’t consume (or shouldn’t over-consume) and everyone wins. But the opposition has excellent arguments too. The first is that sin taxes unnecessary hurt the poor, who are less able to afford them, while well-to-do citizens really aren’t hit that hard. The second is that it encourages black markets, where people buy and sell products illegally in order to avoid taxes.

As every fan of the TV show Moonshiners knows.

A Little Background on Soda Taxes

Many of us already pay regular sales tax on soda and other sugary drinks. A Bridging the Gap report (no longer on their website) in 2014 found that 34 states and the District of Columbia tax soda sold in stores, while 39 states and D.C. tax soda sold by vending machines. That tax averages a bit over 5%. In many cases that sales tax is higher than the sales tax applied to food items. The idea is that food is necessary to live, but a Pepsi is not, so it gets taxed higher.

Legislation to add a specific tax to sugary drinks is fairly new, but the idea is not. Way back as far is 1914, President Woodrow Wilson proposed the idea, although for different reasons. His justification was the need to increase revenues due to import changes related to World War I. History buffs will enjoy this scan of the front page of the Hawaiian Gazette newspaper from September 1, 1914. (The article about soft drink taxes is at the very bottom, halfway across the page.) The proposal also included beer and patent medicines.

Modern efforts truly got started in 2014, when Berkeley, California passed the nation’s first soda tax law. A similar initiative was on the ballot that same year in San Francisco, but it was defeated there.

Berkeley’s tax amounts to 1 cent on every ounce. So a 12-ounce can of Sprite costs an additional 12 cents in taxes. The measure is considered successful. The tax officially took effect in March 2015, and since then, the city has seen a reduction in soda consumption greater than one-fifth.

2016 saw new efforts, as 4 cities and one county approved a similar tax during the November elections. The first of those to go into effect is Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The Philadelphia Soda Tax

On the first day of the 2017 new year, Philadelphia’s new Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax took effect. The law had been approved on June 16, 2016, as a new amendment to Title 19 of The Philadelphia Code. Many people were not fans, and took to social media to complain. Here’s one tweet showing one such reaction:

From a Facebook post, the Philadelphia sugary drink tax implemented today damn, between that & Pennsylvania gas tax no wonder folk revolted

— SalenaZito (@SalenaZito) January 2, 2017

At one-and-a-half cents per ounce, it’s higher than Berkeley’s tax. To use the same example I used before, a 12-ounce can of Sprite now costs an additional 18 cents in tax. While most of us can probably find that in our couch cushions, a better illustration of the costs comes on things like cases of soda or multi-packs of Gatorade:

@johnkim @SalenaZito Alcohol taxed at 10% per drink. “Soda” tax is per ounce. It’s crazy. Check out new price of Gatorade in Philly…

— Jamie Slonis (@JamieSlonisCG) January 2, 2017

Notice that second example isn’t a soda. While we’re calling this a soda tax, and the real name is the “Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Tax”, it’s a bit broader than that. It applies to soda, artificially-sweetened diet soda, energy drinks, juice, and even milk substitutes and tea. Even the syrup used in fountain drink machines is taxed.

Technically, this isn’t a sales tax, and it’s not quite the same as an excise tax, either. It’s a tax on the distribution of these products. That means that the distributor charges it to the retailers (stores, vending machine operators, etc.) and remits it to the city. The retailers aren’t required to collect it, and it’s not paid directly by consumers either. In fact, the tax doesn’t truly have to be passed along to consumers, but of course, it is.

The upside is that the revenue is going to be used for things we all like: community schools, parks and recreation centers, libraries, and the city’s pre-kindergarten programs. While these aren’t directly related to the “sin” involved in drinking a sugar-bolstered beverage, they are still pretty good things that most of us really like.

Still, many consumers don’t care for the tax. As this article by Fox News points out, the soda tax in Philly is 24 times more expensive than the state’s tax on beer. Fink’s Hoagies (“King of Gourmet Hoagies”) in the northeast part of the city has even stopped serving sodas at its shop. This article at the Philly Voice has a great photo of their sign informing customers of the change, which calls the tax a “blatant robbery of hard working Philadelphia taxpayers’ money”.

Of course, Big Soda is against it too. The tax will certainly cut into their revenues, if the drop in consumption seen in Berkeley also happens in Philadelphia. The American Beverage Association, which is the largest US trade association for soft drink bottlers, has funded considerable lobby attempts to sway legislators. There’s also an industry group called Americans Against Food Taxes, who paid for national ads and lobbied to oppose these kinds of taxes. This group is backed by companies such as Welch’s (juice), PepsiCo (soda), McDonald’s, and Burger King, as well as organizations including the American Beverage Association and the Corn Refiners Association. Obviously we’re talking big politics here.

And that leads to legal matters. The law is currently tied up in court, as the beverage industry and others fight it.

Measures Also Enacted in Locations in California, Colorado, and Illinois

Philadelphia is only the first of several new soda taxes to take effect. Last year, voters in Oakland, San Francisco and Albany, all cities in the Bay Area of California, passed similar measures. Boulder, Colorado did too. But the largest one (in terms of affected population) that will take effect is Cook County, Illinois – the county that includes Chicago. Here are the details.

• San Francisco, CA – Prop V passed with over 61% of the vote on 11/8/16. It will add a 1-cent per ounce tax on sodas. The tax takes effect on January 1, 2018.
• Oakland, CA – Measure HH passed with over 60% of the vote on 11/8/16. It will add a 1-cent per ounce tax on sodas. The tax takes effect on July 1, 2017.
• Albany, CA – Prop O1 passed with over 70% of the vote on 11/8/16. It will add a 1-cent per ounce tax on sodas. The tax takes effect on January 1, 2017
• Boulder, CO – Measure 2H passed with 54% of the vote on 11/8/16. It will add a 2-cent per ounce tax on sodas. The tax takes effect on July 1, 2017
• Cook County, IL – Passed by a 9-8 vote of the Board of Commissioners on 11/10/16. It will add a 1-cent per ounce tax on sodas. The tax takes effect on July 1, 2017.

Internationally, other countries are doing the same thing. Mexico already has a soda tax, and the United Kingdom has approved one, but it’s not yet in effect.

The jury is still out on how much this will help or hurt our society. What also remains to be seen is whether states themselves will eventually impose such taxes, rather than individual cities and counties.

Related: Do you pay sales tax on water?

The post Soda Tax Pros and Cons – A Sugary Debate appeared first on AccurateTax.

The Inclusive Prosperity Act

On April 7^th, 2016, Counterpunch columnist Sarah Anderson wrote , “Wall Street Should Pay a Sales Tax, Too.” This is the subject of a bill called the “Inclusive Prosperity Act.” This bill first landed in Congress in 2012 and resembles a sales tax. It has also been called the “Robin Hood tax,” since it is meant to collect a large dollar amount on only very high revenue trades, imposing a “nominal” fee on typical middle class investments. Anderson reports that this bill would place a “small tax of just a fraction of a percent on all financial trades,” and would exclude regular consumer transactions like wire transfers or ATM withdrawals. Other countries around the world already collect fees like this.

The point of this bill is to target people who score millions on trades, such as hedge fund managers and investment bankers. Anderson claims the cost to lower income investors, such low turnover pension funds, would be nearly negligible. According to The Nation, Bernie Sanders’ version of this bill proposes a tax rate of ?0.5 percent on all stock trades, 0.1 percent on all bond trades, and 0.005 percent on the underlying values of derivative trades. Anderson writes that this bill is meant to prevent dangerous trades, certainly an appealing option after the disastrous effects of speculative trading that helped create the recession of 2008.

How is it Being Received?

It sounds like a good idea to some, but to others this plan is foolish. Tim Worstall wrote a peer reviewed article on the IPA. He claims that it’s not a tax that Wall Street would actually pay, but that it would be paid by those who use the financial system instead. He also argues that it wouldn’t actually raise funds; it would actually lose the Treasury money. According to the article:

[T]he deadweight costs of the transaction tax are so high that it destroys more tax revenue from other taxes than it itself raises.

MarketWatch reports that the supporters of this plan claim it will “collect tens of millions of dollars, lowering speculative and high-frequency trading, and make markets safer and less volatile.” However, they also report that this fee will likely negatively impact stocks as it discourages high end trading. Research done by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) claims that stocks that trade the most would also decline the most. The European Commission also looked at a similar tax and claimed that because tax raises the cost of capital, there is less investment and that can hurt the economy.

In 2011 the IMF took a favorable position on such a tax, in spite of writing in their own report that the European version of this tax (the FTT) would place a burden that “may fall largely on the final consumers rather than, as often seems to be supposed, earnings in the financial sector.”

Would such a tax have a similar impact in the U.S., and hurt small business owners who are seeking to invest their profits to build their businesses?

At this point, a Bernie Sanders presidency seems less likely, but it’s possible this bill can re-emerge in Congress. What are the chances that a bill like this get traction with a Clinton or Trump presidency and what would be the fallout to the American economy should it pass? That remains to be seen. However, many American economists support the tax, claiming that it can raise $300-$600 billion dollars in 10 years or less. We will need to wait to see what changes come after a new president and Congress take office in January, but future bills could be trending towards a sales tax on Wall Street.

The post Should Wall Street Pay a Sales Tax? appeared first on AccurateTax.