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Comment by deathanatos | Hacker News Reader

Tennessee also has a "Sales Tax Holiday" on which certain items are tax exempt during certain times (during the holiday). And because we know how much programmers love date and time manipulations, it starts on "the last Friday in July" (I mean, it kinda had to, to be a weekend).

[1]: https://www.tn.gov/revenue/taxes/sales-and-use-tax/sales-tax...

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An exemption such as this is one of those things that I'd say is not worth supporting unless you're based out of TN, or do enough of sales there to make it worth your while. Sure, I'd implement it if it's required but every special case is just another point of failure.

But if you don't support it, are you liable for collecting more tax than required? How do you "not support" it? Just reject purchases from people in TN during the holiday?

Disclaimer: I am not an accountant. I would figure tax holidays are optional and might even require an application to take advantage of. So you would charge the regular sales tax and remit it to the state.

UPDATE: Out of curiosity I looked it up. And it looks like sales tax holidays depend as usual on the state. The MO back to school one is optional if less than 2% of merchandise is affected. But the TN one doesn't look optional.

Collecting 'tax' on an untaxed item could be considered acting falsely under color of law.

"Under color of law" means that you're a law enforcement official. Collecting extra tax and then remitting to the state will almost certainly not cause you any issues.

>"Under color of law" means that you're a law enforcement official.

No.

Collection of taxes is done to enforce law, unless the state is compelling people with something else?

> Collection of taxes is done to enforce law

To _comply with_ law.

comply with and enforce

No you just have to remit the tax.

There is no tax in this situation.

Washington State has a line item on the report for over-collected sales tax. I don't know what happens to that number, though.

I'm pretty sure that in most states so long as you remit the tax to the state, they are happy to take it, even if you didn't have to collect it. You only really get in trouble if you collect the tax from customers then pocket it.

You dont have to participate in the holidays though. If you charge a tax on an exempt item during the holidays then you just have to remit the tax. No system changes required.

The obvious solution here is that TN will not include online stores in the sales tax holiday.

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