By early December, RunSignup will begin collecting, reporting and remitting sales tax on behalf of all events in Marketplace state. You can see if your event is in a Marketplace State on our RunSignup Public Taxability Matrix.
There are several good resources for you to refer to for more information:
- Sales Tax Policies
- Taxability Matrix
- Detailed Implementation
- Sales Tax Webinar
- Sales Tax Refunds
- Sales Tax Address. Related, we added Shipping Address Features which trigger the proper ship to address tax calculation.
RunSignup does some automation in setting up your event that you can refine. Our automation does the following:
- Implements the sales tax rules for your race
- Assumes that all Add-on and Store items are general merchandise
- Until December 15, nonprofit payment accounts will be exempt according to the state rules.
- After December 15, we assume that any event that has not specifically declared as a nonprofit as shown below will be assumed to be a for profit entity and taxed accordingly.
There are several steps to setup on Sales Tax in Marketplace states.
Step 1 – Sales Tax Setup
Under the Financial tab, click on Sales Tax V2 and then Sales Tax Setup. There are two basic things you need to setup here.
First, the taxability address. This is normally the address of your race. However, if your race address is in a park or not a valid address that sales tax systems do not recognize, you can set that up here. Look for a valid street address that is close to the start.
Second, you can set up General Exemptions. Certain states like Florida have special exemption laws. In Florida race fees are not taxed if the event charges an admissions fee for spectators. You will need to agree to the terms indicated in the exemption and assume liability if this exemption does not apply to your event.
Finally, if your organization is a nonprofit, there are exemptions available in many states. Again, you must agree that your organization complies with the law and accepts liability if the exemption does not apply. These exemption rules are very detailed and there may be more than one type of exemption per state, so please be sure to review carefully.
Note also that you can set your exemption status in other states. This can be useful for national organizations that are operating a large race and shipping items to other states.
If your RunSignup Payment Account is not set up to be a nonprofit, then you will see a message that explains that you are not eligible for setting up the exemption. You will be able to send appropriate documentation to RunSignup and we will help. Also note that you may need to update your payment account with the correct information and status.
Step 2 – Taxable Items
Under the Financial tab, click on Sales Tax V2 and then Taxable Items. This is where you pick the appropriate type of Taxability Code for the item. Again, this is important as we default to the “General Taxable Item”, which may not be taxed appropriately for the items you are selling as Add-On, Giveaways, and Store items.
Reports
As covered in the detailed sales tax implementation blog post, we have two reports for you to understand the sales tax. The first is the sales tax transaction report, which will look something like this:
The second report is a summary.
These reports are for information only, since RunSignup will be reporting and remitting sales tax in Marketplace States.