Denver Veloswap Oct 18 - sales tax?

[staggerwing]

Bit silly in a way. The small guy at a swap is just rotating personal toys, and not likely making money. More cutting losses, and freeing up some residual value, to make room for the current whim du jour.

Straight up, a sales tax is a consumption tax, and in the case of personal sales, should be the responsibility of the consumer. In Ohio, I am required to report any purchases that I made on out of state purchases in which tax was not collected, and pay the appropriate local sales tax on said purchases. In a recent case, I purchased a private sale vehicle, which just happened to be from out of state, although that didn't complicate the situation too much, and was required to pay local sales tax when registering the car locally.

In my opinion, which likely counts for little, only registered business should be required to report and collect sales tax. To be clear, even if it is a casual endeavor, if you are trying to turn a profit, or at least break even, it is a business. Moving some personal inventory, likely for less than acquisition cost, then "nothing to see here."

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by staggerwing

Bit silly in a way. The small guy at a swap is just rotating personal toys, and not likely making money. More cutting losses, and freeing up some residual value, to make room for the current whim du jour.

Straight up, a sales tax is a consumption tax, and in the case of personal sales, should be the responsibility of the consumer. In Ohio, I am required to report any purchases that I made on out of state purchases in which tax was not collected, and pay the appropriate local sales tax on said purchases. In a recent case, I purchased a private sale vehicle, which just happened to be from out of state, although that didn't complicate the situation too much, and was required to pay local sales tax when registering the car locally.

In my opinion, which likely counts for little, only registered business should be required to report and collect sales tax. To be clear, even if it is a casual endeavor, if you are trying to turn a profit, or at least break even, it is a business. Moving some personal inventory, likely for less than acquisition cost, then "nothing to see here."

Agree.

[Mark McM]

www.colorado.gov/cms/forms/dor-tax/drp0099.pdf:

An individual who makes retail sales from a private residence that total
$1,000 or less in a calendar year is not required to have a sales tax license.
However, taxes on these sales must be collected and paid by April 15
of the following year on the “Retail Sales Tax Return for Occasional
Sales” (DR 0100A). For more information on this topic, see publication
FYI Sales 8 “Sales Tax Requirements for Small Home Businesses.”

Four types of sales tax licenses are available in Colorado:
...
✔ Single Event Sales Tax License — required when an individual,
organization or vendor plans to conduct retail sales at a location
other than the regular business location (if any). The license
is valid for one event only. Examples would be a craft or
collector’s show. Organizers of an event may choose to obtain
a single event license and collect and remit tax on behalf of the
participating vendors.

It sounds like you should contact the even organizer about whether they have a single event sales tax license, and what their procedures are for individual vendors.

[Ken C]

Just to be clear Colorado has home rule jurisdictions. The City and County of Denver impose sales and use tax separately from the State. Their rules are even different on what is taxable. The state will collect the states sales tax, the RTD sales tax and the Cultural Facilities District sales tax. Denver will collect their sales tax.

The CO temp license would work for the state collected taxes but you will have to make sure Denver has something similar.

[Ken C]

The comparison to garage sales do not always work. The typical reason garage sales are exempt is for an occasional sale exemption. If you personally are not a retailer and you have a garage sale to sell some items most jurisdictions will exempt those sales since you are not in the business of being a retailer. This applies to you personally even if you have a business that is a retailer. The business would be treated separatley from the owner selling personal items.

Denver does not have an occasional sale exemption so therefore garage sales are taxable. So are sales at coventions, trade shows etc.

Here is your answer for the City, it looks like there more than a few options ranging to remitting tax with a letter to a special events license. It looks like organizers are required to submit a list of all vendors at the show to the City Finance Dept so compliance would be best. I would contact the organizer about a special events license for the City. As stated above you would have separate special events licenses for the state and for the City. Most likely the organizer has all the information you will need.

http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/571...%20Rentals.htm

http://www.denvergov.org/Portals/571...de%20Shows.pdf

[likebikes]

Did you end up making it to veloswap, bargain guy?

[cash05458]

"Denver does not have an occasional sale exemption so therefore garage sales are taxable."

Just curious...has anyone ever been gullible enough to pay this? Has Denver ever enforced it?

[oldpotatoe]

Originally Posted by cash05458

"Denver does not have an occasional sale exemption so therefore garage sales are taxable."

Just curious...has anyone ever been gullible enough to pay this? Has Denver ever enforced it?

Doubt it. I was very diligent about sales tax collection and paying when owning the shop(my thief of a biz partner, not so much)...BUT I know many who go to veloswap, private individuals and I have never talked to one who paid sales tax.

On any sunday, the scads of garage sales around, selling that little doo-dad for $.50, I really doubt anybody pays any sales tax.

[cash05458]

"On any sunday, the scads of garage sales around, selling that little doo-dad for $.50, I really doubt anybody pays any sales tax."

yeah, I can just see it Pete..."ok, so my 9 year old kid sold those 4 beat up power rangers he outgrew for 85 cents...now 7.7 percent of that for the good city of Denver is...oh let's see."

similar stuff here in Vermont...tho not overly ridiculous like that, is if we buy anything outta state...like new hampshire where alot of folks near border do all their shopping...or on amazon...we are supposed to fill out these long forms to pay the state their sales tax...I have never heard of anyone doing it, even for fun...but once in a while the local stations do a little pr thing as news of the governor buying something from amazon...say a box of new staplers for the office and then showing him at his desk diligently filling in his forms to report it

[bargainguy]

Well, I went, had a blast, tabulated my sales and paid the tax before I left.

But I talked to several vendors who were not aware of the tax situation. Since veloswap sends the vendor info to the city, methinks these folks will get contacted soon. Even if a vendor has no sales, they still have to submit the tax form and sign.

[ultraman6970]

We need a darn swapmeet here in DC metro... now gonna have to wait till march and drive like 2 hours hehehe

[likebikes]

Did you see any "tax spies" while you were there?

[bargainguy]

I thought about that...how would I know what to look for? Pocket protectors? IRS baseball cap?

One thing for sure, lots of stuff getting sold. The folks a couple tables down bought $22K worth of MTBs and parts to sell back home.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by cash05458

"On any sunday, the scads of garage sales around, selling that little doo-dad for $.50, I really doubt anybody pays any sales tax."

yeah, I can just see it Pete..."ok, so my 9 year old kid sold those 4 beat up power rangers he outgrew for 85 cents...now 7.7 percent of that for the good city of Denver is...oh let's see."

similar stuff here in Vermont...tho not overly ridiculous like that, is if we buy anything outta state...like new hampshire where alot of folks near border do all their shopping...or on amazon...we are supposed to fill out these long forms to pay the state their sales tax...I have never heard of anyone doing it, even for fun...but once in a while the local stations do a little pr thing as news of the governor buying something from amazon...say a box of new staplers for the office and then showing him at his desk diligently filling in his forms to report it

In Massachusetts there is a line item on the state income tax for declaring out-of-state purchases, and the filer is responsible for paying the use tax (i.e. sales tax) on those purchases. So yes, you are responsible for filling out forms for calculating tax owed. However, the Mass. tax forms do allow a filer to enter a "safe harbor" amount, which is a single default tax value, in lieu of itemizing every single out of state purchase.