The top five most commonly asked questions about TaxJar and sales tax
by January 4, 2024
Please note: This blog was originally published in 2022. It’s since been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
Sales tax compliance is an inherently difficult subject to grasp, so we understand if you might have a lot of questions about sales tax — and TaxJar specifically. Companies of all sizes ask TaxJar about how we can help them with calculating, reporting and filing sales tax.
That’s why we’ve created this Q&A to answer the questions we get asked most frequently.
How does TaxJar compare to other sales tax compliance platforms?
TaxJar’s product differs in three major ways from other products on the market:
- Our high-performance sales tax engine is more than 99% accurate. Our API and calculation engines apply rooftop-accurate rates, which means that sales tax calculations are based on your customer’s state, county, city, and even district. Your customers will instantly see accurate tax data in their checkout view in no time at all — our sales tax API clocks in at sub-20ms with 99.99% uptime. You can always view our current status here.
- Our team cares about your success throughout the tax journey. We have a responsive customer support team available by phone, or helpful onboarding docs and a vast, deep knowledge base. Our customers love us, too – read our reviews on G2.
- Our pricing model is simple and transparent. We do not charge activation fees, connector fees, service fees, or support fees. With a TaxJar Professional subscription, you’ll get dedicated telephone support. In addition, you can take advantage of our automated filing service, AutoFile, for everything you need to stay compliant. Take a look at our pricing structure for yourself.
Does my company have to charge sales tax in every state?
It depends. We’ll answer your question with a question: where do you have offices, warehouses and employees? You may have physical nexus in that state, which means you’ll need to file and remit in that state. If you have customers in multiple states, you may also have economic nexus, depending on how much revenue you’re generating. Most states have passed economic nexus laws, which would require you to charge sales tax to customers in those states once you reach a specified threshold, and file and remit there. You can get an idea of if you meet the threshold for economic nexus in this helpful guide.
How long does it take to get up and running with TaxJar?
The answer completely depends on the type of integration your business requires. For a basic integration, it may only take a day or two to link TaxJar to your website and the marketplaces where you do business (like Amazon and eBay). Custom integrations take longer, but if you’re interested in integrating TaxJar to an ERP or custom website, we’ll provide you with an onboarding specialist, along with a product plan to help expedite the onboarding, configuration and education of your TaxJar account. We’re here to help.
How do you integrate to my system or e-commerce platform?
One of the strengths of TaxJar is our multi-channel capabilities. Even though each integration is unique, we’re flexible and ready to work with whatever marketplace, e-commerce platform, or ERP system your business relies on. Even better, we have pre-built integrations with Amazon and Shopify, and we also support custom integrations.
Where do I have to charge sales tax and how often do I have to file?
Technically that’s two questions, but we’ll allow it! The answer depends on both the state in question and the amount of revenue you’re generating in said state. For example, you could start out filing quarterly in a state, but if you hit a revenue threshold, the state may decide you need to file monthly. Keeping up with filing can be a headache, so our AutoFile product can file automatically on your behalf, so you never miss a deadline.
