Avalara, a leading provider of cloud-based tax compliance automation for businesses of all sizes, announced the forthcoming availability of Avalara Returns for Small Business, a new product that helps small businesses to automate the sales tax return preparation process and to eliminate the hassle of manually filing returns to each state website. The new Avalara offering will be available later this year.
“Avalara’s new returns offering provides small businesses with an easy-to-use solution that reduces the amount of time spent on sales tax return preparation, and at a price point designed specifically for them.”
“Our business has sales tax obligations in multiple states, which makes the sales tax return preparation and filing with each individual state a time-consuming and costly process when done manually,” said Sara Hicks, controller at Jentech Drilling Supply. “Avalara Returns for Small Business removes manual return preparation and filing processes. This saves the company time and money by allowing me to focus on other business functions while also reducing the costs to stay compliant.”
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New sales tax laws place increased risk and burden on small businesses
Preparing and filing sales tax returns is a time-consuming and sometimes costly process. Automated solutions provide a better way for small businesses to manage their sales tax returns process by saving time, reducing costs, and reducing audit risk through increased accuracy.
The United States Supreme Court ruling in South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc. in June 2018 held that, given the power and prevalence of the internet, states could now collect sales tax from remote sellers. To date, 43 states and the District of Columbia have adopted sales tax laws requiring businesses to use customer location as part of determining compliance requirements.
These new laws have had a material impact on the time and resources required for small businesses to research, prepare, file, and remit sales tax. With each new state in which a business must now collect and remit sales tax, businesses face the onerous process of manually extracting sales tax calculation data from multiple sales channels, as well as navigating individual state Department of Revenue websites for filing and remittance.
