Urgent question about California sales taxes collection by amazon
I’m a California seller and am trying to file my Q4 state sales tax return. I used to get the sales tax amount by downloading a quarterly sales report. But when I downloaded my Q4 2019 sales report, I found, from the report, amazon collected all the sales taxes from all my buyers across the nation and also debited all the tax money from my account. Does it mean amazon paid the sales taxes to California state on behalf of me already? It’s used to be the case that I file the state sales taxes and pay the money myself. If amazon debited the money from my account, how am I going to file the tax return? I called the seller support, they were not very helpful. I got really confused. Did I miss any update from Amazon about tax collection?? Please help. Thank you!
Seller_JCqbXUeHNoJiE
Call the state. Amazon has paid the sales tax but you likely still need to file but they should have a line to tell them amazon collected and remitted it. call the state tax board to get a clear explanation.
Seller_EVkdMK6AvzRoT
I am wondering about this to, does anyone have better knowledge of this?
Seller_olet7eVOHxQZd
Yes you missed it back in October. Like phlash stated contact them if there are not instructions on the form or the website on how they want to see the ##s If all or most of your sales are from Amazon, you might ask if you can change the filing period.
Seller_w6aLwkKdfu3L0
Amazon collected and paid the tax on your behalf starting October for California. You would have to tell your accountant that or who you file with. You would need to file a report for what Amazon collected and they will compare to see the the totals Amazon collected matches what you report. This is also done for other marketplaces as well. You would still responsible for collection and distribution of all the taxes you collected off of marketplaces in California (your own website, brick&mortar, shows)
Amazon (and other marketplaces) collects and distributes taxes for the majority of states now.
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/gp/help/help.html/?itemID=G7VYHGJ8ZT2M58CP
Seller_zwa0vzNCUEGen
They collect it from our orders in several states even though we are not required to collect it under the states requirements as we are counted under Amazon so I do not understand why a bigger seller is required to file anything as they are either under Amazon or they are not and the way the collection is set up it should be Amazon filing it not the sellers as Amazon is collecting it and paying it for any and all states requiring under their sales not the sellers .
Seller_zwa0vzNCUEGen
I realize we are all required to collect in our own states but what i am saying the tax is collected even in the states i do not meet the requirements to on my own , so we are paying it as part of amazon , so why would a seller then be required to file in any state other than their own as they would still be a part of amazon by the collection standard.
I understand why the states set it up this way, to get more taxes, and if they are going to do it it is better for us that Amazon collects it , but as they collect it and file it why bring the sellers into it at all is what I do not understand, would have been a lot simpler to just have Amazon send in at the end of the year we collected this much in your state and payed it from Amazon sales , as opposed to bringing thousands of sellers into it to file individually on numbers they already have as the sellers never even touched the collections.
Maybe I am old and miserable but this just doesn’t make sense to me the way it is being done .
Seller_rZzQajwIukipC
Seller_nSkl6AwFtXuu4
Thank you everyone for the information! It helped me a lot. Now I still need to get the numbers from the sales report to file the return. Is there any easy way to get the amount of sales and taxes collected for a specific state from the amazon report? All the sales are mixed in one report. Thank you!
