Collegeville (PA) Sales Tax

When you purchase a car, the laws regarding the applicable sales tax are a bit more complicated. The first factor to consider is that there is a base 6% sales tax. Let’s say that your car costs 10k. You pay 6% on that, which is $600 on sales tax. On top of this cost, you also pay fees for vehicle registration and licenses. If you complete the transaction via a dealership, then all this paperwork and its cost are factored in on the sales agreement. If you buy the car via a private seller, then it is you, the buyer that needs to process all this paperwork via the local tax office and vehicle registration office. You would be responsible for paying registration fees and the title.

States allow for trade-in allowances, and this is a fantastic way to reduce your tax bill. Instead of selling your old vehicle, and then incurring sales taxes on that transaction, you can bring your old vehicle to the dealership and do a trade-in allowance for a new car. The value of the trade-in is reduced from the sticker price of the car that your intent to purchase. Then some dealerships offer rebates, which further reduces your total sales tax.

Let’s say that you will purchase the same car as in the above example that costs 10k. Instead, this time you have an old car to do a trade-in that is valued at 2k. The dealership offers you a 1k rebate offer. In that case, your sales tax will not be charged anymore on the original price of 10k, but it will be charged on the reduced price after the rebate and the trade-in. More specifically, we will reduce from 10k, the value of the rebate (1k) and the value of the trade-in (2k), hence a total of 3k of discount. We would end up paying out-of-pocket 7k. The applicable sales tax on a 7k car is $7000*6%= $420. We can see that we are paying a lower sales tax compared to the previous tax of $600. We are not paying any taxes on the old car that you brought for a rebate and not paying any sales taxes on that.

There are some special goods and services that do not qualify for the sales tax rate but instead are charged another rate. The most common category of these items falls under the excise tax. This is a special tax rate that is charged to gas, fuel, tobacco, and other goods that are heavily regulated by the government. Some services qualify for excise tax, such as using the highway. Air travel is in this category too.

You need to know all the applicable sales taxes that you should collect. You collect these taxes on each transaction. When it comes time to file your business quarterly returns, you declare your sales taxes collected and you pay them to the Department OF Revenue. You pay these taxes on January 15, April 15, July 15, and October 15. The type of sales taxes collected, and the rate depends on the business incorporation location and the applicable laws of that location.

A sales tax certificate is a document that allows a business to make sales-tax-free purchases of goods and services that it intends to reuse for business and to later sell and collect sales tax on. Some states allow buyers and businesses that engage in frequent transactions to create a blanket certificate. This is a simplified version of the sale certificate, and it is valid for a specified amount of time.

Sellers that do not have a large volume of transactions do not even need a sale certificate. Such is the case of garage sales. Some states offer direct payment certificates, which allow for the purchasers to not pay any sales tax to their sellers, but they pay everything to the government directly. There are numerous intricate scenarios and for this, you need a good CPA or a sales law specialist to better guide you.

The first detail to know about sales taxes is that some states imposer the sale tax on the vendor, some to the buyer, and some states place sales taxes on both entities. It is important to know who pays the tax, as this affects whether you can claim the taxes as a refund or not.