Tax Exempt Certificates - multi-jurisdiction & MA/NJ cert's

[rich]

I read this from back in Nov2015: https://tech.lds.org/forum/viewtopic.ph ... pt#p147732

The above link has useful guidance on which purchases may or may not be tax exempt. Basic rule of thumb, if the ward budget covers 100% of the purchase in states with sales tax, exemption should apply.

1 point I didn't quite follow as a clerk is "The Church should get the tax amount returned to them when they file taxes.", the church may recover the taxes but the ward budget will not. So if you have large purchases, your unit budgets will go farther if you use the ID listing in LDS_Multi-Jurisdiction_Tax_Exempt_IDs.pdf. Also each vendor can have "unique" checkout procedures for tax exemption.

Here is one that ward clerks and auxiliary may find useful. My ward had large purchases at Home Depot for scout camp this year. At the risk of some duplication, I registered all of the U.S. jurisdictions (states and districts) under 1 Home Depot Tax ID Number: 1606928348 (see form below)

I got the attached forms from my FMG in NJ that applies to all the states with sales tax:
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LDS_Multi-Jurisdiction_Tax_Exempt_IDs.pdf

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- 1 multi-jurisdictional tax exempt cert that lists all of the states that allow sales tax exemption and their certificate numbers, if required.
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LDS_sales_tax_exempt_homedepot_cert.pdf

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- Home Depot Tax ID exemption for the following states - CO, CT, DC, FL, IL, KS, KY, ME, MD, MA, MN, MO, NE, NJ, NM, NY, PA, RI, TN, UT, VT, WV, WI
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LDS_NJ_ST-5_tax_exempt_cert.pdf

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- a NJ specific ST-5 cert, it appears MA uses the same cert number

Hope you find them useful...

[aebrown]

1 point I didn't quite follow as a clerk is "The Church should get the tax amount returned to them when they file taxes.", the church may recover the taxes but the ward budget will not. So if you have large purchases, your unit budgets will go farther if you use the ID listing in LDS_Multi-Jurisdiction_Tax_Exempt_IDs.pdf. Also each vendor can have "unique" checkout procedures for tax exemption.

You're quoting from this post; the post following it clarified that the statement about the Church recovering taxes only applies to Utah and North Carolina (and I believe something similar happens in Canada). In those states, the ward budget is NOT charged sales tax right from the beginning; a purchase of a $100 item for the ward Primary in Utah with $6.85 sales tax will be entered into MLS as a multi-category expense, with $100 going against the Primary budget and $6.85 going against a special Utah Sales Tax category which doesn't hit the ward budget at all. The Church then has a procedure it has worked out with those states to recover the sales taxes that were paid this way, but that process doesn't affect the wards and stakes at all, since their budgets were never charged for the sales tax.

However, this procedure only applies to those specific jurisdictions. In other places, it's good to follow local procedures for sales tax exemptions, since that can affect indeed affect whether the ward budget is impacted by sales tax costs.

[rich]

Thanks for the clarification. In NJ, I don't have a special 'sales tax category' that can be applied to purchases that I am aware of (been a clerk for 14+ years). That's why I didn't follow the comment.

NJ's 7% sales tax impacts the ward budget. For large purchases $100+, it's noticeable.

[lajackson]

Every state has a different process, of course.

[rich]

Sadly most large vendors (Home Depot, Walmart, grocery stores...) have a custom process too, on top of the states

But the "1" Home Depot tax exempt ID should work for all the states listed above. Just provide the ID: 1606928348 at checkout.

[ivanov.adam86@yahoo.com]

The tax exempt ID stopped working at Home Depot, is there a new ID?