3% tax for business sales?

Question

My business needs to buy a printer. I found the one I want in Office Depot. Now I understand that as a business it is entitled to 3% of tax payment. But the lady in the cashier told me no. Now they have something called tax exemption. I dont know what to do now and I still need the printer. Any advice?

bostonianin..
I bought the rest of my video equipment in another place and I paid only 3% in taxes. The total amount was about 7000 plus 3%taxes=$7210. How do you explain that?

Steve:California

Answer 1

I'm assuming you're talking here about sales tax. There are tax exemption forms, so the purchaser doesn't pay sales tax, but those are for non-profits - if you are not a non-profit, you'll have to pay the sales tax on the printer.

You'll be able to either expense or depreciate the purchase price of the printer on your income tax filing.

Answer 2

I'm assuming that you're talking about sales taxes. Sorry, but there is no such exemption. Anything that you purchase for use in your business is fully taxable.

If you purchase something for RESALE, that would be tax-exempt when you purchased it although you would collect and remit the tax when you sold it to your retail customer.

Addendum: If you only paid 3% on the other purchase, one of three things happened:

1. You messed up your figures.
2. The seller messed up their calculation.
3. The seller gave you a break on the tax. Retailers don't HAVE to collect sales tax from the customer, but they MUST pay it in to the state whether they collect it or not.

Answer 3

The 3% you paid was probably sales tax. Unless you have a specific reason for purchasing the printer tax exempt (rules vary by state) then, you have to pay the sales tax.

BTW, where is sales tax in the US 3%?