Dear Pennsylvania....
Mar. 7th, 2008 11:56 amYour temporary sales tax permit application process sucks donkey dicks.
Seriously, I have to give them MORE information than I had to give the Texas State Comptroller, and we LIVE here. It's more information than I have ever had to give to get a California temporary sales tax ID. Their forms are ridiculously detailed and need to know completely unimportant things, like where our business records for our corporation are stored. Why do they need to know that? WHY?! Are they going to audit us? They need all the personal information of both partners, and how big a percentage we both own. Quite bluntly, they ask a bunch of invasive questions that seem completely unnecessary considering we want a TEMPORARY tax number for a THREE DAY CONVENTION. A convention by the way, which won't assign us a table until we have a temp tax id number for Pennsylvania. I can kind of see why so many conventions are held in California now- it's easier to get things set up for out-of-towners!
The online form was also incredibly opaque regarding transient tax permits for corporations. It kept giving me pop-up messages about how we didn't qualify for such things, which almost made me put my head through the computer monitor. It was pretty infuriating. I swear, I have never had more trouble applying for a temporary tax ID number before in ANY OTHER STATE. Pennsylvania's tax board can blow me. And joy, I will have to file sales taxes every year in Pennsylvania now until the end of time! I wonder if that will affect our mail order sales to PA, since at the moment, we don't have to charge sales tax for mail order going there. I hope we don't have to deal with that nonsense, it's ridiculous to have to permanently pay sales taxes in a state we're not even located in. I mean, it's not like I will be using their roads or schools or state aid programs or anything.
And here I thought incorporating would give us LESS crap to deal with. Apparently, it does, but only in Texas and California...
Boy, I have never been happier to be based in Texas than I am now. Our tax processes seem like a cakewalk here! Everything is so helpful and clearly laid out! The forms are so short! It's fantastic! And hey, you can't beat a complete lack of a state income tax. (We have sales taxes and that's it.)
Seriously, I have to give them MORE information than I had to give the Texas State Comptroller, and we LIVE here. It's more information than I have ever had to give to get a California temporary sales tax ID. Their forms are ridiculously detailed and need to know completely unimportant things, like where our business records for our corporation are stored. Why do they need to know that? WHY?! Are they going to audit us? They need all the personal information of both partners, and how big a percentage we both own. Quite bluntly, they ask a bunch of invasive questions that seem completely unnecessary considering we want a TEMPORARY tax number for a THREE DAY CONVENTION. A convention by the way, which won't assign us a table until we have a temp tax id number for Pennsylvania. I can kind of see why so many conventions are held in California now- it's easier to get things set up for out-of-towners!
The online form was also incredibly opaque regarding transient tax permits for corporations. It kept giving me pop-up messages about how we didn't qualify for such things, which almost made me put my head through the computer monitor. It was pretty infuriating. I swear, I have never had more trouble applying for a temporary tax ID number before in ANY OTHER STATE. Pennsylvania's tax board can blow me. And joy, I will have to file sales taxes every year in Pennsylvania now until the end of time! I wonder if that will affect our mail order sales to PA, since at the moment, we don't have to charge sales tax for mail order going there. I hope we don't have to deal with that nonsense, it's ridiculous to have to permanently pay sales taxes in a state we're not even located in. I mean, it's not like I will be using their roads or schools or state aid programs or anything.
And here I thought incorporating would give us LESS crap to deal with. Apparently, it does, but only in Texas and California...
Boy, I have never been happier to be based in Texas than I am now. Our tax processes seem like a cakewalk here! Everything is so helpful and clearly laid out! The forms are so short! It's fantastic! And hey, you can't beat a complete lack of a state income tax. (We have sales taxes and that's it.)