The State of New York recently enacted new legislation that addresses tax registration, collection, and other time-sensitive obligations. As with all tax laws, this law may or may not apply to you and/or your online business. We suggest that you actively monitor the law and use reasonable efforts to protect yourselves as appropriate.
The application of this law is dependent on particular business and factual circumstances. We encourage all of our clients to perform the appropriate due diligence as it relates to their specific online businesses.
Our solution will be to cease any online, sales-taxable business in New York. We wish all online vendors would do the same to encourage reversal of this ridiculous, money-grabbing law. If this stands many states will follow, and the resulting administrative costs will be an absolute nightmare.
Here is a link to a memo from the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance, Office of Tax Policy Analysis, Taxpayer Guidance Division that addresses the new legislation:
http://www.tax.state.ny.us/pdf/memos/sales/m08_3s.pdf