Business services
New York sales tax compliance
Registration, quarterly and annual returns, and representation if the Department of Taxation and Finance opens a sales tax audit — which in New York it does more often than most owners expect.
✓ Certificate of Authority✓ Quarterly and annual returns✓ Audit representation included
New York sales tax is unforgiving in a specific way: the tax you collected is not your money, and the responsible-person rules mean an officer or member can be assessed personally for it. That is why a sales tax notice deserves a faster response than almost any other letter a small business receives.
The rules are also genuinely confusing at the edges. Prepared food is taxable and grocery food is not, and the line runs straight through the middle of a deli. Clothing under $110 is exempt from the state rate but not everywhere from the local one. Capital improvements to real property are treated differently from repairs. Most of the assessments we see came from an honest misreading, not from anyone trying anything.
What we handle
Certificate of Authority
Registration before you make your first taxable sale, which the law requires and which is a penalty in itself if missed.
Quarterly and annual returns
ST-100 and ST-101, filed on the schedule your volume puts you on.
Taxability review
A written determination of what you must charge on, which is worth having on file before an auditor asks.
Exemption certificates
Collected, checked and kept — the single most common reason an audit goes badly is missing resale certificates.
Marketplace and online sales
Economic nexus, marketplace-provider rules, and which of your platforms is already collecting for you.
Audit representation
We deal with the auditor. You keep running the business.
Voluntary disclosure
Where returns were never filed, coming forward first materially reduces what it costs.
How a New York sales tax audit actually runs
It is not usually a review of your returns. It is a test period — often three months — extrapolated across three years, and the extrapolation is where the assessment gets large.
The test period
The auditor picks a period and examines it in detail, then projects the error rate across the whole audit window.
Records the auditor wants
Z-tapes or point-of-sale detail, purchase invoices, bank records, exemption certificates, and the general ledger.
Markup analysis
Where records are thin, the auditor estimates sales from purchases and an assumed markup — and the assumed markup is negotiable.
Where we push back
Test-period representativeness, the markup applied, the treatment of exempt sales, and personal liability of the responsible person.
Sales tax fees
| Certificate of Authority registration One-off |
$225 |
| Quarterly return preparation Per return, single jurisdiction |
$165 |
| Annual return Per return |
$195 |
| Written taxability review Your products and services, in writing |
from $650 |
| Audit representation Hourly, estimated in writing before we start |
$285 / hour |
| Voluntary disclosure application Preparation and negotiation |
from $1,450 |
General information, current for the 2026 filing season and not a substitute for advice on your own facts. Tax law changes, and the answer for your situation may differ. Speak to us before acting on anything you read here.
Questions
NYS Sales Tax — the questions we are asked most
I collected sales tax but never filed. What happens now?
Come forward before they find you. New York's voluntary disclosure program can eliminate penalties and limit the look-back period, and it is not available once an audit has been opened. This is genuinely time-sensitive.
Can I be held personally liable for my company's sales tax?
Yes. New York's responsible-person rules reach officers, members and anyone with authority over the funds, and the LLC or corporation does not shield you for trust-fund taxes. This is the reason sales tax notices should never be filed in a drawer.
Do I charge sales tax on delivery?
If the item being delivered is taxable, the delivery charge generally is too. If the item is exempt, the delivery generally is not. Mixed shipments have to be apportioned.
I sell online to other states. Do I need to register there?
Possibly. Every state has an economic nexus threshold, usually based on sales volume or transaction count. Marketplace facilitators collect on your behalf on their platforms, but your own website is your responsibility.
Related
Often needed alongside this
Business
Business Tax Returns
Federal and New York returns for S corporations, C corporations, partnerships and LLCs — prepared, reviewed and e-filed by a CPA.
Business
Small Business Accounting
A finance department for a business too small to hire one: monthly closes, management reporting, and a CPA on the phone when a decision needs one.
Business
Bookkeeping
Clean, reconciled, current books — kept monthly by people who know what the year-end return will need from them.
The first conversation is free
Talk to a CPA before you decide anything
Twenty minutes on the phone or across a desk on Roosevelt Avenue. Bring last year's return if you have one — most of what we need in order to quote you is already in it.