Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement

The Streamlined Sales and Use Agreement (SSUTA) was officially launched on October 1, 2005 with 22 signatory states. SSUTA grew out of the Streamlined Sales Tax Project (SSTP), which sought to find a means to overcome the difficulty of sales tax processing brought on by the many different sales tax systems across the country. The framework developed by SSTP was formalized in the SSUTA.

SSUTA focuses on four main areas:

  1. State Level Administration   Under SSUTA sales taxes are remitted to a single state administrator. Businesses will no longer have to remit separate returns to each state in which they conduct business.
  2. Uniform Tax Base   This provision requires each state make each jurisdiction in the state either tax or exempt the same goods and services across the entire state.
  3. Simplified Tax Rates   SSUTA requires all jurisdictions have the same rate. The only exception being for unprepared food items and prescription and non-prescription medications.
  4. Uniform Sales Sourcing Rules   In-state sales would remain origin sourced, or according to the vendor's location. Out-of-state sales would be destination sourced, or as applicable to the destination state.

With SSUTA, states must go through a certification process in order to become recognized as a member state. That may require legislative changes to bring sales tax regulations across the state into conformity with the stated goals of the agreement. Then they must build the technological infrastructure to compile and distribute location and rate data, and to receive and process tax remittance data.

Sellers must build the technological infrastructure to import and incorporate the location and rate data that the states provide into their sales and invoicing systems to ensure taxes are being properly computed. Then they must develop the means to submit the collected taxes to the state along with a simplified electronic return (SER).

The SSUTA web site provides all relevant information for both states and sellers. The link to SSUTA is https://www.streamlinedsalestax.org.

For the iPgmr.com analysis of SSUTA, please see the FAQ Does the system support the Streamlined Salestax User Agreement?