Major Sales Tax changes coming!!

Last week I attended the "Arizona Forum for Improvement of Taxation" semi-annual conference.  (Now, don't all of you flood my phone with, "how do I join?" calls.)  It's hard to believe, but I do find taxation rather intriguing.  It's like watching a train wreck!  It's amazing how out of control it's gotten.

Back to the topic of sales tax changes.  AZ is making some major shifts that are scheduled to come on-line January 1, 2015.  From what I gleaned from the conference, AZ Dept of Revenue is still frantically trying to get all the policies, procedures and forms in place.  They are scheduled to send out notifications in the "fall" (sometime in October) regarding the changes.

The most over-arching change is that there will be no more city sales tax reports.  All the cities must comply, and all sales taxes will be paid directly to ADOR & from there distributed to the cities.

On the surface, this looks like a wonderful consolidation for taxpayers.  I would like to hope that is where this change will stop.

However, I have a sneaky suspicion, that I just want you to be aware of.  There are major debates going on in Congress currently regarding online sales tax & implementing a federal sales & use tax.  Here is an article that explains why.  Here is the website to sign up.  I think ADOR is getting aligned to join this streamlined process.  That's just my two cents worth. They didn't say anything officially, mostly because they have spent all year working on this consolidation project, but I don't think this possibility is too far distant.

I've debated whether or not this would be a good move in my head for a few years now, but I'd love to get others' thoughts on the topic!