Indiana Internet Sales Tax

If you are an online seller of goods or products and have customers located in Indiana, you should be aware of Indiana’s Internet sales tax rules.

A Note on Indiana’s Sales Tax Terminology

Along with the more common term “sales tax,” Indiana law uses the term “gross retail tax.” However, it is clear from dozens of references to “sales tax” throughout Title 45, Article 2.2 of Indiana’s Administrative Code (the part of the Code that officially interprets Indiana’s gross retail tax law) that the two terms are synonymous. “Sales tax” and “gross retail tax” are used interchangeably in this article.

The General Rule: Physical Presence in the State

The current default rule throughout the United States is that you must collect sales tax on Internet sales to customers in those states where your business has a “physical presence.” The physical-presence rule is based on a 1992 United States Supreme Court decision, Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, that addressed the obligations of mail-order businesses to collect sales tax on out-of-state sales. The decision has been extended to include online retailers. Generally speaking, a physical presence means such things as:

• having a warehouse in the state
• having a store in the state
• having an office in the state, or
• having a sales representative in the state.

Guidance on how physical presence is determined specifically under Indiana law is available in Section 2.2-3-3 of Title 45 of the Indiana Administrative Code (IAC), which defines “Retail merchant engaged in business in Indiana.” A general index to all sections Title 45 is available online.

As you might expect, the corollary to the physical-presence rule is that, if you do not have a physical presence in the state, you generally are not required to collect sales tax for an Internet-based sale to someone in that state.

Examples

Example 1: You are operating solely out of a warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona and make a sale to a customer in South Bend, Indiana—a state where your business has no physical presence: You are not required to collect sales tax from the South Bend customer.

Example 2: You are operating solely out of a store in Fort Wayne, Indiana and make a sale to a customer in Gary, Indiana: You are required to collect sales tax from the Gary customer.

Example 3: After several years of operating solely out of a warehouse in Phoenix, Arizona, you open a one-room satellite office just outside of Indianapolis, Indiana—a state where previously you had no physical presence. A day later, you make a sale to a customer in Evansville, Indiana: You are required to collect sales tax from the Evansville customer.

Non-Taxable Items

A limited number of items sold via the Internet to Indiana customers may be exempt from sales tax under Indiana law. For example, under Section 2.5-5-20 of the Indiana sales tax statute, food ingredients for human consumption are exempt from sales tax. For further information on many exemptions, consult Indiana Code 6-2.5-5.

The Customer’s Responsibility

In cases where the online retailer does not have to collect sales tax, it is the customer’s responsibility to pay the tax—in which case it is known not as a sales tax (or gross retail tax) but, rather, a “use tax.” For additional information, see this FAQ page on the Indiana Department of Revenue’s website, which covers both sales tax and use tax. (Note that for the question “What type of purchases might cause me to become liable for use tax?” one answer is “Internet purchases from out-of-state vendors.”)

Indiana’s Special Amazon Agreement

Early this year, Indiana reached an agreement with Amazon.com to have Amazon pay Indiana sales tax. This was just one action in a much larger, national debate about whether Internet retailers with no physical presence in many states should nonetheless be required to pay sales tax in those states. In this regard, Indiana’s special agreement with Amazon is unusual. Instead of individual agreements with particular companies, most states concerned with this issue have passed—or tried to pass—what is commonly called an “Amazon law;” in other words, special tax legislation that targets larger Internet retailers such as Amazon.com and Overstock.com.

Final Words

While you might not know it from looking solely at Indiana’s sales tax statute, the issue of whether to require online retailers to collect sales tax in states where they have no physical presence has been a matter of significant debate in Indiana, just as it has been in other states and at the federal level. However, at this time, and putting aside Indiana’s special agreement with Amazon, Indiana has not enacted any law that would require out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax from Indiana customers.

In Indiana, the physical-presence rule continues to apply for Internet retailers. However, because the issue is hotly debated in various quarters, you should consider checking in periodically with the Indiana Department of Revenue to see if the rules have changed. For more general information on taxes on Internet sales, see Nolo's article Sales Tax on the Internet. And, for information on the rules about collecting sales tax for Internet sales in any other state, see Nolo’s article, 50-State Guide to Internet Sales Tax Laws.

September 2012