Sales taxes are charges placed on businesses that are paid by consumers who purchase goods from businesses. Originally, sales taxes can be traced back to ancient Egypt, a time when the Pharaoh levied taxes on products like cooking oil. There are multiple sales tax regulations that you must follow as a business owner and these come across the federal, state, and local levels. The first state to impose sales tax in the United States was West Virginia in 1921, according to a Politico article by Andrew Glass written in 2012.

You will note however that not every product is taxed, for example, prescription drugs in West Virginia are not taxed. What's even more interesting is that not every state in the US imposes taxes on its businesses. There are 5 states nation wide that do not levy sales tax on its businesses; Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon. Louisiana remains the state with the highest sales taxes levied on its business owners at 10.11%, according to TaxFoundation.org, this number is a combination of state and local sales taxes combined. Florida's average combined state and local sales tax for example is 7.02% as of July 1, 2025. You can check TaxFoundation.org for this rate.

We highly recommend watching this short video on sales tax by TaxJar to get a better understanding of sales tax.

If you're a business owner and you're asking yourself when are sales tax due, the answer is that it depends on which state your entity is based out of. For example, you will note a chart on the Allyn International website with a different sales tax due date for each state. Each state has different monthly due dates for sales tax. Yes, this means that each business is required to report their sales tax monthly, and sometimes quarterly.

In the state of Florida, we have Filing Frequency Limits. For example, the return and payment filing requirement for a business making more than $1,000 would be monthly. This means that every month, the business is required to file their sales. The next time you are wondering when are sales tax due, remember first to check with your state's department of revenue to get the right answer.

If you want to learn more about when are sales tax due, how to file, and record, checkout this video by Small Biz Doer:

In order to file your sales tax, you will first need to open an entity that can file sales taxes after the sale of products or services. For example if you open a C Corporation, and you make more than $1,000 every year in the state of Florida, you would need to file your sales taxes every month. In order to file your sales tax, you would then need to signup for the process. Signing up may require for your to register your business online or through filling up a form and sending it to your state's revenue department. After you have registered your business, you would then need to file depending on your businesses' income. In order to file monthly, you would also be able to do that online or through a form.

Check out this very informative video by LYFE Taxes on how taxes work for Small Businesses.

Filing sales tax for your business can be done online after registering your business. It depends on your state, however, you will note that each state has different tax legislation and processes so you must first check with your state's revenue department in order to file. There are businesses that would hire an accountant and let them handle the work of filing the sales tax, especially since it's something that has to be done every month in most scenarios.

In order to get programs throughout the state running, the state needs to collect taxes. Sales taxes are a part of this tax collection that states gather in oder to make things possible throughout the entire state. Education, health care, transportation, corrections, and low-income assistance are the areas where your state taxes are utilized.

If you're located in the Miami Gardens or Hialeah area, feel free to stop by our office location to file your taxes correctly. There are a lot of details which cannot be entered incorrectly into your form 1040, or form W-2. Entering these details incorrectly would mean paying more than you should for your income taxes or run into the possibility of misfiling which could lead to penalties from the IRS.