Sales tax can be a pain to deal with.
With stacks of paperwork, hefty amounts of calculations, and lots of challenging obstacles, it’s no wonder why sales tax compliance is one of the most difficult business processes. But you may be surprised to find there’s an easier way out of it. TaxJar is a cloud-based, state-of the-art automated sales tax platform.
TaxJar makes it easy to simplify the complex world of sales tax, giving your business an edge. In this review, we’ll take you through all the things you need to know about this service. We will also discuss the pros and cons of TaxJar and give our final verdict on whether TaxJar is worth it for your business management system. Let’s go!
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Marcus Stonelius’ YouTube channel. To get a comprehensive overview of TaxJar, you may still want to check out our article below.
What does TaxJar do? Rails Taxjar Gem
TaxJar was established in 2013 to serve online sellers and business entities. Its goal is to simplify the complex process of sales tax compliance. The United States has over 11,000 tax jurisdictions, each of which has different rules depending on the district or state. Back then, businesses had to comply with sales tax regulations and rates according to where their transactions were held, where their inventory stocks were located, and how many employees they had hired.
This process may appear simple on a surface level, but in reality, it’s quite complicated. Businesses were tasked with handling varying degrees of tax burdens, and these may vary based on varying factors. Things got even more complicated when in 2018, the US Supreme Court ruled that businesses must pay sales tax based on where the consumer purchased any product. This resulted in more burdens for business owners, having to learn and memorize tax codes upon tax codes on top of everything else.
That’s quite a task. Well, TaxJar takes most of the complications in sales tax compliances and turns them into simple, less daunting tasks. This allows you to prioritize the most important aspects of your business without having to worry about tax computations.
What Are Its Pros and Cons?
We’ve compiled a list of pros & cons to help you make a decision about whether TaxJar is right for you. Rails Taxjar Gem
Pros
- TaxJar has been designed to be simple, quick, and automated. It will keep you in compliance for more than 11,000 tax jurisdictions across the U.S.
- With the AutoFile tool, you won’t need to worry much longer about due dates and late submissions of tax returns, etc., as TaxJar takes care of the rest for you – more on that later!
- TaxJar allows you to save time and allow you to concentrate on your business.
- It’s easy to use – you don’t need to be a full-on tax or accounting expert to understand how it works!
- Aside from its less tedious nature, TaxJar also provides businesses with amazing customer support and plenty of helpful resources to guide you through when it comes to sales tax compliance!
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Cons
- Although TaxJar is known to be generally convenient, it may be a bit complicated on the first try, especially for the uninitiated merchant.
- The interface can also sometimes be inconvenient, as some users have reported cases of having more than five browser tabs open just to file one state’s tax return.
- The pricing of lower-tier plans can vary based on factors such as additional AutoFile fees if you’ve used up the free credits allowed in a plan – more on that as we’ll discuss the pricing shortly.
How Much Does TaxJar Cost?
TaxJar offers three pricing plans: Starter, Professional, and Premium. Let’s dive deep into these subscription tiers.
Starter
The Starter plan starts at $19/month and provides essential sales tax services to small businesses. The plan usually handles 200 total returns and purchase orders per month. However, the price could change if there is more. This tier provides free tools that will help you greatly with sales tax compliance such as sales tax reporting, AI driven product taxability recommendations and basic CSV imports.
Customers are also given data integrations with up to three e-commerce services and four free AutoFiles per year included within the tier. Starter also allows for support for multiple business accounts and e-mail support.
For professionals
If your business has more experience and expanded reach, more challenges may likely come ahead. That’s where the Professional plan comes in. Starting at $99/month, you get all the features from the Starter tier, plus some upgrades like full API access, advanced CSV imports, and economic nexus features.
Professional includes an increased limit on data import and API integration, from 3 to 10,10,000 advanced API calls per hour, up to 10 team managers users, and 12 free AutoFiles per calendar year. If you use TaxJar Professional and manage to rake up to over 1,000 orders, you’re entitled to phone customer support on top of e-mail support. If you receive more than 200 orders, the price for this tier could change.
Premium
With TaxJar Premium, you get all the features you could ask for when it comes to sales tax compliance and much more. Premium includes all the Starter and Professional features for enterprises and experienced businesses, as well as unlimited API and data integrations to many e-commerce services and unlimited AutoFiles. There is also unlimited team usage.
It also includes increased API calls per minute at 25,000, as well as white-glove support in the form of a dedicated account management team. Premium is not priced in a fixed range like the other plans. It is fully customizable to meet your business’s needs and can be negotiated through TaxJar’s customer support.
Free Trial
TaxJar is worth a free 30-day trial. You can get full access to all the Professional plan features and tools, including API access and integrations, data imports, and team and user management. This trial is free and you don’t have to pay anything upfront! Rails Taxjar Gem
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The Features of TaxJar
Automatic Sales Tax Calculations
TaxJar offers fully optimized functions and services that are designed to reduce the tax burden. One of those is its calculation process. TaxJar instantly calculates sales tax! Not only does it always ensure you the right rates in correspondence with your customer’s address and tax jurisdiction, but it also gives you the amounts in real-time.
TaxJar makes it easy to quickly calculate taxes and keep up with changes. The platform’s team tracks all changes related to sales tax rates and laws, and integrates them into the platform regularly.
TaxJar Report
TaxJar provides more than just top-notch calculations. It also offers automated reports that include sales tax data from linked accounts, CSV imports and individual state sales tax reports. All of this data is automatically combined into reports for different states with breakdowns according to their tax jurisdictions.
TaxJar makes it easier and more accessible to organize reports. Everything is centralized, which allows for faster collaborations with your finance department. The dashboard allows you to see detailed analysis based upon your activity. TaxJar automatically collects data so you’re always up to date.
AutoFile
AutoFile makes this platform stand out among the rest. It’s an electronic sales tax filing tool that gathers user information from e-commerce providers and files them into an automated sales tax return report and payment to be submitted to any state.
What’s great about AutoFile is that you’re guaranteed to never miss a deadline! There’s no need to even go through the stress of paperwork or extra hands, as it’s designed to be easily manageable. It saves time and money in the long-term.
However, while it looks astoundingly impressive, it’s worth mentioning that it can be quite like a limited luxury to lower-tier subscribers. Starter plan users, for example, get only up to 4 free AutoFile enrollments per year.
Sales Tax Nexus Insights
If you use TaxJar in selling your items online, it’s important to know a thing about economic nexus. This topic has been covered briefly before. However, to sum up, rather than paying sales tax in your home state, customers will be required to pay sales tax in the states where they purchased your products. Rails Taxjar Gem
It can be difficult to determine the nexus. Thankfully, you don’t have to jump through hoops, because TaxJar provides accessible insights to keep you on track. The economic nexus dashboard not only allows you to check the activity between states, but also shows you if you have reached the required threshold for each state. This is especially useful if you have a growing business that wants to expand into more states.
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Integrations with Online Business Services
TaxJar can be seamlessly integrated with many online business services. To determine sales tax, you can connect your account with online marketplaces such as Amazon, Etsy and eBay. Integrations can be made with e-commerce platforms such as Shopify, BigCommerce and other similar services that allow you to sell your listings, use payment gateways such as Stripe or PayPal, and operate management systems like Oracle NetSuite, Intuit QuickBooks and many more.
Square, WooCommerce, Walmart, Salesforce and Magento are just a few of the other services that can be integrated with TaxJar. You can also import data from third-party service providers through CSV if you don’t see your online business solution.
Is TaxJar the right fit for your business?
TaxJar has been a reliable and high-tech solution that addresses most of the issues business owners have in managing sales tax. It’s been a top pick for these reasons: 1) it’s easy to use, 2) it’s time-saving, and 3) it helps you and your business in many ways.
It’s highly recommended, and we are right to be so. However, it isn’t perfect in every aspect. Some users had issues with customization while others experienced problems with TaxJar’s integration to Shopify and other apps. There have also been problems with automated calculation as well as interface misunderstandings. These issues could be addressed.
Issues aside, if we answered the question “Is TaxJar the perfect fit for your business?” it would be a resounding YES! We highly recommend you try this out as part of your business strategy!
Most Frequently Asked Questions Rails Taxjar Gem
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Which types of businesses use TaxJar?
TaxJar can be used by small and medium businesses, large-scale enterprises, and even freelancers. TaxJar served more than 20,000 businesses as of 2022. This includes some well-known companies like Coca-Cola and Land Rover, Microsoft, Shein and many other.
Is TaxJar available in countries other than the U.S.
TaxJar features are currently limited to the United States. They are not yet available in other countries. Only the TaxJar API tool is supported in a few non-US territories. TaxJar API is available to businesses in Canada, Australia and the UK.
Can I cancel my TaxJar account? How can I cancel my TaxJar account?
You can cancel your TaxJar account if you ever feel dissatisfied with the service by going to your account settings. Once you head over to Plans & Billings, you can click the red link that leads you to cancel your current subscription.
TaxJar’s reporting tools, as well as AutoFile, will be removed from your account. You can reactivate or cancel your subscription at any time if you want to gain access to these services.
What are the alternatives to TaxJar?
TaxJar isn’t the only sales tax compliance solution available. There are other alternatives out there, with some offering more features and compatibility with more territories, and others with cheaper price ranges. The following are alternatives to TaxJar.
- Avalara
- Sovos Taxify
- Vertex
- TaxCloud