It can be difficult to manage sales tax.
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. You may be surprised to learn that there is an easier way around it. TaxJar is a cloud-based, state-of the-art automated sales tax platform.
With TaxJar, all the challenges in sales tax are simplified, giving you and your business the upper hand. In this review, we’ll take you through all the things you need to know about this service. We’ll also share with you the pros and cons, and our final thoughts about whether or not TaxJar is worth adding to your business management ecosystem. Let’s go!
For those of you who prefer a more visual experience, here is a video review from Marcus Stonelius’ YouTube channel. Do check out our article below, however, because it has a comprehensive overview of TaxJar.
What does TaxJar do? Taxjar Tax Categories
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.
Although it may seem simple from a superficial level, the process is actually quite complex. Businesses were tasked with handling varying degrees of tax burdens, and these may vary based on varying factors. The US Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that all businesses have to pay sales tax regardless of where the product was purchased. This resulted in more burdens for business owners, having to learn and memorize tax codes upon tax codes on top of everything else.
It’s a lot to take, right? Well, TaxJar takes most of the complications in sales tax compliances and turns them into simple, less daunting tasks. That way, you can prioritize what matters the most with your business, without the added hassles of hefty tax computation.
What are its Pros and Cons
To help you weigh in on your decision, we’ve provided you with a list of pros and cons of using TaxJar as a business tool. Taxjar Tax Categories
Pros
- TaxJar is designed with streamlined, simple, and quick automated features to keep you in compliance with more than 11,000 tax jurisdictions in 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.
- Pricing for lower-tier plans may vary depending on factors like additional AutoFile fees if credits are exhausted. We’ll be discussing pricing soon.
What is the cost of TaxJar?
TaxJar offers three pricing options: Premium, Professional, or Starter. 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. It usually handles up to 200 total purchase and returns orders per month, but the price may change if the volume goes past the number. 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.
Professional
More challenges are likely to come if your company has more experience and a wider reach. The Professional plan is for you. 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 also includes increased data import and API integration limits from 3 to 10, 10,000 advanced API calls per minute, up to 10 team management users, and 12 free AutoFiles per 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. Like Starter, the price of this tier may change if you gain more than 200 allotted orders.
Premium
TaxJar Premium includes all the features that you need to ensure sales tax compliance. 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.
You also get 25,000 API calls per hour, and white-glove support through a dedicated account management group. Unlike the two previous plans, Premium does not have a definite price range. Instead, it’s fully customizable according to your business’s needs, and can be negotiable through TaxJar’s customer service.
Free Trial
If you’re interested in TaxJar, you may want to check out its 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! Taxjar Tax Categories
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TaxJar’s Features
Automated Sales Tax Calculations
TaxJar comes with fully optimized functions and services built to ease the tax burden. One of those is its calculation process. Calculating sales tax with TaxJar will give you instantly accurate results! It will instantly calculate the sales tax for you, and it will always match the correct rates with the customer’s address.
With TaxJar, you won’t need to take long to calculate taxes one-by-one nor go through the added hassle of keeping up with the changes. Its team keeps track of all updates related to sales tax laws and rates and incorporates them into the platform periodically.
TaxJar Report
TaxJar doesn’t just provide you with top-notch calculations, but also automated reports on all the sales tax data collected by the platform from linked accounts, CSV imports, and even individual state sales tax reports. All this is automatically compiled into reports for different states, complete with breakdowns from their tax jurisdictions.
Organizing reports is simpler and more accessible with TaxJar – everything is centralized, making way for quick collaborations with your finance team. The dashboard allows you to see detailed analysis based upon your activity. You’re also always up-to-date, as TaxJar collects data automatically all the time.
AutoFile
AutoFile is what makes the platform stand out from the rest. It is an electronic sales tax filing platform that collects user information from ecommerce providers and then files it into an automated sales tax report and payment to be submitted in 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. For starter plan subscribers, you can only get 4 AutoFile enrollments free of charge 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. Taxjar Tax Categories
Determining the nexus can be confusing. TaxJar offers easy-to-understand insights that will help you stay 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. It comes in very handy, especially if your business continues to grow and reach more states.
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Integrations with Online Business Services
TaxJar can seamlessly integrate with many online business services. You can connect your account to internet marketplaces like Amazon, Etsy, and eBay to determine sales tax. 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 Perfect Fit for Your Business?
TaxJar has proven to be very reliable and high-tech, easing most of the challenges business owners face in their day-to-day lives when it comes to managing sales tax. It is a popular choice because it is easy to use, it saves time, and it can help your business in many other 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. It would be nice if those issues were to be improved.
All other issues aside, TaxJar would be the perfect fit for any business. We highly recommend you try this out as part of your business strategy!
Most Frequently Asked Questions Taxjar Tax Categories
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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. As of 2022, TaxJar has served over 20,000 businesses, including some of the well-known ones, like Coca-Cola, Land Rover, Microsoft, Shein, and many others.
Does TaxJar work in other countries outside the U.S?
As of recently most of TaxJar’s features are limited to the United States. They have not yet been extended to other countries outside US jurisdiction. 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?
If you are unhappy with TaxJar’s service, you can cancel it by going to your account settings. You can cancel your subscription by clicking the red link once you have accessed Plans & Billings.
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 solution for sales tax compliance. 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