State Sales Tax and Your Online Shopping Cart

Excerpted from Crain’s ChicagoBusiness.com October 24th, 2013

Effective Nov. 1, the Midwestern state said sales tax will be added by Amazon to purchases made by Wisconsin residents because the online retailer is opening a distribution center in Kenosha, giving it a physical presence in the state. In states where Amazon has no physical presence, the company does not generally collect the tax, giving it a pricing edge over bricks-and-mortar merchants.Continue reading

Tax Tips online courtesy of Boston.com

Tax tips are now available online using your iPhone or Droid. Thanks to an article entitled “Using Social Media To Get Tax Information” on Boston.com, here is a list of online resources available from both the Internal Revenue Service website and social media portals that can be useful not just during tax season but throughout the calendar year. The article at Boston.com lists resources that are accessible from either your desktop computer or mobile phone.  In fact, IRS2Go is a mobile app for both Apple and Android users. It provides personal tax refund information and other tax tips and tax-related information.

YouTube Tax Tips –

IRS Videos – A YouTube resource that provides IRS information in English and other languages.

American Sign Language Videos – A similar online resource that provides information in American Sign Language.

Multilingual Videos – Another similar online resource that provides information in a variety of foreign languages.

Twitter Tax Tips –

@IRSnews – information for the public, press, and practitioners

@IRStaxpros – information for professional tax preparers

@IRSenEspanol – news and information in Spanish

@Recruitment IRS – IRS Human Capital Office

@YourVoiceatIRS – a taxpayer advocate service

Audio Tax Tips –

The IRS also provides tax tips in audio files for podcasts. Information regarding this special resource is available from the IRS Newsroom.

This information was originally provided on July 29, 2011 from the Article Collections at Boston.com.

2011 Standard Mileage Rate Changes

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has increased the optional standard mileage rates for 2011. These optional rates can be used to calculate deductible costs of operating an automobile for either business or other uses instead of reporting actual travel-related costs. Charitable mileage rates remain at the current 14 cents a mile in 2011.  The table below summarizes the increases for this year.

From the IRS Newsroom IR-2011-69, June 23, 2011