Reeds Ferry Sheds is celebrating the Massachusetts tax-free holiday. The holiday in 2013 is the weekend of August 10th and 11th. (You can order your shed before the weekend and we execute the actual purchase on the 10th-11th ) Purchases made by Mass residents totaling $2,500 or less aren’t subject to the Massachusetts 6.25% state sales tax.
A Reeds Ferry Storage Shed priced at $2,500 or below is a qualified tax-exempt purchase. Massachusetts residents buying a $2,500 Reeds shed during the tax-holiday sale save $156.25 in sales tax, and there are additional savings on sheds more than $2,500.
But wait! Why is there any sales tax at all? Isn’t Reeds Ferry’s factory-showroom located in tax-free New Hampshire? Yes, but Massachusetts law requires any out-of-state business to charge Mass sales tax if they knowingly sell a product to a Massachusetts resident. And of course for us to deliver the shed to Massachusetts we have to know the buyers address.
The word “knowingly” is the key. Stores in New Hampshire that aren’t required to know, don’t ask, and because they don’t have to ask they are not responsible for collecting the tax. For example, when a Massachusetts homeowner drives north and buys a flat screen TV at the Sears store in Nashua NH, unless the store delivers the TV to the home in Massachusetts they aren’t required to ask where the customer lives, so the tax is not the store’s responsibility; it is the responsibility of the buyer. That’s right!. After the Massachusetts residents puts the TV in the back of his car and drives home to the Bay State the homeowner is supposed to declare the purchase on their state return and pay the tax on their own! Gee whiz; wonder how often that happens!
Frankly Reeds Ferry would prefer to operate like the Sears in Nashua and charge no sales tax to any Massachusetts customer. We would trust that all our Mass customers would follow the “honor system” and report the purchase on their own. (wink) The problem is we need their delivery address, and the Massachusetts Department of Revenue has proven to us in the past that they know how to audit our sales deliveries, they know the sales tax they are due, and they are very adept at collecting it… To quote Bill Belichick, “It is what it is”
Still, once the Tax-Holiday is over, as impractical as it may seem, if you ever decide to buy one of our sheds and you’re able to strap it on the roof of your car… we won’t ask you where you’re going.
-The Shed Ferry
