![Do I Have to Charge Sales Tax When I Sell and Ship My Own Book? Do I Have to Charge Sales Tax When I Sell and Ship My Own Book?](https://i0.wp.com/writersweekly.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/calculator-receipt.jpg?resize=750%2C420&ssl=1)
Q –
I am in the process of having my first non-fiction book printed…to be sold at a retail price to people around the USA and possibly in Europe and Asia.
My total net costs, including printing, envelopes and media mail is $22.00 per book. My intentions are to sell the book at a retail price of $45.00 or $49.00 to include shipping.
What tax implications am I looking at if I sell the book in my state of Arizona? And, if I sell books to other states?
Do I need a sales tax license?
A –
I am not a CPA and this is not tax advice. For specific tax questions, please contact your CPA.
That said…
If you are selling directly to your readers, there are some tax implications, depending on each state.
You will need to collect and remit sales tax in your own state for books shipped to that state.
Other states have thresholds where sellers are required to collect and remit sales tax for items sent to that state. Many of those thresholds are quite high.
This site has great information for each state.
If you don’t want to do all of that yourself, you can have your book published through a company like BookLocker and they will handle it for you.
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