[NR] Re: food sales exemption law

[Decker, Terry D.]

Kat, I misread the thing when I originally looked at it and was in error,
which is why I corrected myself.

Section 1357 is the general exemptions, section 1356 is the exemptions for
government and non-profit entities. 

Unfortunately, the provision that I remember generally exempting 501(c)(3)
non-profits is no longer there (I was originally involved with it when we
incorporated the SCA in Oklahoma in 1977), which leaves a number of small
non-profits that don't fit the current exemption categories possibly
violating the sales tax laws by their fund raising.  That is an issue which
can be addressed by trying to get the legislature to regularize the
exemption status of 501(c)(3) non-profits not currently covered in Title 68.
I'm fairly certain we could put together a coalition of fan clubs, hobby
clubs, re-enactors, etc., to work the legislature.  In any case, I don't
think the Tax Commission is going to go out of its way to collect tax on our
feasts or t-shirt sales.

On the other hand, I don't think we can expect a change in the new "special
events" law any time soon.  It is aimed to force the collection of sales tax
from vendors evading the regulations and I don't think they will want to
change it until they find out what the rope in.  The SCA, unlike some of the
cons, isn't dependent on booth rentals and, while people may gripe about it,
limiting vendors to those with valid Oklahoma sales tax permits is a
reasonable response.

What may be possible is to find out if an individual vendor can obtain a
temporary sales tax permit directly from the Tax Commission and circumvent
the "special event vendor" status.  If they can't, it may be possible to
work this provision as an amendment to the act to keep small 501(c)(3)
non-profits from being forced to act as "organizers" of a "special event."
I don't think you will see any changes to this law that might create a
loop-hole where vendors can avoid collecting and remitting the sales tax.

As a small aside, Oklahoma became conditonally signatory to the Streamlined
Sales and Use Tax agreement, which is meant to standardize sales tax
definitions and regulations between the various states.  One of the major
goals seems to be collecting the taxes currently ducked by mail and internet
sales.  This has the potential to become a very big headache for any vendor.
You can check it out at:  http://www.streamlinedsalestax.org/  and
http://www.ecommercetax.com/SSTP.htm .

Bear



> Burke, in case you want to read that statute, here it is as 
> found in the 2002 supplement to the
> Oklahoma Statutes.  I remember reading something about this 
> specific section in a recent bill (maybe
> the one that is giving us such a hard time) but I can't 
> remember what it said.  As Bear said, this
> section does not exempt the SCA - unless we want to start 
> shipping some of our feasts to the elderly as
> part of a meal program :-)
> 
<clipped>
> 
> It is worth noting that the entire section 68:1357 in the 
> 2002 O.S. Supplement has to do with general
> exemptions.  My guess is that if our interests aren't 
> represented in that section, then the SCA isn't
> exempt yet.  It will probably be a while before legislators 
> get around to passing exemptions for the
> new law.  I'm suddenly seeing folks in medieval garb gathered 
> at the capital to lobby for our own
> exemption.