[NR] Re: food sales exemption law

Decker, Terry D. TerryD at Health.State.OK.US
Tue Aug 12 15:03:07 PDT 2003


Let me point out that the Oklahoma Tax Commission has been handling
temporary sales tax permits for for large events for a number of years.
They put together the sales tax packets for the vendors and saw they were
distributed.  MedFaire is a good example.

Vendors at a number of smaller venues, swap meets, gun shows, bazaars, fan
conventions, wouldn't receive this treatment, because the organizers failed
to contact the Tax Commission, and would just duck the sales tax issue by
not getting a temporary permit and evading the taxes.

The revenue shortfalls in Oklahoma have moved officialdom to codify what the
Tax commission was already doing and establish a fee for handling the
paperwork.  The purpose of the law is to ensure the collection of revenues
that were due under statute, but were being evaded by vendors with the
witting or unwitting complicity of the event organizers.  Even before this
law, anyone who permitted vendors to sell at a venue they controlled without
ensuring the vendor had a valid sales tax permit was probably guilty of
being an accessory to tax evasion.

I'm not particularly incensed about the fee or the idea that an organizer is
responsible for seeing that unpermitted vendors comply with the sales tax
statutes.  The former is to be expected and we probably should have been
vetting the vendors prior to this.  It's just the wheel turning, and trying
to roll over us on this pass.

Bear


> I think the Kingdom's response has been entirely reasonable 
> as far as compliance requirements go.  What
> really bothers me in all this is the idea of legislation that 
> forces our organization to serve as an
> agent of the Oklahoma Tax Commission - collecting taxes on 
> their behalf???  Not to mention that nasty
> $50.00 permit fee per event which, I think, is really the 
> state's primary income generating purpose in
> all of this.
> 
> Kat  >^.,.^<



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