Nebraska Sales Tax Guide

Traditional Goods or Services

Goods that are subject to sales tax in Nebraska include physical property, like furniture, home appliances, and motor vehicles.

Medicine, groceries, and gasoline are alltax-exempt.

Some services in Nebraska are subject to sales tax. For a detailed list of taxable servicesview Sales Tax Frequently Asked Questionsthrough the Nebraska Department of Revenue.

The Nebraska Department of revenue has also published acomprehensive guide to sales tax exemptions and exclusions.

Digital Goods or Services

A digital good or service is anything electronically delivered, such as an album downloaded from iTunes or a film purchased from Amazon.

Nebraskarequiresbusinesses to collect sales tax on the sale of digital goods.

Save Money with a Resale Certificate

With aresale certificate, also known as a reseller's permit, your business does not have to pay sales tax when purchasing goods for resale.

Store Sales

For traditional business owners selling goods or services on site, calculating sales tax is easy: all sales are taxed at the rate based on the location of the store.

Here's an example of what this scenario looks like:

Mary owns and manages a bookstore in Fremont, Nebraska. Since books are taxable in the state of Nebraska, Mary charges her customers a flat-rate sales tax of 7.0% on all sales. This includes Nebraska’s state sales tax rate of 5.5% and Fremont's city sales tax rate of 1.5%.

In-State Sales

The state of Nebraska follows what is known as anorigin-basedsales tax policy. This means that long-distance sales within Nebraska are taxed according to the address of the seller. This policy applies to state, county, and city sales taxes.

Consider the following example:

Steve runs his own business selling electronics on eBay out of his home in Grand Island, Nebraska. A customer living in Lincoln Nebraska finds Steve’s eBay page and purchases a $350 pair of headphones. When calculating the sales tax for this purchase, Steve applies the 5.50% state tax rate for Nebraska plus 1.75% for Lincoln’s city tax rate. At a total sales tax rate of 7.25%, the total cost is $375.38 ($25.38 sales tax).

Out-of-State Sales

Nebraska businesses only need to pay sales tax on out-of-state sales if they havenexusin other states.Nexusmeans that the business has a physical presence in another state.

Common types ofnexusinclude:

• Aphysical location, such as an office, store, or warehouse
• Anemployee远程工作或旅行销售代表是谁resentative
• Amarketing affiliate
• Drop-shippingfrom a third party seller.
• Atemporary physical location,including festival and fair booths.

How to File

Nebraska requires businesses to file sales tax returns and submit sales tax payments online.

How Often Should You File?

How often you need to file depends upon the total amount of sales tax your business collects.

• Annual filing:If your business collects less than $75 in sales tax per month then your business should elect to file returns on an annual basis.
• Quarterly filing:If your business collects between $75 and $250 in sales tax per month then your business should elect to file returns on a quarterly basis.
• Monthly filing:If your business collects more than $250 in sales tax per month then your business should file returns on a monthly basis.

Filing Deadlines

All Nebraska sales tax return deadlines fall on the20th day of the month, unless it is a weekend or federal holiday, in which case the deadline is moved back to the next business day.

Penalties for Late Filing

Nebraska charges alate filing penaltyequal to 10% of the tax that is due on the tax return or $25; whichever is greater.

Nebraska charges alate payment penaltyequal to 10% of the tax that is due on the tax return or $25; whichever is greater. This penalty is only applied If the business files the return on time but neglects to pay the balance in total.

The state assesses the unpaid tax with a compounded interest rate of 9% per year or 0.75% per month or partial month for any unpaid tax or penalty.