South Carolina Sales Tax Guide

Traditional Goods or Services

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

Prescription medicines, groceries, and gasoline are alltax-exempt.

Some services in South Carolina are subject to sales tax. For a detailed list of taxable servicesview this PDFfrom the South Carolina Department of Revenue.

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.

South Carolinadoes notrequire businesses to collect sales tax on the sale of digital goods or services.

However, South Carolina has one exception to this policy. Businesses must collect sales tax on pre-written computer software that is sold online.

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 Rock Hill, South Carolina. Since books are taxable in the state of South Carolina, Mary charges her customers a flat-rate sales tax of 7.000% on all sales. This includes South Carolina’s state sales tax rate of 6.000% and Mary’s local district tax rate of 1.000%.

In-State Sales

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

Consider the following example:

史蒂夫运行自己的业务销售电子产品eBay out of his home in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A customer living in Columbia finds Steve’s eBay page and purchases a $350 pair of headphones. When calculating the sales tax for this purchase, Steve applies the 6.000% state tax rate for South Carolina, plus 1.000% for Columbia’s city tax rate and 1.000% for his customer’s local tax district. At a total sales tax rate of 8.000%, the total cost is $378.00 ($28.00 sales tax).

Out-of-State Sales

South Carolina 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

South Carolinarequiresbusinesses to file sales tax returns and submit sales tax payments online.

How Often Should You File?

All Businesses in South Carolina will pay sales tax on a monthly basis for at least the first 6 months that they are in business. At the end of the year, the State will examine your account and determine if you are eligible to pay sales tax at a quarterly or monthly rate.

Filing Deadlines

All South Carolina 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

South Carolina charges alate filing penaltyof 5% per month.

South Carolina also charges alate payment penaltythat is equal to 0.5% per month.

The state assesses the unpaid tax with a starting interest rate of 0.25% and is compounded daily until all sales tax is paid.