# How a Supreme Court Decision Impacts Your eCommerce Business

- Link: https://ip.ipdev2.cloud/supreme-court-decision-impacts-ecommerce-business/
- Published: 2018-07-16T09:27:54+00:00
- Author: neilharner

For nearly thirty years, businesses in the U.S. could sell online without being 
required to collect sales tax in states in which they have no “physical presence.”
However, the [Supreme Court recently overturned](https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-494_j4el.pdf)
the original 1992 ruling and has now left it up to states to set their own laws 
for collecting sales tax from eCommerce transactions, regardless of a business’s“
physical presence.” Some states, such as South Dakota, already had laws regarding
online transactions and sales tax in place before the new ruling and, in the intervening
weeks, several others have jumped in with their own legislation to pass.

**_Related Reading:_**
[_Supreme Court Widens Reach of Sales Tax for Online Retailers_](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/politics/supreme-court-sales-taxes-internet-merchants.html)
[_Supreme Court rules that states can force online shoppers to pay sales tax_](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/21/supreme-court-rules-that-states-can-force-online-shoppers-to-pay-sales-tax.html)

The most notable criticisms of the Supreme Court’s decision involve the effect it
might have on small businesses in the eCommerce space. While the ruling may benefit
independent brick-and-mortar stores, many of whom have lost customers to online 
retailers because of the lack of sales tax, the eCommerce landscape contains far
more small businesses than large retailers like Amazon (who already collect sales
tax on goods sold by Amazon, but not for items sold by individual vendors _through_
Amazon). These small businesses could be equally impacted in the way brick-and-mortar
stores have in the past. Additionally, the distinction between which states have
legislation and which don’t, plus the details of the regulations in states that 
do, creates a mountain of information to parse through. Manual research and configuration
could easily require a bulk of effort and resources that small businesses simply
can’t allocate.

Fortunately, while the eCommerce industry has grown rapidly over the last thirty
years, the technology surrounding it has seen a similar transformation. Keeping 
track of so many different tax laws in a variety of locations is daunting, so companies
have emerged that develop software dedicated to calculating taxes for online transactions.
One such company is [Avalara](https://www.avalara.com/us/en/products/sales-and-use-tax/avatax.html),
whose AvaTax product contains the most up-to-date tax information and automatically
calculates the correct tax for a transaction during the checkout process. The best
part: AvaTax can easily be integrated into your existing [Magento](https://ip.ipdev2.cloud/philadelphia-magento-development/),
[WooCommerce](https://ip.ipdev2.cloud/philadelphia-ecommerce-agency/), [Shopify](https://ip.ipdev2.cloud/custom-shopify-websites/),
or [BigCommerce](https://ip.ipdev2.cloud/custom-bigcommerce-websites/) store!

And, as always, your trusted friends at Inverse Paradox are also here to help you
navigate the changing eCommerce landscape! [Get in touch with us](https://ip.ipdev2.cloud/contact/)
as soon as you can and we’ll get to work assessing your tax configurations and requirements.