I've been studiously avoiding weighing in here, but I think I probably should at this point.
In 2017, Colorado started requiring out of state sellers to either collect sales tax or report sales to CO and the customer. This isn't new: we've been complying with this law for a year. I can't speak to why others are or aren't doing it: maybe they're too small, maybe they're non-compliant, maybe they're compliant but their customer communication on the subject isn't as robust as Smokingpipes'.
As of December 1st, we have to move to collecting and remitting sales tax directly to CO anyway, so this reporting stuff will become moot soon enough. I can walk through the various laws and changes over the past few years, but anyone actually curious can google the relevant information.
But, yeah, it's law; it's legal law; it's a thing. We take privacy concerns really seriously, which sounds trite, but is also why we're very up front and public about what we're doing. Note, of course, that the initial post was prompted by us telling the OP exactly what and how we were doing it (of course, somehow a detailed explanation of reporting for sales tax purposes to Colorado became reporting to the IRS, which is not the case). We're going to comply with laws we're obliged to comply with, but we're as protective of our customers as we can be, so we don't entertain information fishing expeditions or broad requests. In situations where we--me, compliance at Laudisi, outside counsel--don't think the agency in question has the authority to request information, we simply say no and try to provide some combination of redacted examples and meta-data that will tell them what they need to know without exposing privileged information.
And we have never, ever provided information to state or federal agencies about customers without notifying customers before they initiate the transaction (hence the information about Colorado's laws peppered into the checkout process if the destination address is in CO).
Sykes
In 2017, Colorado started requiring out of state sellers to either collect sales tax or report sales to CO and the customer. This isn't new: we've been complying with this law for a year. I can't speak to why others are or aren't doing it: maybe they're too small, maybe they're non-compliant, maybe they're compliant but their customer communication on the subject isn't as robust as Smokingpipes'.
As of December 1st, we have to move to collecting and remitting sales tax directly to CO anyway, so this reporting stuff will become moot soon enough. I can walk through the various laws and changes over the past few years, but anyone actually curious can google the relevant information.
But, yeah, it's law; it's legal law; it's a thing. We take privacy concerns really seriously, which sounds trite, but is also why we're very up front and public about what we're doing. Note, of course, that the initial post was prompted by us telling the OP exactly what and how we were doing it (of course, somehow a detailed explanation of reporting for sales tax purposes to Colorado became reporting to the IRS, which is not the case). We're going to comply with laws we're obliged to comply with, but we're as protective of our customers as we can be, so we don't entertain information fishing expeditions or broad requests. In situations where we--me, compliance at Laudisi, outside counsel--don't think the agency in question has the authority to request information, we simply say no and try to provide some combination of redacted examples and meta-data that will tell them what they need to know without exposing privileged information.
And we have never, ever provided information to state or federal agencies about customers without notifying customers before they initiate the transaction (hence the information about Colorado's laws peppered into the checkout process if the destination address is in CO).
Sykes
