Sales taxes...let's compare!

6.5% on any vending, and any wash with a protective service: ie.: wax or armoral

All my washes are priced at even dollars. So I divide my gross on those items by 1.065 to find the tax.

If you are a self serve and can't account for wax sells then you have to pay a higher %.

Sales tax makes it harder to provide a $3 wash in FL. But we do save a little by not having to pay sales tax on wax, armoral or vending supplies.

I've been audited 3 times. They watch us closely. Florida is about to go under financially. They even called us once after we received a shipment of tunnel equipment from Sonnies to make sure we paid tax on it.

Where's the next tea party?

7.75% on the wash, no taxes on vending. However, if we were to automate the pay terminals and stop ALL vehicle prepping, the wash would be considered a vending transaction and save us about $40-50K per year. To do so would require a hefty investment in both equipment and a reduction in price as our customers for better or worse have come to expect the higher quality that comes from prepping the hard to reach areas, bugs, mud, snow and ice. I beleive that this is the primary reason why we are down only 5% for the year while others in our market are down 30-40%. But if the economy continues its slide and weather patterns persist, (i.e. another crappy winter) I might not have a choice but to bite that bullet.

Bill

No sales tax in Colorado (yet)

in Kansas we are taxed 6.3 % on our gross ,,period. Interesting point is that in Kansas Laudrimats pay no tax's. According to the representative we talked to at the state. If we find loose change in the vacuums, we are to pay 6.3% on it :)

Bill, you're similar to Mississippi sales tax...
Allen, talk about laundrying dirty money?

Florida's treatment of car washes must be unique. I know of a couple of new investor that have operated for a while, not known the laws and suffered greatly after being audited(like about $30k in fines and txs)

The state called us a year after doing an audit(with only $500 in mistakes) and said "we want y'all to do a self audit...contact us with your results."
Well of course, we had to find something for mistakes but it was minor.
Can you believe that?

Thankfully we have not been audited yet in FL but we do pay our sales tax on a regular basis. We are changing our price structure in 2010 to hopefully save some money. We are doing away with "Extra Services" and putting all our taxable items in one wash package (vs. 2 like we have now). It will for sure make it easier to calculate the tax and hopefully save us some money. We spent about $50,000 this year in sales tax to the good ole state of FL.

try 9.75% across the board here in tennessee chew on that one!

Here in PA 6% across the board. Allen, the same in PA Laundromat’s are not taxed at all!! Very unfair! The PA law has been on the books since the late 1940's. It was automotive related back then. Once car washes came about in the 60's they tied us in with the auto industry. I would not mind the tax that much IF I could actually get the tax from the customers at point of sales. In a SS environment impossible. The tax on Laundromats was repealed in 1971. We have fought to try and associate the two businesses as the same to no avail. Full service tunnels and EE that are manned can get the extra 6% when the customer pays. If the site has "coin / bill machines" for payments, we have to eat the 6%! Oh, by the way, we just started to get hit with a mechanical device tax too!! It will never end! @!@!