How do I pay Ohio sales tax?
If your business is based in Ohio and you have Ohio product sales, you will need to file and pay Ohio sales and use tax. Sales tax is generally due by the 23rd of each month (unless you are specifically set up to file semi-annually), and must be filed even if you don’t have any taxable sales for the month.
Who must file?
The Ohio sales and use tax applies to the retail sale, lease, and rental of tangible personal property as well as the sale of selected services in Ohio. More details can be found HERE.
There are some special rules when it comes to photographers, and you can find those HERE.
How do I file?
You can file and pay Ohio sales tax via the Ohio Business Gateway (OBG). To access OBG, you will need to log in with an OHID. If you do not already have an OHID, you can register for one HERE.
Ohio Business Gateway (OBG) is a site designed to be a one-stop-shop for filing and paying various types of Ohio taxes for businesses. The most common reasons our clients use this site are:
Sales and use tax filing and payments
Vendor’s license registration (vendor’s license = sales tax account)
Commercial Activity Tax registration and filings
Payroll tax payments or state withholding registration
OBG can be a challenging site to use. In general, you have to give yourself access to each service area (sales tax, CAT, etc) and then give yourself access to each transaction type within that service area. Instructions on how to do that can be found HERE, and if you want Charitax to help, you can add us as an accountant user.
To give Charitax access and set up Ohio Business Gateway for yourself:
Step 1 - Charitax will submit a request first (you will get an email notification and a notification through the app when this is done).
Step 2 - Login to your Ohio Business Gateway > If you have multiple companies, choose the appropriate one from the dropdown > Go to Lock Icon > “Requests for Account Access” > hit the check mark to approve us (where it says Eric Bisignano/Charitax LLC).
Step 3 - Go to Lock icon > Service Areas > select which ones you need (sales tax, CAT, etc).
Step 4 - Go to Lock icon > Transaction Types > select which ones you need.
For Commercial Activity Tax, choose CAT Annual, CAT Payment, CAT Quarterly (Includes Estimate), and CAT registration. (this should cover most CAT related filings you would ever need)
For sales tax, choose the County Vendor's License Registration, Sales and Use Tax Payment Only, Sales Tax (UST-1), Transient Vendor's License Registration, Use Tax (UUT-1) (this should cover most sales tax related filings you would ever need)
Repeat this logic for other service areas you need access to.
Step 5 - Go to Person icon > Access Requests > scroll to bottom to Service Area Access Requests > click the + sign for all the Service Areas listed
Step 6 - Go to Lock icon > Service Area Access Management > Requested Service Area Access > click the check mark to give yourself access to each Service Area listed
Step 7 - Go to Lock Icon > User Authorization > Permission Template > click all 5 radio buttons (read, edit, create, delete, submit) to give them a blue checkmark > click Copy Permissions (all check marks below should activate and turn blue) > click SAVE
That should work! Go to Home Icon > New Transaction tab. You were successful if you can go to the Home icon and see the service area/transaction types you requested listed under New Transaction tab.