April 2020: Alaska Sales Tax Report Update

What's changing in Alaska?

Alaska passed new legislation which allows some local areas to levy a sales tax even though Alaska does not have a statewide sales tax. At this time, AutoFile does not yet support filing local sales tax in Alaska. 

Remote sellers who never before had to worry about collecting and filing sales tax in Alaska may be required to collect Alaska sales tax.

• Each jurisdiction in Alaska has been given the chance to adopt Alaska’s Remote Seller Sales Tax Code.
• Once a jurisdiction has adopted the code, e-commerce businesses with economic nexus in Alaska have 30 days to begin collecting sales tax from buyers in participating jurisdictions.
• We explain more about Alaska's recent economic nexus laws here and how to register here. 

Does TaxJar support Alaska's local sales tax? 

Yes! Alaska local sales tax reporting is available in your TaxJar account and our TaxJar API supports calculations for applicable local jurisdictions within Alaska. 

• To add Alaska, please go to your State nexus settings, complete your state nexus details and enable calculations if your account supports an API-powered integration. 
• Alaska may be added on your dashboard for these reasons and you can click to view the Alaska Report: 

If you're on our upgraded plans, you will now receive an Economic Nexus Insights Notification when your business is approaching Alaska’s economic nexus threshold tax.

Our Sales and Transactions Checker can now be run to check for sales to Alaska that meet and exceed the economic nexus requirements for local jurisdictions.

• Please note, the Checker does not send notifications and requires to be manually run.
• If your business is experiencing high growth, please contact us to learn more about our Economic Nexus Insights for more robust monitoring of your economic nexus thresholds and enhanced export options! 

How does this impact me as an in-state seller with a physical presence in Alaska?

• If you have a physical presence in Alaska that creates nexus and your nexus is in a local jurisdiction that's adopted the code, you will need to collect and remit sales tax. 
• If you have a physical presence in Alaska that creates nexus and your physical nexus is not in a local jurisdiction that's adopted the code, you do not need to collect and remit sales tax. 
  
  • However, if you have a physical presence in Alaska which is not in a local jurisdiction that's adopted the code, you can be considered a "remote seller" if you sell into those local jurisdictions that have adopted the code. 
  • A remote seller is defined as "without having a physical presence in a taxing jurisdiction."
  • Our Alaska reports do not support displaying any jurisdiction for sales that are in cities not yet part of the Alaska Remote Seller Commission. This means that some of your transactions are included in your gross sales amount but you will not find them in the local jurisdiction section of our Report breakdown. 

• Therefore, as a remote seller, you may have economic nexus if you meet the thresholds in a jurisdiction that has adopted the uniform Alaska Remote Seller Sales Tax Code and therefore would need to collect and remit sales tax via the 

The Alaska Remote Seller Sales Tax Commission provides a chart here to guide you on knowing if you need to collect sales tax or not. 

Can TaxJar file my sales tax returns in Alaska?

At this time, AutoFile for Alaska is not available yet. 

• Please let us know if you're interested in AutoFile for Alaska. 
• If you need to file your sales tax return, please follow the instructions and submit via the  Alaska Remote Sellers Sales Tax Commission Portal.