Per our CFO:
Heritage has physical locations I the following states and has been collecting taxes upon the opening of those locations: New York, Illinois, Florida, Texas, California. Heritage would prefer not to be in a position to collect sales taxes from clients in states for which we do not have a physical presence, however, we are now being required to do so due to recent legislation.
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) decided in a case involving Wayfair v. South Dakota that a seller could have “economic” nexus in South Dakota and based on that economic nexus (different than a physical nexus), South Dakota could require the seller to collect and remit South Dakota sales tax on shipments of product into South Dakota to South Dakota residents/addresses. This ruling set the standard for any state to establish sales tax laws like South Dakota and accordingly, require sellers to collect and remit sales tax for that state when product was shipped into that state to residents/addresses in that state. Since the SCOTUS ruling, a number of states have passed and implemented legislation requiring sellers like Heritage to register, collect and remit sales taxes in the states.
The specific percentage that a client will pay can vary from state to state as well as possible add-on rates for county or municipality taxes. In addition, Heritage Auctions is made up of several different corporations and each corporation has to be measured against the threshold of business in the applicable state in order to determine if that corporation exceeds the threshold and as a result, must register to collect sales taxes. As such, Heritage Sports is not required to register in certain states, some states have no sales tax and the other states are in various stages of consideration in the change of law. We have a monitoring process so we know within just a few days when any state makes a change to the state law on sales tax.
If you are now required to pay sales taxes on your purchases from our Sports auctions, then you would have received an email informing you of such and you would have seen a notice when you log into the website.
Long story short - we are charging tax because we have to. If you have any questions about sales taxes in your state, you can always email me at
peterc@ha.com but I have nothing to do with the implementation or collecting of sales tax but I'll work with you as best I can.
In a nutshell - Heritage is charging sales tax only when and where we are required to do so.