What is Illinois Use Tax

Updated July 10, 2015
 
What is Illinois Use Tax?
 
Use tax is imposed on any transaction which would be subject to regular sales tax, only the physical goods were delivered to an address inside the State of Illinois from another state. You are charged for the use of the product inside the state, because your out of state vendor did not charge their state’s sales tax. If you do not pay use tax on the transaction in Illinois and are audited, you will probably have a problem. You would be subject to the original Illinois use tax, as well as interest and penalty.
 
As the computer systems as the taxation agencies have improved and more transactions are being digitized, the enforcement of Illinois Use Tax collection has improved greatly. There is now a box on all Illinois Income Tax Returns which asks whether or not the taxpayer made any purchases outside of the state that would be subject to use tax.
 
The biggest problems normally come in the event of an audit. They normally check all of the invoices and receipts to see if any of your transactions were subject to Illinois Use Tax. If you have a lot of internet type purchases of equipment for use in your business, sometimes these purchases can trigger an audit.
 
What is Illinois Use Tax? Sometimes it can be a real pain. Many taxpayers don’t even know of its existence.
 
If you are having problems with this or have issues with your accounting in general, we would love to help. I can be contacted at
 
Chris@AccountingSolutionsltd.com
 
Additional Accounting Articles and information on my firm can be found at
 
www.AccountingSolutionsLtd.com
 
Chris Amundson is the President of Accounting Solutions Ltd., a full service public accounting firm of Certified Public Accountants and Enrolled Agents handling the bookkeeping, accounting, tax preparation, and audit representation needs of Businesses, Estates, Trusts, and Upper Income Individuals.