MONTGOMERY, Aug. 13, 2019 – The Alabama Department of Revenue encourages eligible online sellers and marketplace facilitators that are subject to a collection requirement to register for the state’s Simplified Sellers Use Tax (SSUT) remittance program by Oct. 1, 2019. Doing so will relieve such sellers from the obligation of certain tax liability for the previous year.

Although the state began enforcement of its collection requirement for large sellers in October 2018, and for marketplace facilitators in January 2019, the state’s legislature, during the most recent legislative session, enacted amnesty for eligible sellers who did not collect taxes on transactions prior to their participation in the SSUT program and register with the SSUT program to begin collecting on or before Oct. 1, 2019. Registrants must remain in the program for at least three years.

Effective June 5, 2019, Act 2019-382 amends §40-23-199, Code of Alabama, 1975, to provide the following:

• Eligible sellers in the SSUT program will gain amnesty for any uncollected SSUT that may have been due on sales made to purchasers in the state for all periods preceding Oct. 1, 2019.

• No class action may be brought against an eligible seller in any court of this state on behalf of customers for an overpayment of simplified sellers use tax.

The simplified sellers use tax may not be collected and remitted in lieu of the sales and use tax collected by a licensing official pursuant to §40-23-104. This prohibition applies to sales of automotive vehicles, motorboats, truck trailers, trailer, semitrailer, manufactured homes, and travel trailers that must be licensed in this state by a local licensing official.

To read Act 2019-382 in its entirety and other information pertaining to the Simplified Sellers Use Tax Program, visit https://revenue.alabama.gov/sales-use/simplified-sellers-use-tax-ssut/.