Tax on what you buy, handled
where you already handle
sales tax
Use tax is the tax you owe on purchases when a vendor doesn’t charge you the correct sales tax. Import your purchases and Kintsugi calculates what you owe net of anything the vendor already charged, then carries it through monitoring, registration, and filing.
Trusted by 7,000+ businesses
What is use tax?
Owed by the purchaser, not collected by the seller.
When a vendor doesn’t charge the full tax due on a purchase, you owe the difference directly to the jurisdiction. Use tax sits alongside sales tax in the jurisdictions that charge it, generally at the same rate, and an item exempt from sales tax is generally exempt from use tax too.
Common triggers
Where use tax shows up in a normal month
Use tax comes from routine buying, and nobody sends a bill for it.
Buying from an out-of-state or online seller
The seller may not be required to collect your home state’s tax, so the invoice can show none. The obligation moves to you.
Buying in a lower-tax place than where you use it
Equipment bought in one jurisdiction and used in another can leave a gap between the tax you paid and the tax that applies.
Pulling inventory out of resale stock
Taking goods you bought to resell and using them in your own business can create a use tax obligation.
Because the obligation sits with the buyer and is easy to overlook, unpaid use tax is a common audit finding, especially for businesses that buy across several states.
Back Filing, VDAs, & NoticesHow Kintsugi handles it
Use tax runs through the four places you already work
There is no separate use tax product to learn. Use tax is a tax type inside monitoring, registrations, calculation, and filings, tagged and filterable next to sales tax.
- Tax Calculation
Import purchases
Purchases stay separate from sales totals, and you can switch the Transactions view between the two.
- Tax Calculation
Calculate what you owe
Use tax is worked out per purchase line as the applicable tax less any tax the vendor already charged. It never produces a negative liability. Where no dedicated use tax rate exists, Kintsugi falls back to the sales tax rate.
- Exposure Monitoring
See your exposure
A distinct Tax Type column and filter in Monitoring shows use tax exposure separately from sales tax.
- Registrations
Register
Registrations are tagged by tax type. Where a state combines sales and use tax, Kintsugi keeps one combined registration.
- Filings & Remittance
File and download the report
File standalone use tax returns, or combined returns that report use tax alongside sales tax, on the cadence of the underlying registration. Filing workbooks download with use tax liability broken out.
Vendor-paid tax, netted
Tax your vendor already charged comes off what you owe
If a vendor charged part of the tax, Kintsugi credits it. If the vendor charged more than applies, the line shows zero. Each purchase line stands on its own, so an overcharge on one line doesn’t reduce what you owe on another.
| Purchase | Applicable tax | Vendor charged | Use tax owed | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Out-of-state software order | $80.00 | $0.00 | $80.00 | Vendor collected nothing |
| Office equipment | $80.00 | $50.00 | $30.00 | Vendor collected part |
| Marketplace purchase | $80.00 | $95.00 | $0.00 | Vendor charged more, no negative |
Why this matters at audit
Unpaid use tax is easy to miss, and auditors look for it
Unpaid use tax is a common audit finding, particularly for businesses that buy across several states. If you already have unreported purchases, the fix starts before you file going forward. Back filing, Voluntary Disclosure Agreements, and notice response cover the historical period. Use tax support covers the purchases you make from here on.
What’s ahead
Built to extend beyond the US
Use tax runs on the same purchase transaction infrastructure that now supports input VAT management for EU and UK organizations.
