Reporting on sales tax is hard in New Hampshire: I’ve forgotten how it works

Like many newspapers, the Monitor has a “localizer” story today reflecting on the Supreme Court decision that will allow sales taxes collected from out-of-state online purchases. This is a big deal in New Hampshire which has no sales tax – we were one of the five states that argued against this change.

I wrote the story, and encountered a problem that probably didn’t affect reporters in 45 other states: It’s been so long since I’ve paid any sales tax that I sort of forgot how they work. Several times I got all muddled up and had to stop and work my slowly through the process of who pays what, when, to whom.