I seriously question whether mandating that a vendor get a sales tax license is going to discourage their attendance at a selling event. Nobody who is in the business of trains is going to go out of business because of that regulation.
I think that you are completely missing the point. The the vast majority of the members in the member halls (the table holders) are not in business at all. It is like being a seller at a flea market, or having a garage sale or yard sale. It is something they do a couple of times a year. Requiring them to wade through and fill out all of the paperwork and submit the various registration fees to get the tax ID number to be able to sell would deter them, and on top of all of that, there is the book-keeping and paperwork they would be required to do on the other end of the sales. An occasional seller is not going to go through the hassle. I know I wouldn't, and I am an occasional table-holder in the member halls, and I am not in the business of selling trains for a living.
Andy
I am not missing the point at all. Two years ago, I had to get a PA sales tax license just to sell my book at an event that was a one-shot thing. This is not the first time I had to get a license. Years ago I got one to sell a product for a business enterprise that my uncle and I operated through mail order that included Pa sales. After my uncle died, there was nothing to sell and the business was concluded as was my license. It is very easy to deal with the sales tax today compared to what I had to do previously. I pay quarterly and the form is done on-line. It takes about 15 minutes tops as long as you've kept track of sales as you go along. You list gross sales (which you already have kept for federal income tax purposes) and some other minor information if it is relevant. The form calculates your liability and you have a discount if you pay within a certain time period. To suggest for incidental sales that this is onerous is ridiculous--it may be inconvenient, but, hey, there's a lot in life that is inconveniencing for us all. That doesn't mean that we end it all. No registration fee.
