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Vendor South Carolina Tax Requirments


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At our Saturday lunch in Marietta, Georgia, the subject came up about South Carolina State Department of Revenue requiring a $50 document to be obtained and brought to the convention before being allowed to enter. Actually, only 1 person who had read the convention rules was aware of that including a couple of vendors.

It seems to me that the convention organizers should contact the vendors and remind them.

What do you think?

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This wasn't a last minute addition to the vendor requirements. As Rusty says, it has been there from the beginning. This was included in the vendor contracts from the outset, and the link to the DOR requirement has been on the Vendor page of the website since it was launched. Furthermore, each vendor was told about it when they received their contracts before they paid for their tables.

 

If you want to play with fire and decide to save the $50 by not filing, consider this: The South Carolina Department of Revenue offices are blocks away from the venue, and we're betting good money that SCDOR Officers will be there and they will be checking transient vendor licenses. $50 is a whole lot less than the potential fines could be...you pays your money, you takes your chances. But I'd rather be safe and pony up the $50 than get caught without and win up paying north of $10K per day in fines.

 

Ralph Nardone

Seminars Coordinator

2016 IPMS/USA National Convention

"Every Model Tells A Story"

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As the web coordinator, and the person responsible for turning most of the convention documents into "ready for prime time" PDFs, let me see:

 

1. On the Vendors page of the IPMS/USA 2016 National Convention website, there is a very clear reminder to all and sundry that explains a Transient Vendor License is required. It includes the words "VERY IMPORTANT" and lots of bold text in that section to drive home that this is not an optional item. We have also made clear that it's the vendor's responsibility, and not ours.

 

2. In the Vendor Form package (available as a PDF on the Vendors page), which all vendors had to complete, it is stated in VERY CLEAR language on the very first page that a Transient Vendor License is required and that it is the responsibility of the vendor to get that license - and the disclaimer prior to the signature line on the vendor application includes an acknowledgment that the vendor agrees to all conditions as outlined on the form. There is also a reminder on the vendor reservation form itself, and the application for the Transient Vendor License immediately follows that document.

 

All of this has been made known to prospective vendors as far back as August 2015. In fact, we had vendors trying to submit the license applications to SCDOR back then, and I had to put a reminder on the website that it was too early to do so.

 

I tried to make this as clear as possible on the website, and in all documents I was asked to edit and turn into PDFs - in part, because I imagined these very kinds of inquiries would come up, and in part to stave off any accusations that we were just springing this on vendors at the last moment. If we are, then I will eat my hat.

 

I will also say that anyone who gets caught doing business without a transient vendor license at the Nationals will not have "but we weren't warned" as a defense, because the warnings were there, have been there all along, and I have the change logs to prove it.

 

Jodie Peeler

Edited by jpeeler
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I understand that it's been spelled out but I'm not sure that it was read by some of the vendors. One other thing, was it mentioned at the proposal for the award of the convention?

This could have an impact on the smaller vendors.

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Whether it was mentioned during the bid proposal (I'm 99.999% sure it was, by the way) doesn't matter--what matters is that we had it in the vendor contracts and on the website from Day One. If individual vendors didn't bother to read the contract before they signed, how can we as the Hosts Chapter be held accountable for that? This is exactly why we not only wrote it into the contracts, but made great pains to make the requirement public news as soon as the website went live.

 

I'd be willing to bet most states have similar requirements, too. Whether or not other Host Chapters have done their due diligence in reminding their vendors of such a requirement is unknown to me, but we knew about this requirement long before we ever bid, since we knew the State of South Carolina required Transient Vendor Licenses. And, because we knew it, we made sure to post it so that everyone else knew it, too.

 

Ralph

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I understand that it's been spelled out but I'm not sure that it was read by some of the vendors.

 

Lack of reading on the vendor's part is not our responsibility. We have done our duty by stating it (and gone beyond it by stating it several times over in unmistakable terms, and I've done everything short of putting a flashing neon sign on the website to make this clear). By signing the form the vendor indicates acceptance of the terms, and responsibility for any consequences. I hate to be this blunt, but at some point it stops being our responsibility.

 

Jodie Peeler

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