When last we left off I had dug the RV out from a snow storm in Goodland, Kansas and was getting on I-70 with the intent of heading to Burlington, Colorado, but it seems when I put the RV in auto-pilot it headed for ‘warmer weather’ and somehow I found myself first in Boise City in the Oklahoma Panhandle, then Dalhart in the Texas Panhandle, and then in Tucumcari, New Mexico of all places.
Tucumcari is a big place, around 5500 population (a little more, a little less, depending on who is doing the counting). Highway 54 and Interstate 40 merge here so there are quite a few motels and some places RV parks. I can say that I have been to Tucumcari many times, probably flown into here more times than driven. Back in my days piloting my ‘twin Beachcraft’ it made a great ‘gas stop’ when flying west following I-40 visual flight rules having departed out of Norman’s Max Westheimer. In contrast to Burlington, Colorado which was about 24 degrees when I left there, it’s a lovely 55 here in Tucumcari this evening.
Before ‘hooking-up’ at the RV Park we make a stop for a grocery restock. Prices here are very reasonable, but everything is subject to New Mexico’s gross receipts tax which is a state minimum of 5.125% but the total here in Tucumcari with the Quay County and City tax added in makes the merchant’s liability 8.375%. If you don’t know, a gross receipt tax means that the business is responsible for paying a tax on their gross receipts, but in New Mexico they are permitted to pass that tax on to the customer, so in effect it’s exactly the same as a ‘sales tax’ even though they don’t call it that.
Back at the RV park we will be fixing our own supper tonight so the only tax we will be paying will be the ‘gross receipts tax’ on our RV stay overnight when we check out in the morning because ‘unlike many other states, the sale and performance of almost everything including services in New Mexico are taxable under New Mexico’s gross receipts tax statutes.’
After fixing some flap jacks in the RV for breakfast before heading out the next morning I decide there is one thing I do want to see here in Tucumcari. It’s the Mesalands Dinosaur Museum and Natural Sciences Laboratory which is operated as part of the local community college. Since they are not always ‘open to the public’ you might want to call ahead to check availability to see their paleontological and geological sights featuring some big dinosaur skeletons, a lot of old fossils (and I don’t mean people taking pictures of me or other old people visiting the museum) and a gift shop.
The Museum focuses on the Mesozoic period also known as the ‘Age of Dinosaurs’ including the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods when many of the largest creatures roamed the earth…about the size of this dinosaur of an RV I drive for these sales tax articles.
Avalara new
And speaking of sales tax I have to remind you that this Sales Tax Tuesday 2018 feature is one in a series that Insightful Accountant, in cooperation with Avalara, the ‘sales tax people,’ is bringing you about sales tax in each and every state tax jurisdiction in the United States. This year, unlike our 2015 series, we are taking significantly longer to explore in our Sales Tax RV as a result of the ‘breaking news’ features related to sales tax that have taken place during 2018. We are also visiting states, like New Mexico that don’t even have sales tax but have ‘gross receipts tax’.
Come to think of it, that dinosaur looks very similar to the last ‘Sales Tax Auditor’ that came to examine the sales tax records of a business owner who called for help when his tax records were incomplete because he was trying to do his taxes the old fashioned ‘manual way.’ I think that Auditor ate his lunch just like that carnivore probably devoured some poor herbivore ‘way back when.’ It’s easy to get yourself into trouble when you are trying to do sales tax on your own, especially in states with lots of jurisdictional changes, and rules about what is and isn’t taxable.
Anyway, let’s get back to our travels. Despite the fact that I would like to head south to go track down the truth behind the ‘Roswell Incident’ I don’t think that’s going to happen this truth. Of course, in case you are unfamiliar with that story, it just happens that in 1947 there was reportedly a crash of an alien spacecraft about 75 miles outside the town of Roswell, New Mexico. The investigation of the incident and the debris recovery was under the command of the Roswell Army Air Field. I will let you decide if you believe a flying saucer crashed or not. But, as I told you in one of my 2015 articles my little alien buddy, NaNu swears that the UFO was piloted by “his 3rd uncle on his mother’s side, or was is it his 3rd mother on his uncle’s side”, I forget. Literally thousands of amateur UFOers and sight-seers visit the Roswell/Corona area each year.
Speaking of ‘alien’, did you know that New Mexico’s definition of nexus may seem ‘alien’ to some folks. State lawmakers ruled that New Mexico companies that hire independent contractors have to pay gross receipts tax on any sales related to those services. But if the company’s employees perform services in the state for a customer, and that work is under a certain threshold of total working hours, those services are exempt. Simply put: When employees don’t work in New Mexico, the business has a physical presence (aka nexus). But when employees do work in New Mexico, they don’t have enough of a physical presence to warrant nexus. Now how ‘alien’ is that, sounds like it came right out of Roswell, doesn’t it?
But, the reality is that we are not heading to investigate alien crashes, or nexus. Instead we are traveling west on I-40 toward Santa Rosa, just west of Santa Rosa we are going to take Highway 84 north to Interstate 25 where they meet up just south of Las Vegas…no this is Las Vegas New Mexico (not Nevada, the gambling mecca). We are saving ourselves a lot of road by going this way to get to Santa Fe because when we get to I-25 we head back west and before long we are in Santa Fe. Of course, we have been climbing in elevation ever since we left Santa Rosa and things are much, much colder here.
We are staying at a great RV Park in Santa Fe called the Skies where every spot is extra-long, nicely graveled, with concrete slabs and easy ‘quick hook-ups’. You can see for miles. If you don’t do ‘the RV thing’ then none of this may mean anything to you. They even had clean (very clean) heated bathrooms, and yes, we have our own bathroom in the RV, we also had one of those ‘dipped paint’ picnic tables (again that won’t mean squat to people who don’t do RV parks.) It’s not really very large a park so I’m glad we had called ahead an made a reservation.
But Santa Fe isn’t about being at an RV Park even if it’s as nice a view as this this. Santa Fe is about art and culture, and of course the balloon festival if you are here at the right time of the year which we are not. Now when I say art and culture I am speaking of the ‘art and culture of food’ of course for this is authentic Mexican at it’s best and the choices here are almost endless. Unlike many places where the Mexican restaurants open around lunchtime and then serve dinner as well in Santa Fe they are open for Breakfast (or before), Lunch, Dinner and well into the night and even late night. So, let’s start by looking at just a few of them, and some of the most delightful dishes at each.
In the downtown district we will find ‘the Plaza Café’ on the historic Santa Fe Plaza since 1905 and run by the same family since 1947. If you are there for breakfast, then you want to order Chile and Eggs or a Chile Relleno Omelet. And of course, we are going to pay ‘Gross Receipts Tax’, after all, this is New Mexico.
OK so we mill around the district for a while and hit some of the ‘art shops’ and look at you know ‘arts and crafts’, I’m not much into that sort of thing but “when in Rome you must do…Turquoise shopping, you know what I mean?”
And now it is time for lunch, well an early lunch. So, we are going to El Callejon Santa Fe for one of those dishes that only a true Mexican restaurant can do correctly ‘Mole’ (and no I am not talking about that little animal that digs in your yard). ‘Mole’ is a very dark (wonderfully dark) sauce that is almost indescribable because it contains almost every spice known to the Mexican cooking world (or so it would seem). It can be served on almost anything, but chicken is one of the more common meats and here at El Callejon that’s exactly what we are having it on today, ‘Mole chicken’. You can only wish that Insightful Accountant had ‘scratch-n-sniff photographs in our articles’!
Now “if I were a rich man”, (didn’t someone sing a song titled that in a musical somewhere or another) then I could stop in some of the many ‘art galleries’ and partake of some of the paintings, and sculptures and pottery that are produced by many of the so-called ‘starving artists’ that are resident in the various artist colonies in and around Santa Fe. Fortunately (for me) I am ‘not a rich man’ and so I will not be handing over my Discover Card to any art dealers while I am here. But what I will be doing is heading over to another fine eating establishment when they open up around 4pm. Sazon (Metro publishing doesn’t let me put that squiggly line above the o in their name) has both Mexican and Latin American cuisine.
As you can see from the picture above, this place is not the typical ‘El Chico’, it’s definitely what you call ‘up-scale’ and so while I ‘might not be a rich man’ I will shell out a few extra bucks for this ‘once in a long, long time experience’ for tonight’s supper…and I am not even going to tempt you with pictures of what I am having.
What I will say is after this it's a good thing I bought that 'bologna' back in Tucumcari because I will probably be eating it for the rest of this entire trip since I will be otherwise living on ten-bucks. In the mean time I will just share these...
New Mexico Tax Facts:
New Mexico doesn’t have a state sales tax, but rather imposes a gross receipts tax on businesses. This tax is passed onto the consumer so that it resembles a sales tax. The gross receipts tax rate is currently 5.125%, but depending on local municipalities, the total tax rate can be as high as 9.063%.
- Additional information about the New Mexico Gross Receipts Tax can be obtained from this official New Mexico website.
- The Avalara 'New Mexico' Tax Rates page can be found here.
New Mexico Tax is administered by their Taxation & Revenue Department
New Mexico Gross receipts tax applies only to:
- The sale of tangible personal property other than water from facilities open to the general public
- The performance of, or admissions to, recreational, athletic or entertainment services or events in facilities open to the general public
- Refuse collection or refuse disposal, or both
- Sewage services
- The sale of water by a utility owned or operated by a county, municipality or other political subdivision of the state, and - the renting of parking, docking or tie-down spaces or the granting of permission to park vehicles, tie aircraft down, or dock boats.
New Mexico is one of only 11 origin sourcing states. This means that the gross receipt tax is based on the location of the seller, not the buyer.
New Mexico is not a member of Streamlined Sales Tax (SST)
New Mexico does not have a ‘use tax’ like most states, rather than have a ‘compensating tax’. Under certain circumstances, persons selling property or a combination of property and service to someone engaged in business in New Mexico may be required to collect compensating tax. The seller must not owe gross receipts tax on the sales, and the buyer must use the property, or property and service, in New Mexico (Section 7-9-10 NMSA 1978). Here are some examples of common business activities that incur agency for out-of-state businesses:
- Regularly soliciting orders in New Mexico,
- Advertising in New Mexico media or soliciting orders through programs broadcast by New Mexico radio, television, or cable television systems, or
- Maintaining a stock of goods in this state.
There is a saying that a 'rose by any other name', and the same goes for something that stinks too I am pretty sure. So it is with 'sales tax'. Just because you call it something other than 'sales tax' doesn't mean that it really isn't sales tax when the merchant is collecting it from you for everything you buy or every service they provide you. So even in a state like New Mexico where 'it goes by the name of 'Gross Receipts Tax' you can still get lured into a false sense of thinking that you are complying with the rules when in reality you aren't. And when that Tax Auditor, you know the one that has teeth as big as that dinosaur comes around looking to chew you up and spit you out for non-compliance, who are you going to turn to?
Avalara provides solutions for tax automation, even 'Gross Receipt tax in New Mexico' including tax calculation, exemption certificate management, returns processing and 1099 filing and reporting. Automation via AvaTax allows businesses to be fully tax compliant without sacrificing productivity. With Avalara you won't be wasting your time with checking which tax changes apply to you today, or letting tax compliance consume your valuable time that should be spent on building your business and servicing your customers. So whether you are whipping up some tacos, or making 'mole', selling roadside maps to see the alien spacecraft crash sites, or selling gas to a '1950 Twin Bonanza A/B' on stop-over at the Tucumcari Airport, you will have confidence in knowing that your tax is done right, and that Avalara is on your side should the Dinosaur come 'chomping' at your door.