question for the greenscreen Home Inspectors

[sticknstring]

I'm currently looking into starting a home inspection business. My question is,
does a home inspector charge sales tax? If not, would I therefore NOT need to file for an EIN with the Texas Comptroller's office?
Thanks in advance

[Drycreek3189]

I may be wrong but I think you have to make or sell a product to charge sales tax. I know you can call Austin every day for a week and get five different answers.

[Mountaineer]

There is no sales tax on a home inspection. If you do a termite inspection/WDI report that requires you to collect tax on that portion only. I don’t do termite, I use a separate company for that if requested.

It’s been a long time since I started so I don’t remember exactly how it went down but they (comptroller I think) required me to be a PLLC since I’m licensed through TREC. Good luck with your business.


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[Briar Friar]

Good luck with the business MrString.

A resale certificate would be for taxing a product purchased without tax then resold with mark up and state gets more tax. But doesnt tax same product twice.

Having an EIN means that youll be operating under a corporation and not as an individual. The overall liability strategy and taxing strategy would be better for operating under a corporate entity versus as an individual. Many corporations want to work corporate entity to corporate entity. Not corporate entity to individual. Id think that mortgaging banks who would employ you would prefer corporate to corporate.

Taxing strategies have many more options when working through a corporation than individual. Individual taxing rates are fairly rigid and bottlenecked.

[jrfan]

I do not charge tax for the home inspection portion. As stated above the WDI inspector usually does charge tax for his inspection.

[Briar Friar]

Im wrong on some previous stuff.

If using a sole proprietorship without an EIN would mean that your employees and employers would be seeing and have access to your social security number.

[sticknstring]

Lots of good info here! Are any of the other specialized inspections ( radon, mold, etc) taxable?
It’ll be nice not having to deal with quarterly tax filings like I did with another LLC I had years ago.