Best CPA Austin Alternative.Austin sales tax, piece by piece.
State, city, and transit are three pieces, and the address decides the mix.
See the tax pieces.
The usual split.
State sales tax is 6.25 percent. Inside the regular Austin city limits, the city adds 1 percent (local code 2227016) and Capital Metro, the transit authority, adds 1 percent (local code 3227999). Add them up and a sale rings up at 8.25 percent. The Comptroller's sales tax rate locator and city rate table are the public sources. A contract that prints one flat rate without naming the address has skipped the one fact that picks the right row.
The Austin table isn't one row. Parts of the city reach into Hays and Williamson counties, library districts, and the transit authority in different combinations, and several of those still total 8.25 percent for different reasons. Two addresses can show the same total and still need different codes on the return. That's why we ask for your address on the call.
Tell us where your sales actually happen, and we look the address up in the Comptroller's locator to pick the right row.
Monthly filers have until the 20th of the next month to file. A month that hasn't been matched to the bank turns that return into a guess. Card sales from a festival weekend belong on the days they happened, not spread evenly across the month.
What isn't sales tax.
Hotel tax is a separate return. Austin levies its own hotel occupancy tax under chapter 351 of the Tax Code, and that money doesn't ride inside the sales tax filing. A short-term rental owes hotel tax, and if it also sells taxable items, sales tax on those, so the two are kept apart.
In Travis County, the Travis Central Appraisal District sets the value of business property. If you disagree with a value, a protest starts with an informal meeting and can go to the appraisal review board. The business personal property rendition is generally due April 15. It's a separate filing from the federal return and from the May franchise report, so that's three calendars and three filings.
Texas has no personal income tax. Owners sometimes take that to mean a break from every other filing. The franchise report, the sales tax return, and the federal return are all still on the calendar, and the call goes through them one by one.
For 2026 and 2027, the franchise tax no-tax-due threshold is 2.65 million dollars, with rates of 0.375 percent for retail and wholesale and 0.75 percent for most others, and the report is due May 15. It has its own page. It's mentioned here so no one thinks sales tax is the only Texas filing a shop has.
How your books should track it.
Good books keep the state, city, and transit pieces on separate lines, or map them so those lines can be produced at filing time. A single sales tax account that lumps all three will balance and still be useless on the 20th.
Exempt sales need a certificate in the file, not a memory that the customer seemed exempt. Marketplace and remote sales have their own rules. If those are your question, the call starts with where you store goods and where your people work.
We set up the tracking in your books. Filing on the Comptroller's site stays with you unless a written scope adds it, and the login stays yours. The usual job is a month the return can trust.
Tell us where you sell.
The part of town is enough for now.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.