Tax-Exempt & Resale Accounts

If you hold a Texas Sales and Use Tax Permit and you are buying product to resell — or to install on a customer's job and bill through — you can buy from us without paying sales tax. Here is how to set it up.

What this is, and what it is not

This is not a discount. It is a tax exemption. You are not paying the tax to us because you will be collecting it from your customer and remitting it to the state yourself. If you are buying product for your own house, or supplies your shop will consume rather than resell, this does not apply.

Who qualifies

You need an active 11-digit Texas taxpayer number from a Texas Sales and Use Tax Permit, and you need to be buying items you will resell in the regular course of business. Installers who supply and bill material to their customers generally qualify. If you are not sure whether yours do, ask your accountant — we are not able to make that call for you.

How to set it up

1. Download and complete Texas Form 01-339, Sales and Use Tax Resale Certificate.
2. Fill it out completely — your 11-digit taxpayer number, a description of what you are buying, and a description of your business. Then sign it. An incomplete certificate is not valid and we cannot accept it.
3. Email the signed certificate to operations@texaslightcooperative.com.
4. Create an account on our site using that same email address.

Once we have reviewed it we will flag your account, and sales tax comes off your orders from then on. Give us a business day.

The one thing that trips people up

You have to be signed in at checkout. If you check out as a guest, our system has no way to know who you are and it will charge you sales tax. We cannot remove it after the fact without refunding and rewriting the order, so sign in before you pay.

Blanket certificates

If everything you buy from us is for resale, submit a blanket certificate once and we will apply it to all of your orders — just say so on the form. If that ever changes, tell us in writing and we will take the flag off.

Our end of it

We keep your certificate on file for four years, which is what the Comptroller requires of us. We accept certificates in good faith. If what is written on the form does not line up with what you are actually buying, we will ask you about it before we flag the account — that protects both of us in an audit.

Questions

Email operations@texaslightcooperative.com. For whether your business qualifies in the first place, talk to your accountant. That one is above our pay grade, and we would rather you get it right than take our word for it.