Florida is amongst the top states in United States when it comes to having a favourable taxation climate for business. In fact the state ranks in the fifth position for State Business Tax Climate Index whereas neighbouring states like Alabama and Georgia are ranked at 25th and 28th place respectively.

Following is a brief of some of the taxes in Florida that businesses need to deal with:

SALES TAX:

This tax applies on sale, rental, lease or having a licence to use goods, services and commercial property unless the tax has been exempted on them. Other than this, all kinds of admission charges, storing and renting is also liable to be taxed. Department of Revenue is responsible for collecting sales tax and the general sales tax rate in Florida is 6% flat.

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Another tax called the “use tax” is levied on use or consumption of taxable goods and services in the case when sales tax was not paid at the time of purchase. The use tax is also levied in the circumstances when you pay money for a taxable item outside Florida without paying sales tax and gets it delivered in Florida; you are liable to deposit use tax in Florida.

CORPORATE INCOME TAX:

Corporate income tax in enforced on those corporations and business entities that are doing business in Florida and are earning through it. Corporate income tax may also be extracted from out-of-state corporations. Unless the business enterprise is exempted from paying this tax, all the companies and businesses established and existing in Florida will have to pay corporate tax. There are several aspects that need to be computed upon before businesses arrive at their taxable income and have to pay corporate income tax at the rate of flat 5.5%.

UNEMPLOYMENT TAX:

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This tax gives provisional earnings to those workers who have lost their jobs due to no fault of their own and are available for work. The employers are made to shell out this unemployment compensation to such workers and this entire compensating process is monitored and administered by Department of Revenue, Florida. Based on yearly salary up to $8,000 per employee, the minimum and maximum rate of unemployment tax is 0.0151 or $120.80 and 0.0540 or $432 per employee respectively. These rates were revised some time back and have been in effect since January 1st, 2012.

Other than the taxes mentioned above, the Department of Revenue also levies certain taxes such as communication service tax, documentary stamp, fuel tax, gross receipt tax, insurance tax and many others from companies and business entities based in Florida.