During a Stone Industry Education (SIE) event hosted by Triton Stone Group at their facility in Austin, TX, last fall, Blake Christensen of Valley View Granite spoke about use tax verses sales tax. “This is not going to be tax advice, but we have had three sales tax audits and a lot of it depends on the auditor.”

Christensen explained that there are three “buckets.” There is the square footage that is installed as real property, the square footage that goes back into inventory with the potential to convert to a sale later and the square footage that goes in the garbage. “If I bring a 50-square-foot slab in, I need to know exactly what percentage or amount goes into all three of those categories,” he said. “If you can validate and substantiate those three things, there is a huge tax benefit for you and I guarantee you that your audit will go a lot smoother. What we found is that all three times we have been audited, the auditor said to me, ‘You were paying use tax.’”