The Arkansas Department of Finance & Administration has again started issuing business closure notifications for failure to pay sales and withholding taxes.
The COVID-19 pandemic put a stop to most closures, an examination of the notification website indicates, with most of them appearing to end in early 2020.
Notices, however, started really picking up again in the middle of March, though some date back to December.
Your Whispers staff asked DF&A about the hiatus, and Charlie Collins, state revenue commissioner, explained by email:
“During the pandemic virtually all businesses were affected. DFA was exceptionally flexible during the pandemic in order to give businesses every opportunity to adjust, adapt and recover from the pandemic rather than face business closure by DFA.
“Over the past several months we have gradually returned our approach to collection efforts leading to business closures suited to a more normal business environment. Our top business closure priority remains curtailing the action of businesses collecting taxes from their customers and/or employees (e.g. sales taxes, withholding taxes, etc.) in the name of the state of Arkansas and not remitting the collected tax dollars to DFA.”
Paying your taxes is always a good idea because be assured: The state of Arkansas is paying attention.