It depends on the type of work. New York treats landscapers as contractors for sales tax purposes under Tax Bulletin TB-ST-505. The rules change based on whether you’re doing maintenance or making capital improvements to the property.

Maintenance and repair services are taxable. This includes mowing, trimming hedges, seasonal cleanups, snow removal, and removing trees without replacing them. You need to charge your customer sales tax on these services and remit it to the state.

Capital improvements are not taxable to the customer, but only when they give you a properly completed Form ST-124. This is the Certificate of Capital Improvement. Work that qualifies includes installing a new lawn, putting in new plantings, building retaining walls, and installing irrigation systems. These jobs are exempt because they become a permanent part of the real property.

Here’s where it gets tricky for home and property service businesses that do both types of work. A single project might include taxable maintenance and exempt capital improvements. You need to invoice these separately and only collect tax on the maintenance portion. Mixing them together on one line item creates problems if you’re ever audited.

Form ST-124 is critical to keep on file. Without that signed certificate from your customer, you’re responsible for the sales tax even on capital improvement work. Collect it before you start the job, not months later when you’re trying to clean up your records. Keep these forms organized by customer and job because New York can ask for them years after the work was done.

On the materials side, you pay sales tax when you buy supplies regardless of whether the job is taxable or exempt. Mulch, plants, pavers, topsoil. You’re paying tax on all of it at the supply house. This is different from some other contractor categories where materials for exempt jobs can be purchased tax-free.

Many landscapers run into trouble because they don’t track which jobs are capital improvements and which are maintenance. They either charge tax on everything and overcharge customers for capital work, or charge tax on nothing and create a liability for unpaid tax on maintenance services. Neither approach works.

Getting this right requires keeping clean records of what type of work each invoice covers and making sure you have ST-124 forms on file for exempt jobs. If you’re mixing taxable and non-taxable work regularly, your bookkeeping setup matters more than you might think. Long Island bookkeeping services familiar with contractor businesses can help you build a system that tracks this properly from the start.