So I started an online shop this year on Shopify selling clothes as a hobby and to see if it would work. I have made $1000 Gross in sales and collected about $80 in sales tax for NY as I am in NY.

I thought that I had registered to collect sales tax and make sales in Shopify but now realize I needed a Certificate of Authority to collect sales tax and am freaking out because the penalty is up to $10K. (I now know I missed about 2-3 quarterly deadlines to remit sales tax so I’ll have to pay a fee of about $100-$300 which is okay). I now have the Certificate of Authority as of 2 weeks ago.

A CPA told me that NY is pretty strict, so I will essentially have to pay this huge fine, is there any way I or he can call or something to avoid the $10K fine? Can I ask for a payment plan if there is no other way? Please let me know or if anyone has been in this situation before! I just want to do it right, this is a very tough lesson for me as this will wipe out my savings if there is nothing I can do…

Thank you