Do Landscapers Charge Sales Tax in Kentucky?
Kentucky landscaping and lawn care businesses generally need to charge sales tax on taxable services. Here is what owners should know before invoicing customers.
This guide is educational and is not tax advice. Confirm filing duties with the Kentucky Department of Revenue or a qualified tax professional.
Short answer
Generally, yes. Kentucky says landscaping and lawn care service providers need to charge sales tax on services for transactions on or after July 1, 2018, including mowing, trimming, weed eating, and fertilizing.
Checklist
- Identify taxable landscaping and lawn care services.
- Separate taxable and non taxable work in QuickBooks.
- Track sales tax collected separately from revenue.
- Review materials passed to customers versus supplies consumed by the business.
- Confirm unusual construction like work with a tax professional.
Common mistakes
- Treating collected sales tax as spendable income.
- Using one generic income item for every service.
- Forgetting that tree, shrub, mulch, fertilizer, or chemicals sold with installation may be included in taxable receipts.
- Assuming retaining walls or ponds follow the same rule as lawn care.
Examples for service businesses
- A mowing invoice should be reviewed for Kentucky sales tax treatment.
- A shrub installation invoice may include taxable service and materials sold to the customer.
- A retaining wall project may need construction contractor treatment reviewed separately.
What Kentucky says
Kentucky's landscape services guidance lists taxable landscaping and lawn care services and provides examples. Use the state's own guidance as the source of the rules, then build QuickBooks around clear tracking. Because guidance and statutes change, confirm current rules with the Kentucky Department of Revenue before relying on any summary, including this one.
Examples by service type
Taxability can depend on the exact work and the facts of the job. Use this to know what to document and what to confirm, not as a final tax determination.
- Mowing, trimming, fertilizing: commonly treated as taxable lawn care services; document the service line and tax collected.
- Mulching and planting: review whether materials sold to the customer are part of taxable receipts.
- Landscape installation: track service and materials sold with the install; confirm treatment.
- Tree work: confirm whether the specific service is taxable and how disposal is handled.
- Hardscape, retaining walls, ponds: may be treated as construction contractor work; confirm separately.
- Materials sold with a service: may be included in taxable receipts; keep them itemized.
- Maintenance contracts: review how a recurring contract is taxed and invoiced.
What to track in QuickBooks
Whatever the final treatment, your books should make sales tax easy to verify.
- Separate taxable and non-taxable service items.
- Track sales tax collected in its own liability account, not as income.
- Map products and services to the right income and tax settings.
- Keep materials sold to customers distinguishable from supplies the business consumes.
- Reconcile sales tax collected against what is remitted.
How invoices should separate taxable and non-taxable work
Where a job mixes taxable and non-taxable items, the invoice should show them as separate line items so the taxable amount is clear to the customer and to your records. Itemizing materials sold to the customer separately from labor, where appropriate, makes the sales tax calculation easier to defend.
Taxability depends on the facts
This guide is educational and is not tax advice. Kentucky sales tax treatment can depend on the specific service, the materials involved, the contract type, and current state guidance, which changes over time. Confirm business-specific decisions with the Kentucky Department of Revenue or a qualified tax professional before you rely on them.
Request a Bookkeeping Review
Sabillon Advisory helps landscaping and lawn care businesses clean up QuickBooks, separate taxable sales, and better understand job profitability.
Request a Bookkeeping ReviewRelated resources
Kentucky Sales Tax Guide
Understand broader sales tax setup.
Job Costing for Landscapers
Track job profitability alongside sales tax.
Kentucky Sales Tax in QuickBooks Online
Configure QBO sales tax settings after confirming taxability.
Kentucky Contractor Bookkeeping
Separate contractor work, materials, and taxable services.
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