Why Alabama businesses overpay sales tax — and how to get it back.

Alabama's combined sales tax rate is state + county, plus city tax if you're inside city limits — or a reduced police jurisdiction (PJ) rate instead of the city rate, for addresses just outside a city's limits, typically about half the in-city rate. None of this lines up with ZIP codes. A vendor whose system prices by ZIP instead of your exact address can easily apply the wrong combination, especially near a city or county line.

Alabama's Simplified Sellers Use Tax (SSUT) program lets eligible remote sellers collect one flat 8% rate on every sale into the state, instead of tracking each local rate individually. It's simpler for the vendor — but if your actual combined local rate is lower than 8%, you're paying the difference on every invoice from that vendor.

Some vendors participating in the SSUT program overcharge beyond the flat 8% rate itself — collecting 9%, 10%, or more on a sale. Since 8% is a fixed rate the program sets, anything above that isn't a jurisdiction mismatch at all — it's simply an incorrect invoice.

ST-6 is ALDOR's Petition for Refund of Taxes Paid to Seller — it's what you generally file when you paid sales tax directly to a vendor rather than to the state. The petition needs to be documented with invoices and other records, and is generally subject to a multi-year filing window. Reclaimt's report gives you that documentation trail to file yourself or hand to your accountant.

SSUT overcharges use a different path: ALDOR's My Alabama Taxes (MAT) portal has a dedicated "Request a SSUT Refund" option for purchasers who paid the flat 8% rate in an area with a lower local rate. Note that ALDOR generally allows one SSUT refund request per taxpayer in a 12-month period.

This scenario doesn't go through ALDOR at all — it isn't a government filing. Since the vendor charged more than the rate the SSUT program authorizes them to collect, it's a billing dispute you raise directly with the vendor, the same way you'd dispute any other invoice error.