Northfield Ski & Cycle has thirteen Vermont sales-tax dates in 2026, and seven of them are not the 25th

The moment

Northfield Ski & Cycle is a ski and bicycle shop in Northfield, Vermont. Tessa Marchetti bought it in 2017. It sells and repairs skis in winter and bikes the rest of the year, and it has four W-2 employees besides Tessa. It is taxed as an S corporation and collects Vermont sales tax at the counter. It is the second of October, the shop is between seasons, and Tessa is putting next year's dates on the wall.

What they did instead

Tessa's habit was the 25th. Sales tax, the 25th, every month, and move it if it lands on a Sunday. That works for six months of the year. The other months the Department of Taxes has its own date, and a return filed on the 25th of a month whose date was the 23rd is a late return. The estimated tax was a separate guess: her accountant said "quarterly," and she had been paying on whichever federal date she remembered. Nobody had one sheet with the Vermont dates, the federal dates and the payroll dates on it.

The questions a CFO asks first

1. How many Vermont dates does the shop have, and how many are not the 25th?
2. What does the year look like if Vermont has the shop file quarterly or once a year instead of monthly?
3. Which dates land on the same day as a federal payment or filing?
4. What would a calendar-year C corporation have from Vermont that an S corporation does not?

The arithmetic, shown

Six scenarios, all through the tool's own engine, all built on Northfield's profile: an S corporation, four W-2 employees, no 1099 contractors, Vermont as the state, registered to collect Vermont sales tax.

Scenario one: monthly, the schedule the shop is on. The Department's Sales and Use Tax page states that

> The Department of Taxes determines the filing frequency for each taxpayer.

and for the weekend rule

> If the listed due date falls on a weekend or holiday, the due date is the following business day.

and for the monthly rule

> Monthly Filing Frequency: You must pay Sales Tax for the month by the 25th day of the following month.

The tool returns twenty-seven dated line items. Thirteen are Vermont sales-tax returns, January 2026 through January 2027. Four are Vermont estimated-tax installments. The other ten are federal payroll and federal estimated-tax lines. Vermont publishes a table, not a rule, so the tool copies each sales-tax date as the Department lists it. It says so:

> Vermont's sales-tax page publishes a dated table that already moves each date off weekends and holidays, so this tool copies those dates as published rather than working them out (they are not always the 25th: February 2026's is the 23rd, as the Department lists it).

Seven of the thirteen are not the 25th. The tool dates them

> 2026-01-26

> 2026-02-23

> 2026-04-27

> 2026-05-26

> 2026-07-27

> 2026-10-26

and

> 2026-12-28

Six of them are the day after a weekend or a holiday: January 25 is a Sunday, April 25 a Saturday, May 25 is Memorial Day, July 25 a Saturday, October 25 a Sunday, and December 25 is Christmas, followed by a weekend, so the return is due Monday the 28th. February's is the 23rd, two days before the 25th. The tool copies it as the Department lists it and does not explain it, and neither does this page. The other six fall on the 25th itself: March, June, August, September and November 2026, and the last return, dated

> 2027-01-25

The estimated tax is the owner's own. Vermont's page lists the four installments, ending

> Fourth Quarter (Q4) 1 October – 31 December: January 15, 2027.

The tool dates them April 15, June 15 and September 15, 2026 and January 15, 2027. Each lands on the same day as a federal estimated-tax installment, so those four days carry two items apiece. The crowded day is February 2, 2026, with three items: the fourth-quarter Form 941, Form 940 and the W-2s. No Vermont date is on it. The tool also tells the owner what it does not know:

> This tool doesn't ask whether a Vermont estimated payment is actually owed (the corporate page says a liability over $500), so it shows the schedule that would apply if one is.

Scenario two: quarterly. Suppose Vermont had put the shop on a quarterly schedule. The tool returns eighteen items, not twenty-seven, with four Vermont sales-tax returns, dated

> 2026-04-27

> 2026-07-27

> 2026-10-26

and

> 2027-01-25

All four are Mondays. Nine fewer lines on the wall, the same federal ten and the same four Vermont estimates.

Scenario two (b): annual. The tool returns fifteen items and one Vermont sales-tax return, dated

> 2027-01-25

Scenario two (c): a schedule the tool does not date. If the shop is on something else, or is not sure, the tool returns fourteen items. The four estimates and the ten federal lines remain; there is no sales-tax date at all. It says

> This tool doesn't compute a specific date for a Vermont sales-tax filing frequency other than monthly, quarterly or annual, or one that isn't confirmed.

and sends the owner to the Department's page and the myVTax account.

Scenario three: the frequency not yet confirmed. With everything else answered and the filing frequency left blank, the tool does not guess. It returns a named refusal: missing: ["how often Vermont has this business file sales tax"]. Nothing computes until there is an answer.

Scenario four: the identical profile as a calendar-year C corporation. The tool returns twenty-eight items, not twenty-seven. Federal Form 1120 and four Form 1120-W deposits arrive in place of the individual schedule. Vermont's four owner installments go and four corporate estimates arrive in their place. The Department's page says

> Any corporation anticipating a Vermont tax liability over $500 must make estimated payments of the 15th day of the 4th, 6th, 9th, and 12th months of the corporation's taxable year.

For a calendar year that is April 15, June 15, September 15 and December 15, 2026. The tool dates the first

> 2026-04-15

and the last

> 2026-12-15

The last is a month before the S corporation's January 15, 2027. These are the same days as the federal Form 1120 and 1120-W dates, so April 15 carries three items and June 15, September 15 and December 15 two each. Vermont has seventeen dates for the corporation, thirteen returns and four estimates, the same count as for the S corporation.

Scenario four (b): the same corporation, tax year unconfirmed. Mark the tax year as not calendar-year, or as unconfirmed, and the tool returns nineteen items. Nine dates disappear: four Vermont estimates and five federal (Form 1120 and the four 1120-W deposits). The thirteen sales-tax returns stay. The tool gives the reason:

> This tool only computes Vermont corporate dates for a calendar-year C corporation (tax year January-December). This corporation's tax year isn't calendar-year, or isn't confirmed as one, so no Vermont corporate date is computed here; the Department counts months from the start of the tax year, so check tax.vermont.gov directly.

What changed

Tessa has thirteen return dates and four estimate dates on the same sheet as her payroll dates, and the 25th on her wall is right for six of the thirteen. The number to watch is seven: seven returns that a habit of the 25th files on the wrong day.

What the tool will not do

It will not decide which schedule the shop is on. Vermont's Department assigns it, so the tool asks and builds dates from the answer. It will not compute the tax owed on any return or payment, and it does not ask whether an estimated payment is owed at all. And for Northfield specifically, the sheet is shorter than the real year. The tool's own note lists what is left off:

> This tool doesn't cover Vermont's corporate income tax return or its extended date, withholding, Business Income Tax returns (S corporation, partnership and LLC), meals and rooms tax, or local option taxes.

Northfield is an S corporation, so its Vermont Business Income Tax return and Vermont withholding on four employees' wages are off the sheet. A ski and bike shop may well have local option taxes too; those are off as well. The tool will not know about an extension, a payment plan or a penalty already assessed on any date above. This tool supports a named list of states, which the state picker in the tool shows, and every line above is the plain due date for the entity type it was told about.