Because we were not previously required to charge sales tax to your location, we probably never requested your tax exempt information, as it wasn't needed. We are not questioning your tax exempt status, we only need a copy of the certificate so that we can link it to the account (or accounts) that place orders for your organization/school and set you up as tax exempt in our internal system. To clarify, we never had you set up in our system as tax exempt prior to this because, prior to 2019, we only collected tax on orders from New York State (where we are located).

This request is due to a Supreme Court Ruling earlier this year:

South Dakota v. Wayfair, Inc., ET AL.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-494_j4el.pdf

Supreme Court Widens Reach of Sales Tax for Online Retailers
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/politics/supreme-court-sales-taxes-internet-merchants.html