On 3/12/2010 1:56 PM, John Sessoms wrote:
From: "P. J. Alling"Depending on the State you're responsible for the Tax, (I think that's all States that have Sales Taxes, they've redefined them to be Use Taxes), but they have almost no way of enforcing their will. Especially as those States without Sales Taxes have no particular incentive to help those that do. Personally I think it's actually not Constitutionally valid, a violation of the Interstate Commerce clause for one State to try to enforce it's tax laws within another State. But hell who pays attention to that musty old document these days.North Carolina requires North Carolina citizens to pay sales tax on internet purchases when they file annual income tax.You can either total up all your out of state internet purchases for the year and pay the tax based on that or you can accept a percentage of your taxable income as your "estimated" internet purchases and pay the tax based on that.I mostly don't buy any taxable merchandise over the internet for that reason. I haven't bought anything from Amazon since I got home from Iraq.I buy locally so any sales tax due is paid at time of the purchase. And for that reason, I can total up the value of all my taxable internet purchases to $0.00.I think you have the Interstate Commerce clause backwards. Any seller who sells goods interstate has to comply with the tax law in the location he sells into.
Hum, that's not the theory of any state in New England. They wish it were that way.
A business in North Carolina that sells goods in New York collects and remits New York sales tax on those goods sold in New York. If they sell goods into a state that has no sales tax, they don't have to collect and remit sales taxes for goods sold in that state.
Same is true of New York, they wish it were that way.
Nor is that North Carolina business required to collect North Carolina sales taxes on goods sold in New York or another state.
No they are not. But I've worked in retail, and if you can prove you're taking goods to another state, we didn't collect taxes for them, it was your responsibility to pay. The internet was no different, it was the same as mail order, which works exactly that way. Only vendors with facilities in that state collect sales tax in that state. Otherwise it's an individual responsibility.
The internet was exempted from sales taxes for a while in the interest of establishing commerce, but that has passed. Internet merchants ARE going to be required to comply with tax laws, just like every other merchant.
I suspect that in the long term it's going to cost Amazon MORE to fight than it would have cost to just collect and remit the taxes to Colorado for purchases delivered to Colorado residents. Because they are going to lose, either in court, or by forcing the adoption of a national VAT on ALL internet commerce.
Thinking about that, I doubt that very much. It will cost the States that do this dearly, but I also doubt they will notice. I have a funny feeling that the Congress will not enact a national sales tax, especially to give the proceeds to the States. How pray tell do see a representitive going home for reelection and explaining that to their constituents. Maybe in California, Michigan or New York, they might get away with it, but Texas or Tennessee, maybe even New Hampshire? They wouldn't have to worry about being un-elected. They'd have to worry about being shot!
I doubt it's the taxes that are the problem for Amazon, it's the record keeping. Taxes just get added on to the price, they don't pay them the consumer pays them. Amazon doesn't give too figs about how much taxes the consumer pays.Taxes are a cost of doing business. Amazon and other internet businesses are simply trying to shift those costs to other non-internet businesses.
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