Amazon Pressured on Sales Tax

I live within an hour of three different states. All have cheaper sales taxes because they have a state income tax and personal property taxes. We do not. You dang well better believe if I'm make a sizeable purchase I shop around when I'm headed that way. It doesn't make sense to make a special trip (especially right now) because you'd burn more in gas than you'd save. And, uh, no, I don't report it. I have no idea what a "use" tax is. I'm pretty sure we don't have one.

 

I'm racking my brain trying to remember if I paid any sales tax on those Strat-O-Matic games I ordered in the early 70s . . . but just can't recall.

 

I'm pretty sure there was something on the order form that said, "if you live in state x, add 5 percent sales tax. If you live in state y, add 4 percent sales tax. If you live in state z, add 7 percent ..." and so on.

The record-keeping is a big deal here. It's why virtually every small business in the U.S. was against Obamacare, because of the 1099 reporting requirements for all non-employee expenditures of $600 or more. If you're a small business and doing your own books, to have to track this on every sale would be a massive pain in the ass.

 

This here is a conundrum. An online sales tax is a no-brainer, but then again it's hard to want -- and not be suspicious of -- anything that will benefit Wal-mart.

 

Just saw this on Roger Ebert's Twitter feed: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2011/03/will-new-tax-laws-end-amazons-affiliate-program.html

 

Of course. WM does happen to be kinda right in this case, in a really abstract way, but I certainly hope Amazon also has an army of lobbyists storming Washington demanding that Wal-Mart be forced at gunpoint to provide adequate benefits rather than fobbing their poverty-level employees onto the public-assistance dole.

 

A gift is one thing but if you buy anything at Amazon you should keep track of the taxes you owe and report them on your state tax return.

Just because Amazon does not collect tax it does not mean you don't owe it.

 

. . . especially since Wal-Mart has been raising their price levels aggressively, for a while now . . . blind blanket shopping at the bare-bones Aisles of the Dead has been a fool's game for some time.

Soul-killing shopping, with moronic help and broad censorship in the media aisles . . . what's not to like? :

 

Today's NYT:

 

Here you go, YF: I am saying on this one that the Democrat-controlled Legislature and the Democratic governor can blow themselves for being anti-business.

Amazon suggests a two-year extension of no-sales-tax in California, and in exchange they will create distribution centers in California that will employ 7,000 people and create a physical bond between the state and the company, meaning sales tax will be required after that two-year period. State and governor say: Fuck off, we want our $400 million over the next two years. Only there are legal challenges to even getting that money, and there's a ballot measure coming this fall that, if Amazon wins, would mean they don't have to charge sales tax here until and unless it becomes federal law.

http://www.mercurynews.com/california-budget/ci_18807176

Now that's some stupid politicking.