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Amazon To Comply With Kansas Sales Tax Law
theodp writes "Online retailer Amazon.com will begin collecting sales tax on Kansans' Internet purchases in April, company officials told legislators Tuesday. Kansas' new destination-based sales tax law took effect last July."
Considering the fact that you cannot physically see a product online before you buy it nor can you take it home with you right away, I would say online stores don't have that much of an unfair advantage just because they can cut the price a little bit without sales tax. Especially since shipping charges more than make up for the tax in most cases. Unless I find a really good deal online, I buy from a physical store. Combine this with the people who are too scared or too computer illiterate to shop online, I think brick and mortar stores overall have many advantages over online only stores.
Amazon.com has free shipping on books over $25; Chapters.ca and amazon.ca have free shipping over $39 CAD. If you wait until you have two or three books you want to buy, you can get free shipping, plus amazon.ca (at least) has online coupons, usually $5 off on an order. Sure, it takes about a week to get here, but it saves a ton of cash.
Every year I spend between $500-1000 on books, and all of that money (save one or two books locally) is spent on online booksellers. I'm not exaggerating when I say that I save a few hundred dollars on books every year just for waiting a few days for a shipment to show up. Bottom line: if you want to save money, buy online.
Condemnant quod non intellegunt.
This could be interesting if some states insist on collecting point of sales tax, and others insist on collecting point of delivery tax. If all states are not using a single system, it would seem that some combinations would cause you to have to pay for both states... that would kill any reason to order online or from catalogs.
Sig under construction since 1998.
First, I'll come out and say my philosophical leanings are definitely libertarian. So anyone who dislikes such people for going horribly against their personal views should probably stop now. ;)
OK, I've never quite understood sales taxes to begin with. Because of my philosophy, I'd just assume that it's just greedy governments wanting more. However, I'll set that aside if someone can point out a rather good reason.
The thing is, it would have to be some pretty good reasoning for me because there are a number of problems with sales taxes. One, they are regressive and hurt those whom the government is trying to help. Two, I hate walking into a store buying something and then realizing it cost me more than I really wanted because I forgot to add 5% (right now I'm in a place where the local option tazes bring it up to 8.5%!). I mean it's a borderline rip-off that they don't show the tax price.
Now to get onto the topic of internet taxes: I've seen people here on Slashdot say that Amazon, et al should pay sales taxes just like every other store that sells in a state, but I don't buy that (pun not intended). They bring up the fact that those delivery trucks go over roads and therefore sales taxes are paying for that. The hole in that, though, is that UPS pays corporate income taxes, property taxes, etc. and the person buying the good also pays their share of taxes. This is when it seems like the government likes to count money twice and tax it three times.
I'm quite willing to listen to anyone who does support sales taxes if they can offer a good reasoning behind them. Please, do not come out and attack me for my beliefs; you will only hurt any argument you could make and just polarize my own beliefs.
TSage
decision handed down by the Supreme Court. Amazon maintains a distribution center in Coffeyville, KS, meaning that they have a physical nexus in Kansas and thus are required to charge sales tax to residents of Kansas, just as they are required to charge sales tax to the residents of Washington State where the corporate headquarters are located.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I just don't get why people are so pissed about taxes. I make a decent wage and don't mind paying a few bucks to feed hungry people, fix the potholes, buy some modern textbooks or give a kid a free doctor visit a few times a year. I do get pissed about welfare payments to corporations or multi-billion dollar aircraft carriers but I figure it's the part of the cost of paying to fix the potholes.
It's simple: I demand prosecution for torture.