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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."
I hope Texas doesn't pick up on this an require sales tax on us. You can't beat no tax and free shipping on Amazon. They're prices are always decent.
I also found it interesting that this article was written by my local newspaper. It's fun to see Fort Worth out in the world!
Who wants to pay tax and shipping when you can go to a local store and just pay tax? Plus you get the item right away. On-line retailers will have to cut into their margins even further to compete.
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
I don't like to pay taxes anymore than the next guy but I've always felt a little bad for the brick and motar stores. Not taxing online stores gave them an unfair advantage.
An online store should have to have efficient enough in their operations to run on lower mark-up so that their price + shipping + tax is less than an old brick and motar (price + tax).
In an ideal world the tax rate would go down when more items are taxed (i.e. a revenue neutral change). Of course we all know the increase in tax actually goes to fund someone pissing in a cup and calling it art or maybe a few more jets to fight a cold war that has been over for years...
One should not theorize before one has data. -Sherlock Holmes-
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.
What people miss is that, if the store does not collect tax (no tax) then the buy still needs to pay the tax.
Interstate shipping is viewed more as wholesaler transfer. When you buy out state, you are importing goods to your state. If you "consume" them then you pay the local tax on the "consumation" based on your price. If you sell them retail, you collect the tax and pay that.
This is what business have done for years.
It is what you should be doing today.
Amazon has a distribution center in Kansas. Other companies that don't have a presence can safly ignore Kansas law.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
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
Usually this is the case, and it's called a "Use Tax" levied by the state where the items are going.
The biggest problem with Use Taxes is that they are hard to enforce. For example in my area (VT/NH border area), a substantial fraction (well over 80%) of the retail businesses in the border area are all on the NH side, so much of Vermont shops over here to avoid the VT sales tax (we don't mind much, it brings in business). Of course, in reality, everything they buy over here that they drag back over the border is subject to the Vermont Use tax (which is the same value as the sales tax), so if they are being completely legal there is no price advantage at all. The problem is that Use Tax is so hard to track, that all the state of Vermont does is have a line on your taxes to report all this stuff, and they rely on your honesty to report it all. Of course, a simple polling of the Vermonters I know show that, unsurprisingly, nobody reports any realistic values, so the tax goes mostly uncollected.
This situation is similar in many other border areas, although usually the tax rate differential is even lower, meaning there is less motivation for the state to enforce it.
The ideal solution is to either (a) figure out a way to enforce it (which is what many states are trying to do with online retailers), or (b) give up on it and find a way to tax that is halfway enforceable.
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.