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Amazon Fights Back Against NY Online Sales Tax
The New York Times is reporting on Amazon's lawsuit contesting the recently enacted New York state law which requires online retail outlets to collect sales tax on items sold to the state's residents. Amazon disagrees that it should be required to collect such tax without a physical presence in the state. We discussed the 'Amazon Tax' last month. Quoting:
"The new law is based on a novel definition of what constitutes a presence in the state: It includes any Web site based in the state that earns a referral fee for sending customers to an online retailer. Amazon has hundreds of thousands of affiliates--from big publishers to tiny blogs--that feature links to its products. It says thousands of those have given an address in New York State, although it does not verify the addresses. The state law says that if even one of those affiliates is in New York, Amazon must collect sales tax on everything sold in the state, even if it is not sold through the affiliate."
I wonder if Amazon could just refuse to sell items to people in NY state, and additionally drop all affiliates there (or at least stop accepting new affiliates). I'm sure all those affiliates (bit and small) would make some racket to their state legislators if they were cut off.
:P
Of course they'd never go that route, I think. It sure would be fun to watch, though.
Doesn't the antidote to this seem clearer than day on this one? All Amazon has to do is ban publishers with payment addresses in NY... those big enough to care can simply reincorperate in a more tax-friendly state, those small enough not to matter will simply just go away.
Congress needs to act, since this is an interstate issue.
I don't think New York has the authority to do this. But I sure would like to see the supreme Court act.
One problem with sales tax is the complexity of the code. What states need to do is to create an out-of-state seller tax rate, which retailers could voluntarily choose to pay (instead of trying to figure out the specific taxing locale). It might be equal to the highest taxing rate in the state, and would be paid to the state with no locale attached to the revenue sent there. Then the state would divide the revenue up amongst their localities based on some sort of formula (perhaps based on in-state sales, for example, for percentages).
It was already a law that residents had to pay sales tax on out of state items. But with no real way for the state to enforce it, most taxpayers are not going to bother.
Also, per resident this is a very small amount, which makes it almost silly to bother reporting on your state tax return. According to the first article, "The provision is meant to contribute about $50 million to the $122 billion budget" In 2006, the population of NY state was 19,306,183. By those numbers, each resident would be paying an average of $2.59. In NY, sales tax is different IN EACH COUNTY! (Statewide it varies between 7% and 9%). This means that a $24.95 book would have $1.74-$2.24 tax owed to NY state. Who would bother? Granted, some people order hundreds of dollars worth or merchandise off of Amazon, so it would be higher for some people, that's not the point. Obviously, not many people pay their share, which is why the greedy politicians passed this law.
One HIGHLY invasive option is for the state of New York to sue Amazon and force them to hand over the addresses of NY residents. Heck, they could probably even sue for the entire purchase history per year, per account. I am not sure that New York could enforce it even then, though. What are they going to do, knock on each Amazon shoppers door and threaten to take them to take them to jail if they don't pay two bucks?
(I am not saying that this is a GOOD option, but since it was already a law, I am surprised that the state of NY did not try to get their grubby mitts on taxpayers money this way. Bring on the flames...)
Hopefully Amazon will win this.
It's time people faced the fact that they should be paying taxes on their internet purchases like anything else they buy. I don't want to, but I know I should. Taxes go towards all services you receive from your State, and when you don't pay them, they have to be made up another way. It's the irony of robbing Peter to pay Paul - People that avoid paying taxes are actually stealing from everyone else in the State that now has to make up for the shortfall. Like it or not, it all comes down to one word - GREED. It's the only thing that's been driving the US for the last 12 years and more - And it's the reason the US has sunk to the status of a 2nd rate Nation (I'd use "Banana Republic" but we don't grow enough bananas here.) I'm sure we'll see hundreds of posts here on how this or that is illegal or unconstitutional, but like I said - it still all boils down to GREED - gimme, gimme, gimme - In money we trust!
Just another unconstitutional NY state grab for out-of-state businesses' $ to get more coke and "entertainment" money. Apparently prices are going up there, too. If NY "wins" anything, it will be interesting to see if AMZN shows them the doghouse.
Firstly
The question is whether the vendors must collect those taxes on behalf of the state. Generally, only those companies that have a physical presence, such as an office or store, in the state of the purchase are required to collect the taxes.
By have a physical presence in NY, I'm deriving benefits from the state; Amazon without a physical presence in NY receives no state benefits and should not have to work as the states agent withput consideration.
Secondly
Amazon's legal obligations are dependent on the actions of a third party over which it has no contract or control. It would be like the county tax assessor telling your your property taxes will increase 25% on sunny days!
Thirdly
NY is the poster child for it's mishmash of sales tax laws, my understanding is that you can be liable for state, county, and municipal sales taxes in some places of NY, the chief obstruction to a coherrent, unified national state sales tax system is NY
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
This is simply a jurisdiction (State, County or City) trying to make tax collection easier for themselves. I don't know of any jurisdiction with a Sales Tax that doesn't already have a corresponding Use tax, which is intended to tax anything that was purchased from out of Jurisdiction. Unfortunately, collecting that Use tax is difficult with the number of possible filers and the jurisdiction's desire to verify that the filers aren't under-reporting. Generally, they have dealt with this by going after businesses and big-ticket items like cars, boats, and airplanes. But, governments are getting greedier. If they can't get the online retailers to collect the taxes for them, the next option for them is to go after the banking industry to collect enforcement data. They will simply require banks to collect information on the items purchased so they can collect the Use tax based on that information. In pre-computer days, that would have been impossible given the volume of data, but today, it is clearly possible. Especially if you realize that any internet purchasing goes through some kind of bank or payment service (Paypal). I don't want that much 'Big Brother' looking over my shoulder; I'd rather pay sales tax via the retailer who simply can report it by category, not item.
If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?
It's called the Constitution of the United States.
In section 10...
And when we look back to section 9...
Now I'm no constitutional scholar - but I interpret the above to mean the states can't tax each other's exports. This will be challenged and it will end up in the Supreme Court.
NY state: "Give us our tax!"
Amazon: "No , what you going to do about it, we're outside your juridisction!"
NY state: "errr.... please give us our tax?"
If Amazon gives in by banning NY retailers, they will lose the battle as other states pass similar provisions. They can't ban every state, and every state wants a cut of the pie.
As a New Yorker, I'm offended by what (legally) appears to be an unconstitutional money grab. The problem is that very, very few people declare excise tax, and if they do it is typically for under $100 in goods.
The New York State Legislature never met a dollar they didn't want to tax. I've already complained to my State Senator.
Virginia is for lovers. EVE is for griefers.
Title says it all - why couldn't amazon just ignore all this? If they haven't got a presence in NY, then what's the big deal?
Different states do have different laws, and what's legal in one might not be legal in another. However, as long as you don't venture into a state where what you're doing is illegal, you're not going to be affected by it, so... again, why doesn't amazon just ignore this altogether?
The new law is based on a novel definition of what constitutes a presence in the state: It includes any Web site based in the state that earns a referral fee for sending customers to an online retailer.
It's not novel. In Zippo v. Zippo 952 F. Supp. 1119, the Court found Pennsylvania had jurisdiction over Zippo.com, a California-based company, over the fact it engaged in electronic commerce with 3,000 individuals and 7 ISPs located in Pennsylvania. In this case, Amazon is engaged in electronic commerce with numerous companies, via the referral fee, based out of New York--thus New York should have the same jurisdiction rights as Pennsylvania did.
Since when are resellers classified as an official presence by the vendor inside a state?
However much I dislike the taxes, I hate discrimination and government loading the dice and making the playing field slanted. The brick-and-mortar companies in New York are obligated to collect sales tax for NY. That includes you corner diner and the mom-and-pop store selling used books. There was a time when compiling 50 state sales tax codes or even 25000 local county tax codes and making businesses outside complying with these code was technologically impossible. But now that excuse is not valid anymore.
If Amazon does not have to collect the tax, none of the local businesses should have to collect the tax. If the local businesses must, then Amazon must too. It is a question of Government not playing favorites and creating walled gardens. It is not really a question of whether or not the the sales tax is fair or unfair. But I am not sure most people will see the distinction.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Affiliates are just advertising venues who get paid on commissions. NYC is the center of magazine publishing. They're the old school version of affiliates. If everyone who advertises in a magazine creates a point of presence in NYC, oo boy, the magazines will be upset.
Amazon disagrees that it should be required to collect such tax without a physical presence in the state.
Perhaps it's time to think about a uniform VAT for online sales. That would eliminate the need for online retailers to calculate and collect a sales tax for every individual state and could be applied to overseas online sales.
Saddling an online retailer with 50 different collection accounts and a patchwork of taxable items is just wrong. Exempt food, apply a uniform VAT, form a quasi-government corporation to distribute the money to the individual states without strings attached.
You pay sales tax for sales in your own state and the VAT for everything else. It's simple and it's fair, which is why it'll probably never happen.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
The fiscal shortfall in most states is brought about because programs are set up with reoccurring costs in good years. When the economy does poorly, revenues decreases primarily because (a) house prices fall, reducing real-estate taxes (b) less people are employed, reducing income taxes (c) yes, sales tax, but it is relatively minor compared to a & b.
Also, every state indexes their programs so there are automatic increases built into every agency and program.
Do you see the issue here?
It's not sales tax as such, it's an unrealistic attitude of government and the people they "serve".
Also Sales Tax is amongst the most regressive tax. It would make a whole lot more sense to raise income taxes and this issue goes away. But government is addicted to raising taxes like this.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
The company for which I work began getting notices from a few states last year that we needed to be collecting and remitting sales tax on goods sold to residents in their states. We are located in Arkansas... nowhere else.
.NET. I eventually just threw my hands up and said, Screw it! If they want me to collect the tax for them they can give me tool to do so.
I've never understood what jurisdiction another state has to do anything about it anyway. Besides, to calculate sales tax properly & remit it to the proper authorities in each state is a HUGE burden on a small business - which we are.
In more recent times the Streamlined Sales Tax (SST) is an attempt to make things easier for small businesses - but when I got hooked up with the only two companies who offered an SST-authorized software service, I found out they didn't even have a PHP-based API for me to use. My entire system is built in PHP! Not Java... Not
Actually, that's the point. Zippo Manufacturing, the ones who make the lighters, is located in Pennsylvania. Zippo.com, a totally unrelated firm that among other things provided news feeds, is located in California. The lighter company wanted to bring the trademark case to Pennsyvania for state law trademark dilution under 54 Pa.C.S.A. 1124. Naturally, the internet company wanted that dismissed for for lack of personal jurisdiction and improper venue.
My fault, though. Should have kept better notes, it's actually Zippo Manufacturing v. Zippo.com.
Any goods sold over the net or via catalogs by an Australian company can not escape the GST.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Cue in the thunderous laugh of millions of permanent residents... The only "benefit", resident non-citizens have, is the ability to avoid jury duty. Taxes are levied on all (without representation, of course — ha-ha).
I know, what you meant — you are not a permanent resident of NY either... But do choose your words more carefully.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I'm not sure why this is such a big problem. Being in Canada, I'm already used to being taxed for everything I purchase online. Either it gets collected at the vendor side (especially if it's in the country), or it gets collected at customs.
I recently had a weird experience when I purchased a Verisign SSL cert. Being a US company, they did not have an option for me to pay in Canadian dollars (fine). What threw me off, and my company's Finance department, is that said US company charging me in US dollars charged GST (Canada's Federal Goods & Services tax, recently reduced from 7% to 5%) on the transaction.
Our internal forms and processes ended going into a weird tailspin as people scrambled to find out how to calculate what should be charged on which ledger.
We have forms for USD transactions but never before had anyone seen one where I needed to separate out GST.
Anyway - I'm already used to paying taxes on all of my online purchases from pretty much anywhere except eBay.
You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
Yes, cities often put an extra tax on to cover their expenses. Food and medicine is often exempted*. NY is known for 'tax holidays' where they'll make clothing under a certain dollar amount tax free. It can get ugly.
I don't read AC A human right
It wounds like there's alot of greed flowing around here... you alls wants no taxes, and the "evil" state is going to end the party.
Frankly, New York State is in the hole. Most of its industry went overseas within the last two decades (no more glass from Corning, film from Rochester, shoes from Binghamton, etc.) and at times it seems like the entire economy of the state has shifted to New York City. Much of that work (and a nice chunk of the state's revenues) comes from the financial sector. Which is now in the toilet. So you not only have an ongoing economic collapse in NYC, but the rest of the state's economy got "shanghaied" long ago.
The truth is, the State of New York is facing record deficits this year and needs to make up for the difference (it does not expect to be able to). And while the governor is recommending that municipalities consolidate to reduce costs, taxing internet retailers on sales in NYS is another way to get there.
An enlightenment painter would paint a grand house on a lawn; A romantic painter would paint it on fire.
Suppose NY state wins the law suit and coercively levies the sales tax on Amazon, it's the people of NY state and everyone else in the country that lose. For every dollar the government takes (steals) in tax, is a dollar that will not be spent by the taxpayer elsewhere. Companies don't pay taxes anyway, they may remit tax returns and funds to the government, but that cost is always passed on to the consumer. So it's consumers that end up footing the bill in the end anyway.
The other big piece of this is the Federal suppression of collection of sales tax. I like this. Good idea and it should stay in place to encourage internet commerce and stimulate the economy. BUT, no politician can stay away from a source of tax money for long. Eventually the fed and the states will get congress to beat this ban down. When they do, what should replace it? A flat rate tax across the board, or should it fall apart and lot every state try to set a tax rate? That way is chaos, and internet sales get it in the neck.
Zero taxes is best. If you can't do that, keep it low and simple.
Behold, this dreamer cometh. Come now, and let us slay him... and we shall see what will become of his dreams.
Say how about this? The idiots running New York clean up their rampant and wasteful expences and like the rest of the people in the real world learn to budget. The whole LETS JACK THE TAXES bit is getting old, you can only squeeze so much blood out of a turnip... Why is it that the immediate solution is TAXES instead of efficiently utilize what they are already stealing from the people and businessess already?
The argument almost always follows this route:
Person A: I don't want to pay taxes
Person B: You have to to pay for social services. It is your civic duty and it's the law. Otherwise you're ripping everyone else off
Person A: But the government just wastes my money, and anyone who has worked in the government can attest to this. Why should I give them my money (a very small percentage compared to large-income taxes) when they waste it rather than re-investing it?
Person B: If you don't like it, elect someone who will do something good with your money.
Person A: Wow, there's an option. Except we have a 2-party system of people who will do essentially the same thing with our money, just through different avenues. Either way it won't be invested properly. Good luck getting a third option in there...
See, Person B spews the rhetoric we all hear... but the reality is, no matter what an individual does, his tax dollars are going to waste (unless you can invest massive amounts in a charity like Bill Gates). In a country like Finland, where the money gets invested properly, fewer people bitch. It's not greed that's driving most of us to complain about taxes - it's need. If we had the proper social services established to lower our 'need' for float income, then we would feel the pinch less come tax time.
New York residents pay sales tax for online purchases at least once on everything purchased online. In addition to NYS income tax you get the option of documenting all of your online purchases or paying a flat fee, which is in my case $57. Given that that so many online retailers charge NY state sales tax is collected by most online retailers anyway there is no way that my sales tax liability is that much but like most I just pay the flat fee because avoiding it is to much work and the risks of not doing so far outweigh the $40 I could be saving.
...as they force non-online mail order companies to collect taxes from out of state buyers. There is no difference between online sellers and a brick and mortar mail order business that sends a catalog to an out of state resident. If you live in the state in which the business resides, that business must collect taxes from you. Many mail order companies specify that when filling out an order form, the buyer must include the specified tax if they are a resident of that state. If I live in NY and buy something from a mail order company in PA, I do not pay PA taxes. However most states, if not all, do require their citizens pay their state's sales tax on things they order via mail order. However this is completely unenforceable and if a state does collect those taxes, it is because the citizen voluntarily pays the taxes. How many people do you think volunteer to pay these unenforcable taxes???? In NJ there was a big deal about people who travel to native american reservations to buy cigarettes because they do not charge state taxes (a few dollars a pack for NJ cigarette taxes), and NJ is hurting for money bad so they tried to find ways to get the money from smokers that dodge these taxes. I don't think they were very successful. There is no difference between collecting taxes in any of these situations...it is unenforceable, and a state can not force a business that does not reside in their borders or operate under their jurisdiction to collect their state's taxes, no matter if the sale is conducted through a web site, a magazine, or a catalog.
I'm posting AC on this one. For those who don't realize, those of us in NYS pay: sales tax (8.25% in my city), property tax (3% of assessed value / year in my city), income tax (7.375%), and then there's all the city service fees, permits, etc. Some places in the state pay even higher rates for income tax, to offset the property tax gap (like NYC).
Now in all fairness, NYS exempts most of the necessities of life like food and clothing from sales tax, but to say that we don't pay enough in taxes when I pay 15-18% of my income in state and local taxes is a little absurd. After Federal taxes, and Social Security & Self Employment insurance, 40+% of my income goes to taxes. Throw in the cost of health insurance, student loan payments, and the rest, and European tax rates look positively cheap.
From the perspective of a taxpayer, it seems to make more sense to "locate" these transactions based on the location of the purchaser (this is how it is approached in automobile transactions), not the seller.
California tried that scheme in the 80's and it failed miserably. The problem is identifying where a purchaser actually is versus where the tax code boundaries are. Here in California, the tax rates vary by city and county. Zipcodes (the obvious location identifier) ignore those boundaries. In some cases, some cities span state boundaries. We convinced our local tax board to just let us collect tax based on where we were located because even they couldn't figure out how much tax was owed on certain transactions.
What we have now is a mashup policy. It's vendor's choice as to how to collect. For example, car dealers will write your purchase invoice at the lower of the two rates - what you're charged at your home or what the rate is at the dealer's location. On a $30,000 purchase, it can add up to a few hundred bucks.
So New York is saying everyone signed up for Internet advertising on content publisher sites is also based in New York.
I wonder if this means I can relocate?
NY could easily pass delivery tax and make UPS and Fed-ed collect the tax for them.
Based on what? The weight? This would be adding an entirely new infrastructure to these companies. And it won't account for online delivery like iTunes.
However much I dislike the taxes, I hate discrimination and government loading the dice and making the playing field slanted. The brick-and-mortar companies in New York are obligated to collect sales tax for NY. That includes you corner diner and the mom-and-pop store selling used books. There was a time when compiling 50 state sales tax codes or even 25000 local county tax codes and making businesses outside complying with these code was technologically impossible. But now that excuse is not valid anymore.
Actually, it is still rather hard to collect varying percentages. They don't split up the different tax rates by zone. They don't categorize different products that are taxable and non-taxable by any consistent pattern. The software in development for this is bloated, complex, and generally not practical for all but the largest of retailers (Amazon could work with it, but clearly even they don't want to).
They could fix this by simply publishing a table, indexed by zip code, which lists the tax rates and which agency they are to be sent to. We still need a national standard for things like how often to send the collections in, as well as the way different types of products are categorized (the definition of "food" varies from state to state, for example).
Why should brick-and-mortar sellers have the advantage of not having to deal with multiple tax rates, and not having to worry about where their customers live? To be fair, they need to impose the same level of requirement on all sellers.
Then there is the issue that many sales are delivered online and the seller won't know where the buyer is located since they aren't shipping anything to a physical address. The buyer could be located in another country. Or they could be located in a state with no sales tax (your reference to "50 state sales tax codes" is not quite accurate).
But, I have a solution for you to consider. It's not a perfect one, but it will go a lot further than anything I have seen proposed so far. That solution is to have the payment processors collect the tax. That means your credit card company, or PayPal, or your bank, etc. Congress would have to establish a law that makes this universal. That law would have to spell out a category table of product types. Different tax jurisdictions would have to conform to these product type codes to benefit from the process. The seller reports to the payment processor, in addition to the amount they are charging for what is sold, an itemization of amounts under each category for which they have not collected a tax for (the federal law would not be applicable to entirely in-state transactions, so there can still be cases where the seller paid tax to the state they are in, for customers in that state ... unless the state elects to have in-state sales work through this system).
Your credit card company or bank will more readily know which sales tax jurisdiction you live in. They will calculate the correct sales tax, take it out of your account, and send it to the state on the regular schedule (or even do a direct electronic deposit). The state would then distribute it down to the local jurisdictions. The seller won't deal with it beyond the reporting criteria. Penalties for incorrect reporting would exist, of course.
The states benefit from a uniform collection method. Sellers benefit from a simpler system and not having to track where customers are (especially important when they don't know where customers are). States benefit from having fewer entities they have to deal with (imagine having to account for, and spot check the accuracy of, tiny discrete tax collection payments from half a million web site operators through
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
wrong,
The states already have a system in place to collect sales tax on out of state purchases.
It's called the Use tax.
Not our fault it is essentially ignored.
The states just need to enforce existing regulations on use tax, not force collection on to someone else.
Taxes. Then more taxes. And then some more cause all our programs to help the "socially or culturally disadvantaged" cost a lot more than we thought (er told you, actually). God damned Marxists in nice clothes.
I would much rather have the courts contain New York's avarice and not outrageously extend the business principle of the necessity of a nexus of physical location before any taxing(sales) privilege exists. It isn't the payment, it is the caprice and confusion this will create - that's the big problem. But, if you want to play that way, I'm sure my state would like to tax the sale of any stocks & bonds recommended to anyone in my state by businesses in New York to boost our state revenue.
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax-free_shopping >
"The focus on use tax collection has increased because the U.S. Supreme Court has placed significant hurdles in the path of state efforts to collect sales taxes on transactions in other no-tax or lower-tax jurisdictions. In National Bellas Hess, Inc. v. Department of Revenue of the State of Illinois and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, the Court concluded that the Commerce Clause and Due Process Clause of the U.S. Constitution require that there be a nexus between the taxing state and the vendor of goods or services, in the form of a physical presence. This has been interpreted to apply to both catalog sales and out of state sales over the Internet. States are thus prohibited from collecting sales taxes on so-called remote transactions because to do so would unconstitutionally burden interstate commerce."
Amazon - thank you for standing up and being today's Ablative Surface on American Justice.
The tax is for people in New York, not you.
Unless you live in New York.
You are supposed to pass that tax at checkout, and then send it to New York.
Since you failed to do so, well that's your screw up.
Now you can trash can the tax form all you want, don't be surprised when New York and Maryland decide to do a cross jurisdictional transfer and you find yourself in a New York jail.
You also wouldn't be the first person extradited for tax evasion in another country.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Just buy everything with PayPal and have it shipped to yourself as a gift from a fictitious address outside of New York. If they solve this, then any non-New York resident could tax-bomb any New York resident by gift shipping all of their stuff to their own houses using a New York address as the giver.
We'll have to pay tax on letters we send to New York residents.
States can not place a tax on sales originating outside of the state. Period. (US Federal Commerce Cause) Decided for over 30 years by the US Supreme Court.
How states get around this is to classify it as a 'Use tax'. However they lack jurisdiction to force an out of state person/entity to collect this tax. Instead the tax is due from the state resident, and of course rarely gets paid.
I've been quite pissed at Amazon over their 'One Click' patent and refused to deal with them. This is somewhat redeeming of them to fight this.
The last few years we've had a new breed of corporate fascists (Like Dell and HP to name only a few) that register in a state and collect sales/use tax, even though they have no presence there.
I have been fighting this myself as the business has NO, NONE, ZERO, ZIP legal basis to collect a tax for one state while it IS NOT IN that state. It is like a NY state cop going into NJ. Once they cross that line, no jurisdiction, no authority. They can not enforce NY law in NJ...even if they are cop in NJ!! Same with a retailer collecting tax.
Below is the 'Tax Exempt' certificate that I have been using with various success. HP refunded $150 'sales tax' on the laptop I ordered based on this.
----
INTERSTATE SALES TAX EXEMPTION CERTIFICATION
This Purchaser claims rights under the U.S. Federal commerce clause for exemption from collection of State sales tax by a foreign entity Seller.
This exemption is authorized by NATIONAL BELLAS HESS, INC. v. DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE OF STATE OF, 386 U.S. 753 (1967) and reaffirmed by Quill Corp. v. North Dakota (91-0194), 504 U.S. 298 (1992).
The Purchaser hereby certifies that they are located outside the State of domicile of the Seller. The Seller is notified that they lack standing and jurisdiction to act as an agent for a foreign State. The Seller is ordered to cease collection of any State sales tax and refund any State sales tax previously collected.
Name and address of Purchaser:
XXXXX
Name and address of Seller:
XXXXX
...I direct your attention to section 10: http://www.boe.ca.gov/sutax/faqusetax.htm I, of course, pay use tax on all web purchases~ Board of Equalization. Orwellian, no?
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
This really happens. California seller, California buyer. Take new airplane to southern Oregon on demo flight, decide to buy, sign sales documents, eat lunch. Airplane remains in Oregon 91 days. Airplane is flown to California to enter service. No sales tax, no use tax.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
I doubt it. Amazon is a worldwide operation. They'd lose as much as a few percent on sales temporarily, but the tradeoff would be that once enraged NY State constituents started leaning on their state legislature, the law would be repealed and nobody would want to try it again. All they'd have to do is work up a custom page saying "We've been run out of NY State by your politicians" that would point NY State residents at the right people to complain (i.e. the state legislators representing their individual districts to via e-mail, fax, letter and phone.) and point any NY State resident who logs in to that page. Anyone with an Amazon account has an address known to Amazon, and placing that within a state legislator's district isn't rocket science.
Amazon is much more popular than the average state politician.
Tech Public Policy stuff
College-Pages.com - Online Colleges, Degrees, and Programs
However, if the seller is located in multiple places, and one of those places is the state where the buyer is, then AFAICT it's fairly settled that that state has enough jurisdiction to tax the sale. So if you buy something by mail from Walmart, but there's a Walmart store in your state, your state can tax you even though the goods are getting shipped from Bentonville Arkansas.
NY's cheating here by arguing that anybody who's got an Amazon-referring web site (and makes money from sales that happen because they're linking to Amazon) is part of Amazon, therefore Amazon has physical presence within NY, therefore it's taxable.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I get charged "sales tax" frequently by online sellers with no California presence. Why? Because they CAN. All I can do is cancel the order. But I've searched and located the item I want, so I order it, and even agree to the absurd "shipping/handling" fee. Then the seller arbitrarily tacks on a California sales tax. Nearly always I pay that too, grinding my teeth. (Yeah, it's illegal, but what can I do? Take them to Small Claims Court? -- OK, say a local court awards me damages? How do I collect?) We all know the state will never collect those fees, even if the seller has a California address...unless they are a highly visible Company. C'mon, folks, the sales tax is an Internet scam, just like the "shipping charges". Consumers can't do anything about it except not buy from such vendors. And the states (particularly California) have no resources to enforce it. I doubt New York has either. It's in effect a phantom tax. The chief victims of New York's new tax will not be small sellers, who can ignore it with impunity; it will be the larger companies who are physically shipping from that state. The net result? New York will drop points from its market share of online purchases.