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Will Amazon Get a Visit From the Tax Man?
theodp writes to tell us that according to the Wall Street Journal, Amazon.com has raised a few eyebrows with their strategy to avoid paying sales tax in eight states where they have warehouses or distribution centers. "As an online retailer, Amazon can avoid collecting sales tax in states where it has no presence, at least until Congress changes the law. But in states where a company has actual facilities, such as warehouses, states tax officials can require the company to collect sales tax. Despite operating hundreds of thousands of square feet of distribution facilities in the eight states, Amazon says it doesn't have any presence in them. The company argues that it doesn't operate the plants, its wholly owned subsidiaries do."
Typically, if you're a customer, you have to pay sales tax to the seller if they have a "business presence" in your state. Business presence, of course, is quite ambiguous. Several online retailers have simply rolled over instead of fighting against this (Crucial.com comes to mind; they charge sales tax even if they don't have a presence in the state, and remit the tax to the taxing body in your state). Amazon on the other hand doesn't have the luxury of rolling over. Part of their competitive edge is not having a sales tax, and frankly, they shouldn't have to pay one as someone else mentioned, as the services their distribution centers use should be covered by their property taxes.
Sales Tax is a tax the consumer pays not the company... Amazon is already paying for property taxs, revenue tax, employee wage tax.... Paying sales tax is a tax that We pay as a consumer to the company who then resends it to the apporprate state/county/city on your behalf. So if they are based in Delaware but not in New Jersy they are not paying taxes for their services in Deleware they are paying New Jersey because they want the income from that person.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Really though, sales tax is always a regressive tax and I don't think it is a great idea in general for that reason...
Sales tax is flat, it is only implied to be regressive because we assume, for example, the first $50,000 a person spends must be on necessities, and since that was all they had to spend as a $50,000 earner it was regressive when compared to a person spending 50,000 from a 100,000 in earnings. If the person earning 100,000 spent other 50,000, they would pay twice as much in sales tax as the 50,000 earner. The fact is that they both spent the same amount in taxes at the same spending level. That is not regressive, that is flat.
The income system in the US regressive, the sales tax is flat.
no comment
IANAL, *but* I know enough that you can't wiggle out of tax situations by simply creating new companies.
What you think you know, is flat-out wrong. One of the primary reasons for creating subsidiary corporations is precisely to deal with tax issues.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Ballmer joined in 1980. That video of him pitching windows 1.0 on youtube is not fictional.
Modding Trolls +1 inciteful since 1999