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Newegg Defies New York Sales Tax Law
JagsLive informs us that the electronics retailer Newegg.com is defying New York lawmakers; it has suddenly stopped collecting sales tax from New York online shoppers. The "Amazon tax," which went into effect June 1, requires online merchants to collect sales tax if they have any affiliates in the state. Amazon is complying but has sued the state on constitutional grounds. Overstock.com dropped all of its New York affiliates and then joined the Amazon lawsuit. Newegg started out complying with the law on June 1, but stopped collecting taxes for New York on August 21. From Newegg's letter to its customers: "After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008," reads an email the company tossed at customers late last week, including at least one loyal Reg reader. "This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
Could someone explain, isn't it required by (most) states' laws that individuals pay sales tax on goods purchased? I mean, people like "neglecting" to pay it, because it's easy to avoid, but ideally doesn't the New York law just shift the burden from the taxpayer at tax time to the retailer at time of purchase?
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Interesting to see that part of the article summary is a direct copy and paste from theregister.co.uk and not a link back to the original article?
"After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008," reads an email the company tossed at customers late last week, including at least one loyal Reg reader. "This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
Your rates in Wisconsin is just the half of it...
Towns in AR are incorporated around county land. The town has 1% added to already 5% making 6% - FOR THE TOWN LAND. Post Office makes these two lands appear as 1 so the only choice is charging the 6% for the county land. Military Bases and Parks also fall into these traps.
Washington state has MTA the follow the boundaries elementary school districts. Again you do not know for a given address if it is in or out school district.
Mobile AL has MTA so EVERY postal code two rates.
Texas has multiple rates that can add up to 3% over the state rate, but they are added in order so that if the full rate can be used (ie going over 3% total) then it skipped and you add the next rate.
Memphis Area has sales tax rate ONLY for the first $2500 then it drops to 0.
In most states Sales Tax is charged at the point of consumption (ie Where is the Cash Register). But that can also mean "Where is the customer's mailbox" since the goods are being delievered to customer, no consumption occurred until delivery. Texas just changed theirs back to be where the business is located, to help delivery companies (like flower) from having to figure out all the local tax rates.
Even the large tax rate companies are not being of help. They need a system that does Address Correction and Tax Rate following geo-boundaries.
As a NewEgg customer and a New Yorker, I'm glad they finally quit playing along with our rogue Attorney General.
This is the same attorney general that convinced major ISPs to block access to newsgroups because they might be used to transmit child pornography.
I can't wait until he's up for election, personally.
I live in upstate NY as well and I see the tremendous issues NY has with attracting good paying jobs. NY is unable to attract new business' therefore they look to supplement their revenue by taxing the business' they can't attract here even if said business has no physical presence in the state. NY government has this view that they are entitled to a piece of the action. They are not. If they can't attract the business here they lose and should lose. The NY government is what is getting in the way of business' coming into NY and entrepreneurs starting new business'. I'm afraid you will see more of what Overstock did and thus hurt the NY economy even more. We in NY have politicians completely out of touch with the reality of the business world.
I find it amazing that when a government raises taxes they think the rich will pay it. The rich will just raise the cost of the goods they are selling accordingly in most cases.
I do not think that word means what you think it means. In the context of taxes, it's not a meaningless epithet; the sales tax is not progressive, it is flat
Actually the sales tax is regressive.. but that's another story. I was really thinking more about how income taxes tend to be shifted to the rich. What happens now is that, because the taxes are stacked so much on the wealthy, the revenue stream for the government is wildly unstable.
The thing is, about Republican politics, is that, they haven't honestly told the whole story about how taxation is supposed to work. Really, to get the lowest overall rate, everyone has to pay -some- taxes. But what's happened over the years is that this has been translated into the idea of tax cuts and for the wealthy to get tax cuts, thus, the middle class has to get them, and right now, poor people aren't paying any taxes at all.
If you really wanted to maximize both the size and the stability of the tax stream against all other goals - in other words, without being "nice about it", you should probably have a federal sales tax to tax the poor and criminal classes and enough of one to also be an effective tax increase on the middle class, and then lower the tax rates on the rich so that effectively, everyone is paying the same overall rate. That minimizes the risk to the tax collection portfolio.. oh christ, there I go using that "revenue" term that i just flamed about, by spreading it to the most people.
Then, if taxes are too high for people, then you cut them, but you also have to decide what out of government you don't want. Realistically, at the federal level, this is going to mean BOTH a capping of the entitlements AND a cut to the size of the defense budget.
In the face of that, when you look at the candidates, you can see that both are pretty much retarded. Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and then tease with a middle class tax cut and take the poor off the roles altogether, completely destabalizing the payment stream. McCain wants to lock in Bush's taxes, which is ok, but he also needs to think about a national sales tax, to hit the poor with. Both sides need to chop spending. In Obama's case, that means saying by by to his big social programs, and in McCain's case, it means that the army shouldn't get Future Combat System and the Navy might need just build more normal ships, and the air force might need to choose one kind of fighter rather than two.
This is my sig.
Very puzzling--so if Blue states end up being the losers on this deal why do they want to send even more money to Washington, D.C. Seems to me if I am getting less than what I am sending, I should send less. Something is missing here -- not sure what, though.