NY Times, LA Times Want Amazon To Collect More State Taxes

theodp writes "Recalling that CEO Jeff Bezos originally explored placing Amazon.com on an Indian Reservation near San Francisco to 'have access to talent without all the tax consequences,' the NY Times argues it's time to put an end to the e-tailer's 'entity isolation' tax-avoidance games. The LA Times chimes in, saying Amazon's claims that collecting sales tax constitute an undue burden are 'worth a horselaugh,' noting that Amazon boasts it has no problem keeping track of millions of unique products."

Comments

How do you think it works in the EU ?

[BESTouff]

Amazon has to collect taxes in countries where the law makes it mandatory, e.g. in the EU. So it's not so hard.

Re:How do you think it works in the EU ?

[Cwix]

* I think Cook County may be the only county in the country that is legally permitted to levy its own sales tax, but I'm not sure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_taxes_in_the_United_States. I know for a fact that counties in georgia also levy sales taxes, theres more listed here.. trust me cook county isnt the only one, and to assume so showed you have never left home.

"Georgia has a 4% state sales tax rate. Groceries are exempt from the state sales tax, but still subject to tax by the local sales tax rate. Counties may impose local sales tax of 1%, 2%, or 3%, consisting of up to three 1% local-option sales taxes (out of a set of five) as permitted by Georgia law."

MANY MANY MANY counties have sales taxes across the country.

Re:How do you think it works in the EU ?

[slarrg]

It's not just a tax rate per address. It's per address per product. For example, in New York, clothing under $110 is exempt from state taxes but not necessarily exempt from county, city or other local taxes. Any clothing item over $110 is charged tax on the full price. In Massachusetts, clothing under $175 is exempt from state level sales tax but only the portion above $175 is taxed for higher ticket clothing items. In Connecticut only some clothing items under $50 are exempt from state sales tax. So, just in the category clothing, you can see that what is taxed, which portion is taxed and which items are included in the category definition is different. This is just on the state level and not including the myriad city, county, district and other taxes.

Taxes may be based on types of products: in Massachusetts, the American flag, among other items, is exempt from taxes; in Pennsylvania, textbooks and disposable diapers, among other items, are exempt; or as another poster mentioned, the Chicago Soft Drink Tax (where additional taxes are charged for "soft drinks".) Taxes may be based on areas: higher taxes for Bay Area Rapid Transit district and Louisiana tourism district or reduced taxes for New Jersey's Urban Enterprise Zones. Taxes can be charged based on intended use: in Indiana, a 15 ounce bag of potato chips is tax exempt (food items are exempt) whereas a personal sized bag is taxed because it is for immediate consumption and in California fertilizer is exempt if it's used to grow food.

Realistically, taxes can be based on any criteria that enters the twisted mind of a politician in the tiniest of jurisdictions, Currently, sales taxes can differ based upon temperature of food, whether the customer is a college student, distance from an airport, whether the product is in its original package, whether the product is intended to be used at home, etc. Most sales taxes are charged based upon the sales price while Hawaii also charges a portion of their excise tax (their sales tax equivalent) on the wholesale price and other states only charge on a portion of the sales price (such as the amount of clothing over $175 above.) Many states and municipalities also charge a restaurant and/or hotel tax and it's amazing what can get swept into that tax, such as candy, chips, soft drinks, juice boxes, bottled water, or other immediately consumable items, which an online retailer may sell.

In addition, many states have tax "holidays" when taxes are not charged: in Florida, a "back-to-school" tax holiday is often enacted on clothing, books and school supplies under a certain price; in Georgia, a tax Holiday, usually in October, is enacted on Energy Star rated appliances; Texas's tax holiday lasts for an entire weekend and applies to many items and exempts clothing and footwear under $100 but still taxes golf shoes, no matter the price.

Sales taxes are much more complicated than most people realize and they are completely at the whims of state, county, regional and municipal government officials. The category definitions are different from state to state and often different for local taxes within the state. This means the local taxes are often different from other locations within the state but also means that the local definition may differ from the state's own definitions. So for any given product, any of the taxes; state, county or municipal; may or may not apply. For a physical store, a local accountant can advise you how the taxes apply for that particular location but an online store would need to know what rate applies for every single product for every single address. Obviously, most of these combinations would never actually occur but the databases would need to contain a solution prior to the person placing the order.

Re:How do you think it works in the EU ?

[tf23]

And I thought Ohio was the only state that had such fucked up sales tax laws. In Ohio, too, you cannot plainly use a zip code to determine sales tax, because the county lines to not abide by them. So you have to factor address, city, county and zip code.

You can find some information from the state of ohio in pdf's and csv's to try and help you sort through it. However, the same information can change depending on the election cycle ( https://thefinder.tax.ohio.gov/StreamlineSalesTaxWeb/ ).

While a prior poster mentioned that surely Amazon is full of intelligent people who can figure all this out, I do not believe they should have to. I cannot imagine having to put together a system that deals with each and every states archaic tax laws that change at any given time. What a pain in the ass that'd be. And how costly that would be to implement, ugh.

Re:How do you think it works in the EU ?

[TheWGP]

Please read the discussion - zip2tax provides only zip code tax information, which is 100% useless for many places, where zip codes cross county and city lines at will. Much greater specificity than zip code alone is needed; whether that entails lat/long coordinates or merely address tracking is not clear.

Amazon UK manages it

[amorsen]

Amazon UK manages to collect the appropriate VAT, depending on country. Which is why, if you buy from e.g. Denmark, you should order from one of the smaller UK book stores so you get to pay the UK VAT (0% on books) instead of the Danish one (25% on everything).

Re:Only amazon?

[gander666]

Apple seems to handle collection of local taxes quite well. They even know that part of my zip code is PIMA county instead of Tucson city, and thus has a (slightly) different tax rate.

I am starting a business with a friend (actually, she does the hard work, and I provide the business and some financial backing), but we collect sales tax in Arizona, and California for selling our images. Amazingly, Quickbooks handles this fine. I just do not happen to live on an Indian Reservation, like Amazon did in placing their Arizona presence.

Truth be told, I do not pick retailers online due to tax free or not. I pick them by reputation, and past experiences. If Amazon one day started collecting taxes and whatnot for the goods purchased through them, I probably wouldn't blink. And I venture to guess that most of their customers wouldn't either. They need to rethink their business plan.

What this really points out is that the tax code (federal and state) needs a thorough cleansing and simplification. Remove the loopholes, tighten the standards, and make the collection and rates balanced, and much of this behavior should disappear.

I suspect I will see pigs flying before this happens though