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Amazon Prevails In State Sales Tax Dispute, Thus Far
snsh writes "A US judge has ruled for Amazon.com (PDF) against North Carolina's request to turn over the names of its customers to state tax officials. The ruling was focused on privacy grounds, so the state can still re-request less detailed sales data which does not identify items purchased."
Reader arbitraryaardvark adds a link to The Volokh Conspiracy's take on the decision.
The outcome of this case affects not just Amazon, but also its sellers.
"No taxation without representation" is the principle. Why should I be subject to taxation by a foreign government (Carolina) when I have no voice in their legislature? It makes as little sense as saying a Frenchman should have to pay income tax to the Polish government. My allegiance is to MD and US..... any other governments have zero authority over me.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
There's a difference between seeking to avoid paying their taxes (finding shelters, etc. like Google), and refusing to help the state violate the interstate commerce clause (like Amazon is doing here).
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
I must be mis-reading this..
As far as I can tell, all that has been ruled is that the state should not receive a lit of -what- books you have purchased.
Nothing to prevent them knowing the value of the books you have purchased, with the titles redacted, so you can pay your fair share of taxes like the rest of us.
Yet people here seem to be discussing things off at a tangent to this (like whether books should be taxed at all, a totally different subject really), who would have imagined Slashdotters doing that ;-)
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
You are correct that things have gotten off topic, and a lot of people are missing what's actually going on here; however, it's not as simple as giving purchases with titles redacted...
Amazon is being sued to pay the taxes for purchases in North Carolina, not for everyone in America. They furnished NC's Department of Revenue (DOR) a list of all sales with ASINs (Amazon's Unique Identifier for products) from 2003 - 2010. NC needs the details because different kinds of products have different sales taxes. NC's DOR demanded that Amazon also provide the Bill-To and Ship-To information, which Amazon refused to do as this would violate the First Amendment by identifying the details of what NC residents were reading, watching, and listening to.
This is where it gets hazy... The DOR offered to give the original data back in exchange for data that identified people, but not the details of what they purchased, but the original data would be kept on the DOR Secretary's computer, because they needed some of that for... I dunno, it's hazy legalese. Amazon stated that the only way they have to identify what was purchased was ASINs, which would identify the products, so no deal.
The DOR admitted that this customer-identifying data would add nothing to establishing Amazon's tax-liability, but they still wanted it. Amazon got backing by the ACLU and the Judge ruled against the DOR.
This should be case-closed, but, as a resident of North Carolina, I'll be keeping an eye on it, and will be writing an irate letter to the editor of my local paper for not covering this story. Thanks Slashdot!
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