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Amazon Delivering Groceries? It's Coming, Thanks To Sales-Tax Politics

Posted by Soulskill on from the bring-me-an-eggplant-and-a-belt-sander dept.

curtwoodward writes "Amazon has been delivering groceries to people in its hometown of Seattle for a half-dozen years, but the experiment has never spread any further. But this year, rumors about Amazon Fresh expanding to new cities are coming out every month — Reuters just reported that Amazon could start the service in L.A. within a week, and in San Francisco in the coming months. What gives? Why expand now? Look no further than Amazon's long-running battle with state and federal governments over sales tax policy. After more than a decade of resistance, Amazon has spent the last two years cutting deals to collect sales taxes in states all over the country. And it's pushing for a national online sales-tax system, which appears to be within reach. That's the last obstacle to Amazon getting into the grocery-delivery game — a step that should worry not only grocers, but UPS and FedEx, too."

10 of 214 comments (clear)

  1. More regulation = less choices by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So in other words, Amazon has managed to lobby legislators into having a national internet sales tax which it can fairly easily implement (since it designed it and is a large company after all) in order to screw over both the average Joe AND make the playing field less competitive (the US tax code is far from simple...)

    Gee thanks Amazon!

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    1. Re:More regulation = less choices by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      No

    2. Re:More regulation = less choices by Mitreya · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Easy for a large multinational with full-time tax attorneys on staff to implement.
      Painful for small businesses.

      Isn't it funny how that works?
      Same with tax-code -- theoretically, everyone is subject to the same tax codes. However, people with several full-time attorneys on staff seems to do a lot better in minimizing their tax bills.
      Coincidence?

    3. Re:More regulation = less choices by Seumas · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Amazon has fought against internet sales tax (or, rather, the idiocy of making people who don't live or work in one state paying taxes in it) for quite a long time. They only recently caved in and gave up bothering to fight. Remember, they even went so far as to shut down their affiliates program in response to states trying to force out of state companies into paying their sales taxes (the residents' duty to do so).

      It seemed clear that when they gave up bothering to fight against it, they had something planned. This seems like what it was. "Well, if you can't beat them - join them".

      I say, good on them. All of these idiots out there perpetuating this myth that the lack of enforcing out of state collection on state sales taxes was harming the little mom and pop stores in cities . . . little mom and pop stores that no longer exist. Not because of "the intarwebs", but because of the big national chains that already squeezed them out decades ago. They had this crazy idea that if you suddenly had to pay sales tax online, you would stop shopping at Amazon and Newegg and other outlets online and trudge across town into their stores to deal with their shitty staff and shitty stores and shitty checkouts and shitty parking lots and all the other BS that goes along with it.

      Instead, they're going to find that people who weren't going to shop at Best Buy, Walmart, Target, Lowes, Home Depot, Ralph's and so on without sales tax collection will *still* do so . . . because if you're going to pay sales taxes either way, you might as well have the pleasure of the things showing up effortlessly at your door step the next day or two. In fact, they'll probably find a lot of people who will do whatever they can to throw their business to online services just to spite them.

  2. Re:Live Free or Die by h4rr4r · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Look on the bright side, lots of possible organ donors.

  3. Re:Good by Kohath · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Tell it to someone from 50 years ago. We don't have to keep paying today's union abusers to thank people who died 50 or 75 years ago.

  4. Re:Good by Kohath · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Tell it to someone from 50 years ago. Today's union bosses have been trading off work their great grandfathers did for long enough. What do they have to offer anyone in the future besides cronyism, coercion, and corruption? Expensive and inconvenient groceries?

  5. Amazon requires UPC by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Except Amazon doesn't sell anything unless it has a UPC. Handmade? Micro-business? Too bad. Get your own shopping cart and implement TaxCloud.net.

  6. TaxCloud.net by tepples · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Easy for a large multinational with full-time tax attorneys on staff to implement.

    Painful for small businesses.

    Part of the deal in this interstate sales tax bill is that participating states will make TaxCloud.net available to online retailers without charge. Integrating TaxCloud.net into a cart is supposed to be no more painful than integrating a payment processor or a shipping rate service.

  7. Re:Good by Nadaka · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You do if you want to keep your grand children out of the coal mine. The plutocrats who abuse their employees are still in power and work day and night to undo the protections that the unions have put in place for American workers. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.