I'm confused: All this outrage, but not one "Yeah, so?"
I've lived in both Virginia and Massachusetts - certainly opposite states with respect to economic policy. At the dawn of the Internet, buying things online was a great way to avoid sales tax. But over the years, more and more companies had to collect sales tax from me; I can't remember the last time I bought something online and paid no tax....
But no? Is it just that most of these companies have a "substantial presence" in both VA and MA, so I ended up being taxed? I don't know about your experience, but I almost never pay taxes on items I have shipped to MD. Or PA for that matter. MA and VA are popular locations for businesses to have locations, MA especially. So perhaps like you said they do have locations there, or perhaps there is something like this law there and they "voluntarily" choose to obey a law for a state which has no jurisdiction.
Isn't a corporation governed by the laws of the state within which it is incorporated? For example, if my business is incorporated in Delaware (heh, no sales tax at all, as far as I recall), then how could New York require me to do anything? All they could do is limit my ability to import goods to that state.
Even then, if the customer is the one ordering the item, aren't they the ones calling for the item to be shipped, and therefore the ones who are doing the importing? If the customer is importing the goods, they are the ones required to pay the import taxes. However, FedEx and UPS are corporations which themselves are operating on a national level. Since it is not against federal law to import goods, I doubt there'd be much of anybody tracking down the "unreported" imports.
Then again, I'm a computer scientist, not a lawyer, so I may be wrong on all of this.
Slashdot Mirror
Isn't a corporation governed by the laws of the state within which it is incorporated? For example, if my business is incorporated in Delaware (heh, no sales tax at all, as far as I recall), then how could New York require me to do anything? All they could do is limit my ability to import goods to that state. Even then, if the customer is the one ordering the item, aren't they the ones calling for the item to be shipped, and therefore the ones who are doing the importing? If the customer is importing the goods, they are the ones required to pay the import taxes. However, FedEx and UPS are corporations which themselves are operating on a national level. Since it is not against federal law to import goods, I doubt there'd be much of anybody tracking down the "unreported" imports. Then again, I'm a computer scientist, not a lawyer, so I may be wrong on all of this.