Californians, Say Good Bye to Amazon, B&H, Adorama,...

Californians will have to pay sales tax on out-of-state online purchases beginning Friday, July 1st. Thank you Sacramento for overspending and screwing its residents over and over again.

Photography has now gotten even more expensive. Guess I should start looking into buying used equipment.

http://www.latimes.com …-20110630,0,4344787.sto​ry

Since when can one state tell a business in another state how to do business?

California better be careful or all of the above retailers may pull a Paul C Buff and refuse to sell to California addresses.

hmm just like NYers who pay for tax from those stores. but luckily our tax rate (8.75%) isn't as bad as Californians.

shagaholik wrote in post #12680742
hmm just like NYers who pay for tax from those stores. but luckily our tax rate (8.75%) isn't as bad as Californians.

You pay tax because those stores are in your state...

shagaholik wrote in post #12680742
hmm just like NYers who pay for tax from those stores. but luckily our tax rate (8.75%) isn't as bad as Californians.

Tax rates here in CA vary, but I only pay 8.25%. Sorry about that.

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #12680747
You pay tax because those stores are in your state...

amazon doesn't have stores in NY, not to my knowledge. i could be wrong. we had to pay for out of state online stores a few years ago.

shagaholik wrote in post #12680758
amazon doesn't have stores in NY, not to my knowledge. i could be wrong. we had to pay for out of state online stores a few years ago.

My Bad .. You're Correct

From Wiki:
New York

In 2008, New York State passed a law that would force online retailers to collect sales taxes on shipments to state residents.[100] Shortly after the law was signed, amazon.com filed a complaint in the New York Supreme Court objecting to the law.[100] The complaint wasn't based on whether in-state customers should pay tax, but upon the long-standing practice of it being the responsibility of the customer to report the sales tax (known as use tax in this case) and not that of the out-of-state businesses.[100] The lawsuit was tossed out of court in January 2009, when New York State Supreme Court Justice Eileen Bransten stated "there is no basis upon which Amazon can prevail."

not sure what newegg did but i remember they started charging tax when law was passed then after a few months they stopped charging tax. even now it's tax free. why can't other retailers do same?

Guess I'm going on a shopping spree for the next day or so...

Hello new lenses

FlyingPhotog wrote in post #12680730
Since when can one state tell a business in another state how to do business?

This is California you are talking about. The state that was trying to collect income tax on retirement pay even if you were no longer a state resident. If you did the work in-state then they wanted their cut, even if the work was 20+ years ago and you'd moved to Montana.

You know what guys? Lots has been based on sales tax. The advent of the internet and e-commerce has drained a large amount of money from state economies. They try to make up the shortfall in other areas, but then people complain about that. Newsflash - it takes money to run governments and if they stopped taking money in taxes you would be in deep crap.

what happened to the federal law regarding not forcing retailers to charge taxes in states they have no physical presence in?

Oh CA tax will also drop by 1% YAY.. Now I get to pay 8.25% instead of 9.25% :/ O wasn't it 8.25% just a few years ago, why yes, yes it was...

I heard the Director of the CA State Board of Equalization on the radio today say the only change will be the links to Amazon and similar online sellers from California based websites will be discontinued and Amazon will not be collecting CA sales tax from CA buyers. Essentially the people who get hurt are the ones running blog type websites based in CA, they will loose money from Amazon and such since the retailers will pull their links.

interesting...Amazon held fast against Hawaii when we passed a similar law. They threatened to basically cancel the accounts of Hawaii-based merchants. The leg actually backed down locally and the law was nixed. I wonder what Amazon will do against a commerce giant like CA.

you were suppose to be paying sales tax this whole time anyhow...so quit your crying.