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

dog rocket wrote in post #12682668
The point is, CA government is putting a huge administrative drain on out-of-state retailers to manage CA's state business. If CA wants out of state retailers to collect sales tax for them, they should set it up so it is much less painful for the retailer... better yet, transparent. I would be very interested to hear how the retailers are managing this. CA is so screwed up, I bet many less than trustworthy retailers could pocket much of those funds and CA would never be the wiser.

I dont like taxes on online sales, but the argument that its all that burdensome for companies like amazon to collect, calculate and forward the taxes to a particular state in the days of automated ordering and accounting systems is overstated.

Apple has been charging sales tax on everything they sell, no matter what, no matter where... for years.

Todd Lambert wrote in post #12682764
Apple has been charging sales tax on everything they sell, no matter what, no matter where... for years.

Not in Oregon

time to order the 70-200 IS MKII.... it's going to cost $200-$250 with online tax. haha

CA should tax AAFES as well...

RANDi

I think a major reason states are going after internet tax revenues are the drops in tax produced by local brick and mortar stores. The infrastructure still has to be supported (and the politicians of course) even if the B&M stores aren't producing as much, if they are still even open at all. So, the politicians made projections as much as 20 years out, and then the internet cracked their piggy bank. So, they have to find revenue where they can. However, I would almost bet that there will be a "universal transaction tax" before long... Fed wants their piece, and I can imagine them cutting into the internet revenue pie soon. That way, all transactions will have a tax attached - then the Fed and states can argue over who gets how much.

i can't believe this article mentioned ken rockwell... what the heck

Bokehlicious wrote in post #12682789
Not in Oregon

Correct, I should have said, any state that has a sales tax.

I support this.

If the shop down the street is supposed to collect my sales taxes, I don't see why online vendors shouldn't have to.

thenextguy wrote in post #12683738
I support this.

If the shop down the street is supposed to collect my sales taxes, I don't see why online vendors shouldn't have to.

the shop down the street has to collect taxes because the state gov tells them to. the shop down the street should blame the state gov for making them less competitive.

banpreso wrote in post #12683750
the shop down the street has to collect taxes because the state gov tells them to. the shop down the street should blame the state gov for making them less competitive.

If there weren't any sales taxes, there would just be other forms of taxes, like higher income taxes.

I prefer the sales-based taxes.

It's about time. All the states need to follow suit.

thenextguy wrote in post #12683764
If there weren't any sales taxes, there would just be other forms of taxes, like higher income taxes.

I prefer the sales-based taxes.

Absolutely right.

Loss of 10,000 small businesses (affiliates that do pay tax), is not a good price to pay. The local businesses (including corporate businesses) won't automatically get a surge of customers. Amazon and B&H have better prices (even with tax included), better customer service, and I wouldn't have to drive to the physical store. Why in the world would I choose to deal with Worstbuy's scam employees and their $100 HDMI cables when I can make purchases online.

Bokehlicious wrote in post #12682789
Not in Oregon

They charge you the full state rate in Oregon. It just happens to be zero.

The point is that retailers with brick and mortar presences do charge tax and ship to the states as required. It is not that hard. I ordered some clothes online from a national retailer and after I put in my shipping address, it added the 6.8% UT sales tax to the bill based on another 10 lines of code in their app and a little database lookup. Then it would just record that they collected that $10 for my state in another database table and it's a simple report at the end of the quarter to figure out how much goes to each of the 50 states.

I like not having to pay sales tax, but remember all those local brick and mortar shops you neglect because you have to pay tax? That hurts the home state and economy. Having no tax is much of what has made Amazon so huge and creates multiple barriers to competition from local companies.