To All Massholes - Bad News If You Shop on Amazon Starting Nov 1st

[lowillsw]

 

Last I heard was congress working on a bill that will manadate that all eligible online transactions are taxable, so it will not be only a state thing. I think the vote on the bill was expected sometime in December.

 

The Senate already passed the bill earlier this year to collect taxes from all retailers. The House shot it down. It'll unrealistic to pass the law with sellers on Ebay or small businesses needing to collect sales tax from hundreds of jurisications effective putting everyone out of business except for the big retailers. The interstate commerce law will need to be rewritten, which will cause every industry more resource to comply. In Amazon's case, they only have a administrative presense in the state, they had to write the law so it's based on sales. The case can go to the Supreme Court to challenge the interstate commerce law as it can potentially deemed unconstitional. I'm not going into how the sausage is made but that's the whole jizz of it.

[sergex]

but that's the whole jizz of it.

 

Lol, i think you mean "gist".

[lowillsw]

 

Lol, i think you mean "gist".

 

Get your mind out of the gutter.

[grackleflint]

eBay is biggest online retailer fighting the bill. Amazon is ok with it as they are experimenting with a same-day delivery model that will require them to add more hubs and centers so they might be classified as a brick & mortar store.

In reference to paying the sales taxes, the latest survey in the state of Michigan -where I live- over 99% of residents don't pay it and the state doesn't really peruse it.

eBay is fighting this because they know they will be forced to pay a lot of money to put in the systems/infrastructure to manage this (and Amazon already has it) and it currently gives eBay an advantage. No way, the governments are going to allow small/independent/online sellers to self report and forward along sales tax when all the initial sales information is already being handled/passing through a single entity (eBay). It would theoretically be simple to tell eBay to calculate the sales tax and charge it to a seller's account. Then you have one entity (eBay) paying all the various tax authorities instead of the impossible task of thousands of small sellers.

[jaredseiders]

Yea. If Amazon has an actual physical presence in your state, you get stuck paying sales tax. I think it's one of the reasons Amazon doesn't have a warehouse in big states where more people spend money. PA has a few warehouses so I get stuck paying sales tax on anything from Amazon. However, if you buy from a 3rd party seller outside of your state, you still pay no sales tax. I think even a 3rd party seller outside your state using FBA doesn't charge you sales tax.

[Miami Bomb Squad]

^{Sorry Mass.  At lease the Red Sox won the World Series.}

[willy431]

That's surprising since yoyo.com is owned by soap.com (AKA Quidsi Retail LLC) which is owned by Amazon.

 

 

Yep----YOYO has tax now as well.......and they say that online tax wouldn't hurt sales.  Bull chit!  YOYO just lost $200 in sales--Was going to get a helms deep ordered from each of my 2 accounts--but when I saw they extra 6 bucks per---no thanks.

[lowillsw]

Talk about getting a "tax incentive" for a few hundred jobs in the state, and then rob the consumer 63 million for the next 7 months. A nice middle finger to Deval. I'm going to New Hampshire and get my stuff price match at Target while I get my tax free booze @ 20% discount.

[stoltzjl77]

The senate bill had a minimum sales threshold for eBay sellers and the like - I think it was something like $2million - so if your total sales were less than $2MM you were still exempt. Still a lot of details to work out because yeah, if every seller were to have to calculate tax individually that would be a nightmare. I can't think it would be that much more difficult for eBay to collect the tax for us than what it is for them to sell shipping to us. They can tell buyers what it will cost them to ship non-flat-rate priority mail packages based on zip code, why can't they tell them what the tax will be as well?

 

Of course, then eBay will probably charge us a 10% commission on the sales tax they collect on our behalf, too. Greedy bastards.

 

As for Amazon - in looser tax jurisdictions they just use 3rd-party warehouses to get around the in-state presence bugaboo. But some states don't allow that loophole. I think eventually we will end up seeing sales tax on internet purchases for the entire U.S. and the market will adjust accordingly. I seriously doubt Amazon will suffer one bit, though smaller online retailers may get chewed up and spit out. Les plus changer les temps, plus ******'est pas changer or something like that.

[lowillsw]

Are you referring to the US Senate or Mass Senate? Regardless, a seller would need to comply with hundreds of juristications (i.e. state, city, county) sales taxes. That's impossible unless you have your own accounting department keeping track of what and where you collected and paying hundreds of different places. Good luck with that. A 2 million gross sale retailer will not be able to afford that. Also, the interstate commerce will need to be amended and will further disrupt all businesses that operates beyond stateline. It's one hurdle after another for them to enforce it. It was already thought out and hence the reason why the last is around since the days of the railroad. The decision to enforce sales tax will need to be decided by state and not a national issue.