<p>I ordered a gift certificate from a restaurant an hour away. They mailed it Tues. It got here today. Sigh…I hate USPS and am sooo not a fan of this new delivery where Amazon/others ships it to the USPS and then it takes 2 more days to get to me. UPS for me :)</p>
<p>Just to stay on topic. Sales tax for me too soon. After giving Amazon huge incentives to locate a big warehouse here within the last 2-3 years, the state went after them big time for sales tax collection. I thought that was kind of crappy.</p>
<p>^ sryrstress - Allow me to accompany you “off-topic.” We send letters to several organizations in town, each of which has a P.O. Box. But the local post office won’t let customers put letters in the P.O. Boxes. Nor will they take a stamped letter and place it in the P.O. Box … until the letter has been shipped to the Sorting Center then shipped back to the local office. Many’s been the time I’ve dropped a letter in the collection box just inches below the P.O. Box the letter will be placed in once it finishes its round-trip journey … and wondering just how long that round trip might take.</p>
<p>new hope, that’s interesting. in my home town we have a very small, but wonderful, post office. if you go there to mail something they have two slots for you to put it in - in town, or out of town. In town they sort and put right into the peoples mailboxes. out of town goes elsewhere. I always just assumed every post office did this.</p>
<p>now people mostly have their own mail boxes, so you don’t have to really go into the post office anymore unless you’re mailing something large. they even give these nice envelopes for you to leave in your mailbox with money when you need things like stamps. I think it’s great. You just fill out the envelope and seal the money in there, and when the mail person comes they get their envelope, look at your order, take the money envelope and leave your stamps (or whatever you ordered) there in the box for you. I think that’s a great service for people who don’t have time to get up to the post office while they are open. I have a hard enough time getting my local post office people here to take my mail out of my mailbox yet alone leave me stamps!</p>
<p>My mom was just telling me about how amazon will be charging pa sales tax also - I don’t see what the big deal is. all of the other stores that you physically go to charge it. They still have the best prices on most things regardless.</p>
<p>^ fendergirl - Our mail carrier is wonderful. Against local post office policy he carries stamps, primarily for the elderly on his route. Pays for the stamps out of his own pocket, because it’s against policy to carry “post office owned” stamps in the truck. Go figure.</p>
<p>As for what the “big deal” is, it’s keeping track of the appropriate tax for every address in America. (Zip code won’t suffice, since some zip codes cover portions of two different towns.) Consider California, which has sales tax for many towns and counties … over an above the state sales tax. I checked a few ‘S’ towns at [California</a> City and County Sales and Use Tax Rates - Cities, Counties and Tax Rates - California State Board of Equalization](<a href=“http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi?LETTER=S&LIST=CITY]California”>http://www.boe.ca.gov/cgi-bin/rates.cgi?LETTER=S&LIST=CITY) … Salida 7.375%, Salinas 7.750%, Salyer 7.250%, San Anselmo 8.000%, San Francisco 8.750%, etc. How much is for the city, and how much for the county? To what account(s) should the parsed amounts be forwarded? A bricks-and-mortar store has as most three amounts and three accounts to forward to. Amazon will have a thousand. And who is responsible for updates as cities and towns revise their rates … or change the types of items they tax? Is Amazon responsible for honoring tax holidays for each town and county? Even if these tax holidays change from year to year?</p>
<p>I’m not advocating for or against “the Amazon tax.” Amazon will survive, and thrive. And I’m sure the country will learn a lot as this one-company experiment unfolds.</p>
<p>RIght i understand it’s a big deal to amazon - definitely a lot for them to track - i meant that I don’t understand why it’s a big deal to the people shopping there. I’ve heard people say they will stop shopping there now. Just seems so extreme…</p>
That fact that you (and many others) cheat on your taxes does not make the state a “greedy ■■■■■■■” for wanting to collect what they are legally owed. The law has been on the books for decades.</p>
<p>There is software to handle this, which is not a problem for a large company like Amazon.</p>
<p>The issue has been whether small businesses can afford to comply, and whether having to deal with this really inhibits the growth of internet business (which was the reason why internet commerce was exempted to begin with). Hence the effort behind the SST (Streamlined Sales Tax) which would apply uniform rules and make compliance much easier. It seems to have stalled though.</p>
<p>The cost of an audit could put a small company out of business.</p>
<p>Here’s why I think this “roll out” will not go smoothly. It’s a question of responsibility … to wit, who is responsible when something goes wrong. The state, naturally, assumes no responsibility at all. Towns? Counties? They’re not even going to answer the phone. So every hick up is Amazon’s problem … all across California, and soon possibly, all across America. If there’s a systemic problem, even if caused by misinformation from a municipality, Amazon is the one that needs to resolve it. With a bricks-and-mortar store the store manager has standing in the town. Amazon will have no such standing. “I’m sorry Mr. Bezos. I’m only allowed to speak with residents, and you’re not a resident.” As for the software vendor, I’m sure the software contract limits liability to code defects … not data errors. Responsibility for those will fall to Amazon also. When a customer of a bricks-and-mortar store has a problem they can see the store manager. Who is that counterpart for Amazon? Does Mr. Bezos really want to turn his Customer Service staff into tax compliance officers? “Hello Customer Support? I bought a copier from your company and you charged me municipal sales tax. Well I’m located in a Business Incubation Zone, and we’re exempt from municipal sales tax.”</p>
<p>As I said above, I’m not pro or con the tax. I do think it will be a bumpy ride … for Amazon.</p>
California actually did this at one point, IIRC. Their argument was that if you earned it in CA and didn’t pay state taxes on it at the time, then you owed it when you received it, now matter where you lived. They stopped in the 90’s, I remember that other states were prohibiting CA from enforcing it in their state, and I think a Federal law may have been passed.</p>
<p>I’d much rather have an on-line merchant collect sales tax in one transaction. The alternative is keeping track of it and filing the PA use tax form which is that much more work.</p>
<p>Notrichenough, you see that high horse? Time to get off. I answered to your first post in jest, and avoided being offended by a possible gratuitous statement. I could have pointed to some real life scenarios that might allow one person to receive goods in California purchased from a nexus-free online retailer. </p>
<p>Does an employee of a Texas non-profit corporation who receives a shipment of a Dell computer in Los Angeles owe sales taxes in California? The computer is and will remain a Texas asset.</p>
<p>Does a citizen of Mexico who can claim a tax exempt status in the US need to pay sales or use taxes to California if receiving a computer at his hotel in San Francisco?</p>
<p>However, when it comes to bastards and to greed, I make no apologies for combining the terms to qualify the State of California tax collectors.</p>
<p>MA has a “safe harbor” on the tax forms where you can pay a small amount based on your income, rather than keep track. It works out to $60 or so for us, so I just pay that.</p>
<p>“I’d much rather have an on-line merchant collect sales tax in one transaction. The alternative is keeping track of it and filing the PA use tax form which is that much more work.”</p>
<p>Since Amazon is providing a revenue-collection role similar to MasterCard and Visa, perhaps it would be appropriate for Amazon to charge a fee as well.</p>
<p>“Does an employee of a Texas non-profit corporation who receives a shipment of a Dell computer in Los Angeles owe sales taxes in California? The computer is and will remain a Texas asset.”</p>
<p>If a MA resident orders a computer from home and has it delivered to his son in PA, to which state does he owe sales tax? How about if the son orders the computer from his house in PA using his parent’s Amazon account?</p>
<p>I’m on a high horse? Right. I’m not the one proposing to ship my stuff out of state only to reship it at my expense (likely exceeding the cost of the sales tax for most things) as some sort of lame attempt to stick it to the taxman.</p>
<p>
If that employee had walked into Fry’s and bought it would he have paid sales tax? Unless they had some sort of CA exemption certificate, yes they would. Why should it be different because they ordered on-line?
I am not an expert at international tax law, but I don’t think a Mexican citizen would be exempt from sales tax if they walked into a store and bought it.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are legitimate cases where someone is exempt from sales tax, and retailers like Amazon can deal with it. In fact, Amazon has a whole page on it:</p>
<p>"… and retailers like Amazon can deal with it."</p>
<p>My point exactly. No matter what problem comes up, no matter who caused the problem to exist … it’s up to Amazon to “fix” it. (Aren’t governments assembled to address just such circumstances?)</p>
<p>"I’d much rather have an on-line merchant collect sales tax in one transaction. The alternative is keeping track of it and filing the PA use tax form which is that much more work. "</p>
<p>Actually the amazon website makes it really easy to download that information,</p>
<p>Look at “Order reports”
What is Included in an Order History Report?</p>
<p>There are four types of reports to choose from: Items, Orders and shipments, Refunds, and Returns. Each report type contains relevant order details including the following:</p>
<pre><code>Order date
Shipment date
Payment - last 4 digits
Amazon order ID
Purchase order number
Ordering customer’s e-mail
Shipping address name
Shipping address street 1
Shipping address street 2
Shipping address city
Shipping address state
Shipping address zip
Shipment/order condition
Subtotal
Shipping
Tax Before Promotions
Total Promotions
Tax Charged
Total Charged
Carrier Name
Tracking Number
</code></pre>
<p>…and the California equalization folks make it really easy to set an account and make annual or more frequent payments.</p>
<p>Yes, Notrichenough, you were on a high horse and throwing that tax cheat not once, but twice. </p>
<p>And you continue to do so by describing the reshipping as a LAME attempt to avoid the taxmen. Perhaps before hurling gratuitous quips you might consider that this might be neither illegal nor … lame. For some, the volume and the tax status might simply be good policy. </p>
<p>For instance certain organizations are sales tax exempt in their own state but do not get that exemption in California. Perhaps you only thought about jars of jelly or DVD, but think about large volume of electronics being donated to low-income schools. </p>
<p>Things are not always black on white, and jumping to hasty conclusions is never a good idea.</p>