So are you saying that if a student in CA from out of state buys their book in the bookstore, they have some way of avoiding the sales tax?</p>
<p>As for people who travel to CA for business - I don’t know how CA treats it, but there are states where the law is that you to pay income tax for the days in which you worked in the state. Sometimes there is a threshold, sometimes it is one day. Professional athletes are often targets for this enforcement because there is an easily verifiable public record of when they were in the state.</p>
<p>?? I have not written a single word about students buying books at a bookstore and avoiding taxes. The text you quoted was in response to the prior post about residents.</p>
<p>It doesn’t really matter anyway, sales tax is about location, not residency. If you have an exemption from sales tax, you don’t have to pay it, whether you buy something on-line or in a b+m shop.</p>
<p>If you don’t have an exemption, you have to pay the sales tax, it doesn’t matter if you are from OOS or from a foreign country or whatever, the retailer is required to collect it. The exception was carved out by the Supreme Court - for retailers without nexus, they cannot be forced to collect the sales tax. They can certainly do it voluntarily, though.</p>
<p>Amazon now either has nexus or has volunteered to collect the sales tax for shipments to CA. Too bad for you.</p>
<p>I don’t know enough about the specifics of the use tax law to know if non-residents are subject to it, so maybe for a few people shipping to a non-sales-tax state and reshipping will legitimately get them out of the tax and save them money. If so, lucky for them! </p>
<p>I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the state claims non-residents are subject to the use tax, even if they don’t owe income tax.</p>
<p>The concept of a “use” tax is that the item is purchased for “use” inside the state. So residence status has nothing to do with it. If I, as a California resident, go online to order an untaxed gift for a family member who lives out of state, have it delivered to me so that I can gift wrap it, and then ship it off to the intended recipient – I’d probably have a good argument that I didn’t have to pay a “use” tax. But if a resident of another state who owns a vacation home in California purchases appliances online, without paying a sales tax, and has them shipped to and installed in the vacation home – then clearly the items would be intended for “use” in California – even if it turns out that the owner only spends 3 weeks out of the year using the vacation home.</p>
<p>I think this also illustrates another point - the state’s attention has historically been focused on big ticket items. The state really doesn’t care about small individual purchases, simply because the cost to collect the use tax outweighs the amount of the tax owed. But Amazon sales have come to represent a very big ticket when considered cumulatively.</p>
<p>Yes, I read about that the other day. I buy at least one thing a week from Amazon using their free 2-day prime shipping. Fortunately, we don’t live in California. I would imagine at some point, all the states will start collecting sales tax on Internet purchases.</p>
<p>I am not sure if anyone made THAT argument. See below!</p>
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<p>Again, is there anyone who disagrees that the concept of the “use taxes” is based on the use of the purchased in the taxing state, by a … non-exempted purchaser.</p>
<p>To be clear, I responded with the issue of non-residents purchasing goods directly after the post quoted below:</p>
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<p>My point, if not sufficiently clear, is that the above obviously related to residents and residents who have to file a state income taxes. There are plenty of people who do NOT have that obligation, and hence might not have to report the use taxes, and this for a number of reasons and exceptions. </p>
<p>Reporting your use tax on your state income tax form is just a convenience, there are also separate forms for filing use tax, and in fact for some items you have to file the separate form, you can’t do it on your income tax form.</p>
<p>The page from the CA Franchise Tax Board about use tax says nothing about resident or non-resident:</p>
<p>Sigh all you want. How about producing something that actually backs up what you say?</p>
<p>Maybe it is true that use tax is only owed by residents who have to file an income tax return, but I would like more evidence than the exalted word of xiggi.</p>
<p>You do not have to be a resident in the strictest sense of the word to owe use tax. In NJ we see many instances of Pennsylvania residents that purchase expensive boats, form a Delaware LLC to register the boat and dock that boat in NJ near their expensive vacation home. If they have not paid Pennsylvania the sales tax (which they usually have not) they owe NJ the use tax. We have a very successful team that does an outstanding job uncovering these boats and collecting the tax due.</p>