Obama enthusiastically supports higher taxes -- this time on your purchases online

Washington does not have a tax advantage other states do not have, to my knowledge. That is the state where Amazon is incorporated. This legislation is similar to how a certain former board-of-director of Walmart has attempted to pass stronger federal minimum wage laws and universal healthcare.

Such legislation was not intended for the benefit of the low-income (poor) but for the benefit of Wal-Mart. With stronger federal minimum wage laws and universal healthcare, Wal-Mart could prevent unionization of its workers by throwing increases in minimum wage and access to government health care back in their face. While at the same time raising the cost of business on its competitors, for the sake of fairness.

 

I'm not sure why Amazon's state of incorporation matters here?

Currently, in most states, if you buy a product from Amazon, you don't pay sales tax. If you buy the same product from Best Buy or from a local mom & pop shop, you do pay sales tax. This is true as long as Amazon doesn't have any physical presence in your state. That is an unfair advantage to Amazon - there's no logic to it, and discourages businesses from having a physical presence (and employing people) in your state.

This is not a law that benefits Amazon, except in comparison to even smaller e-commerce businesses. But it's a law that every local business and national brick & mortar change would support and benefit from.

 

I read that small businesses with less than 500k of revenue in each state would be exempt from this. For example if you lived in Texas and you sold less than 500k of merchandise to Arizona then you would be exempt from collecting Arizona sales tax. This would rule out the poor girl selling her art online.

 

That would be an excellent and simple solution - but unless it's part of the federal bill (I have no idea if it is), they'd have to implement that rule in each individual state, I believe.

 

State income taxes actually aren't that simple. You don't need a physical presence in another state to be subject to their income taxes. Granted you would still need to have more than the occassional transaction with the state to be subject to another state's income tax.

You could simply apply the same de minimis/nexus rules to sales tax.

 

This should destroy online food ordering; unless they've been doing it for years and never suffered one whit economically.

 

I am not a moderator in this particular part of the forum.

When texxie wants to act like a normal person in this part of the forum, I will quit saying things like that.

dance sockpuppet dance

 

Interesting to me that every state with a distribution center hasn't declared it as a physical presence.

No question it would benefit the big box retailers more than anybody, since they price competively with Amazon (or price match them), but for big items most people prefer to save the sales tax. And its not just Amazon, but Overstock, Newegg, and a lot of smaller chains that don't operate in most states.

 

What does any of that have to do with states being able to collect sales tax from online sales?

 

Online food ordering (seamless) has been doing this since inception where applicable. I mean they charge you tax when you order in the restaurant - why would they do it any differently for a delivery order rather than a dine-in order and there's not exactly a lot of interstate food delivery (I guess if you live in Texarkana or Four Corners Natl Monument it might be an issue...)

 

In those places, if they delivered to those other states, they'd currently be required to collect and remit sales tax.

 

Regards to not paying sales tax, it is a huge advantage for online sales and because of saving sales tax, I buy more products which better supports distribution warehouses, which hires more people working there.
https://amazon.greatjob.net/jobs/Jo...75?PSUID=162b67d2-d01b-4c4f-af68-26f0012236d8

No sales tax means a greater chance of repeat purchasing that only helps the economy. Stop thinking fair share and think what helps consumers spend.

 

Would you still buy the product if you had to pay sales tax? Yes or no?

Amazon doesn't provide local jobs for my area. Lowes, Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Best Buy, Target, Kroger, Publix, Sears, JCPenney, Sears, KMart, Belk, Macys, Dillards, DSW, Dicks, Academy, Big Lots, Dollar General, Ace Hardware, TruValue, and hundreds of other stores that remit sales tax all do.

Edit: Let me expand by saying most of the places in the US that Amazon provides jobs, they charge sales tax.

 

Best Buy's and local mom & pop's inability to transition to online retail is not Amazon's fault. In fact, Amazon is almost like a market place for mom & pop vendors.

 

I am not sure I understand your argument. You seem to be saying that if I started a company here in Texas, sold something to someone in Louisiana, and I (and the purchaser) did not pay taxes that somehow Amazon has an advantage. How then would taxing both Amazon and myself help myself and other businesses?

 

And Amazon's ability to evade sales tax is not the mom & pop retailer's fault. This isn't about fault. This is about creating a level playing field for different businesses. There's no logical reason that buying a TV by one method should charge sales tax while another should not.

 

It's a jobs thing. Amazon tends to threaten to leave any state that does try to make pay a sales tax (and they have a weird way of structuring their warehouses as subsidiaries to try to get around it) - so states either struggle to make it happen or avoid the issue because the jobs are valuable to them. It basically amounts to corporate welfare.

The Texas controversy was a result of the subsidiary / warehouse thing - Texas challenged it and Amazon threw a fit.

 

More Wal-Mart and $8/hr cashier jobs? What about the server farms (IT jobs), delivery companies, software vendors, etc? Do they not matter?

 

What level playing field? Is Amazon the only company in the United States who does not add sales tax to online sales?

 

Best Buy has server farms, delivery companies, software vendors, etc. But if you buy online from them, you pay sales tax whereas you might not with Amazon. Best Buy is penalized simply for existing in your state, even if you're not shopping in store.