101–110 of 168 posts
Update Governor Brown just signed the aforementioned affiliate nexus taxes into law minutes ago. They took effect instantly.
Some important background on this. At issue here is sales tax. By state law, the tax is owed by the citizens to the state no matter where they make the purchase. To make enforcement easier, the tax is supposed to be collected by businesses. In theory the tax is owed regardless, but as a practical matter when businesses do not collect the tax, customers don't volunteer the information and the state loses revenue. This…
So what about actual Amazon employees, like Lab126 in Cupertino? Are they hiding Amazon affiliation through fancy corporate footwork and shell companies?
I don't know how they are affected by this bill. But it will be interesting to see what happens with it.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it's at all unreasonable for states to want to enforce the tax that's already on the books and supposed to be already reported/collected, as you state. The problem is the hangup with the commerce clause. Catalog companies didn't threaten to make a significant % of all sales into postal sales, the internet does. I'd hope that we could find a way to straighten things out where the state can still assess t…
I can totally understand why Amazon doesn't want to have to collect municipal sales tax. Every city in my state has a different potential tax rate, with a percentage determined by the state, by the county, by whether the city participates in mass transit, etc. Same zip codes have different taxes. Trying to manage that across the country is an ugly proposition! At least the EU has chosen a single VAT (even if it is ou…
Some important background on this. At issue here is sales tax. By state law, the tax is owed by the citizens to the state no matter where they make the purchase. To make enforcement easier, the tax is supposed to be collected by businesses. In theory the tax is owed regardless, but as a practical matter when businesses do not collect the tax, customers don't volunteer the information and the state loses revenue. This…
So... if I understand correctly, if I am a resident of California and I buy books from Amazon, I pay no sales tax (isn't that the same as VAT)? Does this mean that Amazon books in Washington are more expensive (because I Amazon must collect the taxes, because the state can force it to, because it has a physical presence there)?
Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC) :
1 Apple iPod touch 8 GB (4th... $204.99 1 $204.99
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Item Subtotal: $204.99
Shipping and handling: $3.99
Sales Tax Collected: $19.85
Total: $228.83
Paid by Visa: $228.83
--------------------------------------------------------------------
This sounds like a terrible idea from a technology standpoint as each county and city seemingly has different sales tax rates. To comply with taxation, every out of state company will now need to pull the active sales tax rates for the shipping destination and then apply this to the order. What happens if the rate isn't kept up to date? Are states like California actually ready to supply this data in a form that is e…
Some important background on this. At issue here is sales tax. By state law, the tax is owed by the citizens to the state no matter where they make the purchase. To make enforcement easier, the tax is supposed to be collected by businesses. In theory the tax is owed regardless, but as a practical matter when businesses do not collect the tax, customers don't volunteer the information and the state loses revenue. This…
Nice text of the actual law with revisions marked-up: http://leginfo.ca.gov/pub/11-12/bill/asm/ab_0001-0050/abx1_2... [edited to note that revisions are highlighted]
EDIT: slight formatting changes
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So what about actual Amazon employees, like Lab126 in Cupertino? Are they hiding Amazon affiliation through fancy corporate footwork and shell companies?
Yes. They are shell corporations that happen to be owned by Amazon. I don't know how they are affected by this bill. But it will be interesting to see what happens with it.
In Texas, there are two companies involved: Amazon.com.kydc, Inc. is a wholly owned subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. The sole business of the former is to operate physical facilities, some of which are in Texas, and which provide warehousing and shipment of books for the latter. Texas argues that this constitutes Amazon having a physical presence in Texas, but Amazon disagrees.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
So... if I understand correctly, if I am a resident of California and I buy books from Amazon, I pay no sales tax (isn't that the same as VAT)? Does this mean that Amazon books in Washington are more expensive (because I Amazon must collect the taxes, because the state can force it to, because it has a physical presence there)?
The books are the same price. Amazon simply tacks on WA sales tax. Here's an example from a purchase I made last month: Amazon.com items (Sold by Amazon.com, LLC) : 1 Apple iPod touch 8 GB (4th... $204.99 1 $204.99 -------------------------------------------------------------------- Item Subtotal: $204.99 Shipping and handling: $3.99 Sales Tax Collected: $19.85 Total: $228.83 Paid by Visa: $228.83 -------------------…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Amazon (or more accurately, the purchaser) should be paying all sales taxes in the state where the purchaser lives, period. Seems cut and dried to me. If the corner store has to run sales tax, Amazon should too. Actually, the "corner store" doesn't have to collect sales tax. The "corner store" collects sales tax for the jurisdiction it is in. (Car dealers are an exception because of licensing.) CA says that its res…
Amazon's different because they're bigger than a rounding error, basically. The principle is "same amount of taxes for everyone". I don't live in California but if I did, I wouldn't be huge on the idea of tax-disadvantaging local businesses against out of state businesses.