Posted on 04/27/2012 4:24:03 AM PDT by Mechanicos
House Bill 3659, colloquially referred to as the "Amazon Tax," was passed in March of last year which broadened the scope of which companies would be required to collect use tax from its customers.
.........
Now according to Crain's, Cook County Circuit Judge Robert Lopez Cepero ruled that the state overstepped its bounds with the law, and that it doesn't pass constitutional muster.
(Excerpt) Read more at chicagoist.com ...
Oh,the sleepless nights I have. ;-)
I thought that Massachusetts had “revenue officers” posted just to apprehend scofflaws like you! LOL!
From the article:
CouponCabin was one of the Chicago companies affected by the law, and found itself forced to move to Whiting, Ind., in order to stay in business. Founder and CEO Scott Kluth said in a statement:
"CouponCabin is thrilled to hear the news about the affiliate tax being declared invalid in Illinois. We are relieved that the 9,000 affiliates that were based in Illinois may now have the opportunity to operate in Illinois without jeopardizing their business relationships with online retailers... CouponCabin continues to strongly support a federal solution to the taxation of all online transactions."
The celebration may be premature, as companies like Amazon.com have not yet officially welcomed former Illinois affiliates back into the fold, as they are likely awaiting to see if the matter gets moved up to a higher court. Indeed, a spokesperson for the Illinois Department of Revenue told Crain's that they are speaking with the attorney general's office about appeal options.
The spokesperson added, "We need to recoup some of the estimated $153 million that was not paid by online merchants prior to the law being implemented."
This is Obama's Illinois where they raise taxes just enough to drive businesses and jobs out of the state.
Amazon still collects sales tax in NYS. It’s all about the “revenue”.
Last week I received an e mail from Amazon noting that I lived in Tennessee and was required to note the purchase and pay use tax to the state of Tennessee for the Internet sale.
To my knowledge this is the first time I ever saw such an e mail
It is interesting that Amazon has made the effort and the notice ps provided to comply with Tennessee law. Amazon does not supply the transaction info to the State of Tennessee.
There's a long story about that.They weren't "revenue officers",they were meant to prevent fireworks (illegal in MA,legal in NH) being brought over the line.That was some time ago...very messy affair! More recently ( a year or two ago) Massachusetts decided to demand of a tire store chain that they report the installation of any tires on cars with Mass plates done at any of their NH facilities.The Governor of NH told Massachusetts to go bleep itself and the NH legislature quickly passed a law forbidding any such act.
It was beautiful to watch!
My uncle built a beautiful house in a small town in eastern Washington state. When he was done, he took his huge trailer to Oregon (no sales tax) and loaded it up with furniture, washer, dryer and pretty much everything for the inside of his house. Even rugs.
> I thought that Massachusetts had “revenue officers” posted
> just to apprehend scofflaws like you! LOL!
They did, when the Peoples Gulag of Taxachussetts was run by communist diktator Michael Dukakis.
At that time, Dukakis came up with a tax collecting scheme. He posted plain-clothed state police to troll New Hampshire store parking lots to make note of Massachusetts license plates. The Mass staties would radio the number plates to their brothers over the state line in Massachusetts, where the “tax offenders” would be pulled over and arrested.
The NH governor, I think it was Mel Thompson at the time, had the plain clothes Massachusetts state police arrested for loitering in the parking lots.
I remember seeing the news clip of the NH staties taking the Mass staties into custody in handcuffs.
No more plain clothes Mass staties in NH, unless they’re buying big ticket items themselves.
The new USPS service, Gopost, could put a wrinkle in the collection efforts if residents in a high-tax state live near the border of a low or no-tax state.
there is nothing to prevent internet purchases from overseas.
In soviet Massachusetts you do not push pencil, pencil push you.
“I thought that Massachusetts had “revenue officers” posted just to apprehend scofflaws like you! LOL!”
Yes, I can visualize the checkpoints you indicate. Remarkably enough, they look very similar to the checkpoints between east and west Berlin in the ‘70s. You know, the little booth to the side, red-striped, counterbalanced horizontal polls across each lane, three or four uniformed guards carrying short-barreled machine pistols, a couple of loosely leashed German Sheperds, a small armored car strategically positioned, and a fast pursuit car with the engine running.
The guards know exactly who to stop, too, as they’ve got auto-license-plate-recognition camera cars located at strategic entrances for the Walmart across the border. That information is automatically transmitted to those little booths which are also equipped with the same auto-license-plate-recognition cameras, which auto-drop the horizontal poll, blocking known scofflaws. Efficient teams zoom up to the captured suspect’s car, probing all known storage areas, and if nothing is found, then the car is slowly dismantled until the contraband school supplies, etc. are found. In the mean time, the entire family is duck-walked to the little booth, thrown against the wall, and handcuffed behind the back the entire time. Specially made, extra small handcuffs are used on the children and infants. The average take is about $9.00, plus the fine of course.
Anyone suspected of being an illegal alien is waved on through though, since checkpoints for that purpose are illegal.
Remember to pay cash. Someday state tax authorities will demand credit card companies submit reports of big-ticket purchases of durable goods by state residents in low-sales-tax neighboring locations.
You can’t use prepaid cards either as to activate them, you have to go online and fill in your sss which is BS. But a bud of mine who went to the Caymans for vacation got a prepaid cc from one of the banks and uses it to purchase online but not buy stuff for delivery. The day is coming when we will run a business out of our apartments and use Craigslist as the new Amazon for cash transactions.
Some years ago Pennsylvania had people noting down license plates of PA cars stopping at a NJ liquor store just across the bridge, and stopping the cars as they came back into PA with NJ booze.
I remember that situation well.While I'm not *one hundred percent* sure that I recall *all* the details I'm pretty sure that that was for fireworks.However,it's certainly possible that I'm *partially* correct,meaning that there was a fireworks "sting" *and* the type that you've described.Don't know how much you know about MA,or if you've ever lived here,but they only started requiring you to declare untaxed purchases on your tax return fairly recently (can't recall exactly how long).
Quotes from Accounting Today article on this case:
“We were surprised, not that the court ruled in our favor, but that the decision was made so quickly,” said Rebecca Madigan, executive director of the Performance Marketing Association, the trade organization that brought the suit.
“Our goal is to allow the 9000 Internet affiliate marketers to get back into business as quickly as possible.”
Madigan estimates that about a third of the affiliates moved out of state when the law restricting their income was passed. “You can’t stay in business when you’re losing half your revenue,” she said. “By our estimates they earned $740 million in 2010, the year before the law passed, and paid $22 million in state income tax.”
The Illinois Department of Revenue is expected to appeal the decision.”
Corporatist! /S
LOL
I use to hear that phrase in Monday morning sales meetings....
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