Posted on 03/04/2011 3:30:36 PM PST by SmithL
If Amazon is collecting Ca. sales taxes but not remitting them, then they are guilty. BUT, just because a state arbitrarily claims the businesses owe money does not make the state the saint.
When it comes to business VS state I will take business almost every time, especially regarding taxes.
Rim Shot!!
California needs Amazon a lot more than Amazon needs California.
You would be wrong about Amazon and gonads. They have closed facilities for way less taxes and thrown many out of work.
I guess you can go off on some anti-FR spiel if you want, but only ONE person has not been on Amazon’s side on this thread. And that includes me. I hope Amazon goes to the wall on this one.
Why in the world is LL Bean included in there? They don’t have any physical facilities in CA, and they don’t do “affiliate” business like Amazon does.
You might have noticed that this article has an SF Chronicle byline?
So far, though, nobody’s tied that to the laughable characterization that amazon is “evading” taxation. The Carbuncle is notorious for siding with statists of every degree, and for always framing the discussion in terms of how the poor, helpless state of CA is being short-changed by [insert evil liberty-loving entity, here].
I’m 100% with amazon on this one.
You sound like another media matters troll on FR.
A business with no presence in California is not required to collect and remit sales taxes to the State of California. Amazon has no presence in California. Faced with this inconvenient obstacle, that being California law, California lawmakers want to reinterpret what a ‘presence’ is, by calling ‘affiliates’ who do not in any form or fashion work for Amazon to be Amazon’s ‘presence’ in California, and thus subjecting consumers in California to state sales tax, and beyond, wanting Amazon to remit sales taxes for past years it never collected.
These ‘affiliates’ are simply advertising agents, who get paid a small commission for any sales made by consumers who click through their links and make a purchase on Amazon. It would be like claiming a billboard advertisement made a company suddenly be based in California and declaring they owe corporate taxes.
In Texas, a similar issue came up, where Texas decided to reinterpret a warehouse operated by a contractor to Amazon as being Amazon’s presence, and then retroactively summed up what Amazon ‘should’ have collected in sales taxes from Texas consumers and demanded the money.
Both of these are shakedown actions trying to force Amazon to collect sales taxes and remit them to the various states. But neither fit within California or Texas laws, as Amazon isn’t located in either state (for good reason too.)
Beyond collecting sales taxes, Amazon would have to collect CRV (and taxes on CRV) for California consumers, collect and remit electronics disposal fees, and whatever other crackpot fees and regulations California subjects her citizens to. Just keeping track of all these changes is a full time job for someone at Buy.com, who handles all the stupidity in dealing with the state of California.
The options are easy for Amazon - dumping paying off affiliates in California rather than having to deal with the regulatory minutia that California decides to toss at them? Of course they’ll do it, in a heartbeat. And should you think that Amazon is totally against collecting and remitting sales taxes to any state, I’ll point out that Amazon sends in a quarterly check to every state that collects sales taxes for all the sales done by their marketplace merchants that operate in the state where the purchase was shipped to.
How dare Amazon actually follow the laws that lawmakers find so inconvenient?
If Amazon sells to Californians or people in any state where Amazon has a physical business presence, it already should be charging the sales tax of that state, unless the purchaser has a sales tax exemption (e.g. a church). This is SOP for all web, phone, and mail orders from any company within the USA. If Amazon sells to a state where it has no physical business presence (e.g. Illinois) then it’s left to the purchaser to pay his own state’s “use tax.”
Generalize much? This comment because of one thread?
Amazon doesn’t/won’t “pay” the tax, the consumers do. That would be you. Taxing forces more unnecessary accounting records and causes consumers to look around for other places to spend their money. Less government please.
FR has no direction or agenda because everyone is totally divided on the site.Most of the older people are gone and want nothing to do with the site because it’s so liberal plus it has become a soap thread site.
“I’m kinda not on Amazon’s side here. They are coming off as imperious as in “only suckers pay taxes”
No sh*t. It’s called a revolution. If Amazon wants to tell the SanFran fascists to F off, I have no problem with that.
You want to support the thieving government, sign up for your jackboots.
....mark your calendars... I agree with Dennisw....
Is Amazon’s margin really so slim that they have to cheat on tax payments?
Pretty slimey as a business model. Why should local mom and pop cover the high life at Amazon?
And very recently there was this, too:
As a California resident...I get a nasty note from the BOE to pay-up. Well, Hell, I bought in good faith....the rascals at Amazon need to forward the tax payment to the state of California.
Heads up.
“Only a fool argues with a fool.” - Chinese proverb.
FRegards,
LH
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