There’s a big Amazon warehouse a few miles from my home.
I haven’t paid sales tax (yet)
With “Amazon Prime” it all ships free too.
My daughter even gets diapers that way, says it’s the best deal (with 3 in diapers, she oughtta know, LOL)
THREE in diapers? OMG. Poor lady!
My understanding is that Amazon is operating warehouses as separate legal entities. I believe they receive an order online, “purchase” the product from the amazon warehouse and then have the warehouse drop-ship the item.
However, if it is determined that these warehouse entities are merely acting as agents of the online entity, the agency relationship along with the physical presence of their agent will cause them problems.
They are in trouble in several local jurisdictions. One is Virginia. http://hamptonroads.com/2009/01/complaint-amazoncom-should-charge-tax-sales-va
If you are buying stuff online to “avoid” sales tax, I think you should know that the states will probably not consider your actions to be tax avoidance, but tax evasion. The tax is due. If you don’t pay it to your vendor, you have to remit it to the state yourself.
Are books or diapers taxable in your state? I don’t know. How can you find out? Well, the states expect you to go out to their ever-so-friendly web sites and figure it out. If not, you can call a clueless person at a 1800 number who is more likely than not going to tell you that all sorts of nontaxable items are taxable. If you figure out later you shouldn’t have paid the tax, good luck with that refund!
Do you think this is a stupid system? I sure do, and sales tax is my bread and butter. IMHO, we should get rid of all taxes, federal and state, but one: a single flat consumption tax with no exemptions. NONE.
The problem is that we have this little thing called states’ rights. All y’all can agree to pay more local taxes through your locally elected officials. Therein lies the sales tax dilemma. Every local jurisdiction gets to decide what to tax and what not to tax, who pays it and what the rate is. For a company with Nexus in a lot of places, this is extremely expensive. There are billing system issues, compliance issues, guaranteed audits from lots of states. Heck, I used to be an auditor for Louisiana living in Texas. There are Texas auditors living in California, California auditors living in Oklahoma, etc.