Posted on 06/21/2018 9:54:25 AM PDT by Poison Pill
Online shoppers could find costs going up after the Supreme Court did away Thursday with a decades-old precedent limiting the ability of states to collect sales tax on certain out-of-state Internet purchases.
The 5-4 ruling called the current rules “unsound and incorrect.”
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
amazon is gonna take it in the shorts...
i.e. they were probably for this.
This is a crappy ruling. Very surprised and disappointed that Thomas, Alito & Gorsuch went along with it. It’s crazy to demand that small businesses figure out and comply with the sales tax laws of >3,000 different counties in the U.S. As Roberts points out in the dissent, there are places where Snickers is subject to sales tax but Twix isn’t (because the former is classified as a candy and the latter is considered a cookie).
Only if the small business is selling their product out of state without charging taxes. A lot of the reason Amazon exploded was because of the no tax advantage. Who would buy a product for close to the same price if one had added taxes and the other one didn’t?
A big built-in advantage to online retailers over local small businesses. All small business were charging taxes in their state. And actually, any business that bought a product out of state were legally bound to pay sales taxes on that item whether they were charged or not. Individuals are responsible too, they just never reported the purchase on their taxes.
The biggest disadvantage to small business is figuring out what to charge with all the taxing authorities scattered throughout the nation. Someone will come up with a web solution or business solution to solve this problem, now that there is a need. Might be a good business to start.
“”””Huh? This helps all brick and morter businesses by allowing them to be on equal footing with national online retailers.”””””””
This ruling won’t affect me much because I hardly ever buy online. I support local merchants and only buy online when an item is not available locally.
Screw Amazon. I have never sent Bezos a penny and I never will.
I think the deal was that states could charge sales tax if the business from which you purchase has locations in said sate. There are Amazon distribution centers in Texas, so I have had to pay sales tax on my Amazon purchases for quite some time. The same is true of online purchases from Walmart, Macey's, JC Penney, et al. Now it appears they can charge the tax even if the business does not have locations in your state.
Sure we do it is called a 10% income tax.
Online businesses will just relocate to a state with no sales tax.
No one read that thing anymore they just wait for a Federal Judge to tell them what they can or cannot do.
I used to work with the tax department of a large national company. Sales tax laws were a nightmare. Sometimes they apply to a single piece of property.
provide money to the Interstate Commerce Commission to create a publicly-accessible database of tax liability by ZIP code. States would provide the input.
The database would provide tax rates for categories of goods: food, drugs, and "other". Additional broad categories of tax entries can be provided for by Congress.
Yes, I know that some taxing districts provide for different tax rates for staples, prepared foot, cigarettes/tobacco, and so forth. For the purposes of interstate commerce taxation, the state will have to decide how they want to handle the disparity.
Because the look-ups can be built into the payment systems, the cost should not be that high.
Perhaps Oregon will enjoy a rush of new businesses that wish to locate there.
The power to regulate this falls to Congress, not the states, not SCOTUS and not POTUS
Article I, Section 8, Clause 3:[3]
[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;
As long as it’s just state taxes, not a big deal. Technically, people in those states are supposed to claim the purchases anyway. It’s really just shifting the responsibility. But now a small company in Georgia that sells a single item to some guy in Yreka, CA now has an obligation to the state of California.
I also have to say that $100,000 threshold is bogus. It should be based on something that shifts with the economy like, say, the minimum wage. It could be 10,000 times the federal hourly minimum wage.
I say that because of the mess caused by the AMT being out of date with income levels.
But this is just SD’s numbers.
It’s probably if you are in CA and order something that person must charge you CA tax and remit it to CA
It’s how mail order has worked for over a century. I don’t understand why the internet got treated any differently.
Yes, where amazon has a brick n mortar presence they collect applicable sales tax. But they also serve as a “”middleman” for smaller sellers who do not (and consequently they don’t collect the local tax).
If I want to purchase a new plastic lens for my taillight (for example) I can go down to the local parts store. I know that they won’t have it and will have to order it. Plus they will charge me sales tax.
So instead I go through amazon and pick a seller who doesn’t have local presence. The part is shipped to me. No sales tax is collected and I didn’t have to leave the house.
Now they’ll all charge sales tax so the incentive to use amazon has evaporated.
Sales tax is not the same as income tax.
Is this a serious question?
I assumed that all sellers going through amazon charged the sales tax.
Pretty trivial to calculate all taxes given the zip code.
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