4 ms·
Disguising the true cost of a purchase is not something I would file under advantages, and neither will Newegg when their customers stop doing business with the
by zrm 9y ago
Disguising the true cost of a purchase is not something I would file under advantages, and neither will Newegg when their customers stop doing business with them after discovering that they've unnecessarily foisted this accounting burden onto the customer.
- giarc 9y agoIt is an advantage since they, and their competitors are not required to collect the sales tax. Therefore if a person is price comparing across two sites, 1 with an extra 6.75% and 1 without, the person is likely to choose the lower price, even if they are required to pay the tax personally down the road.
- zrm 9y agoThe market value of putting off paying $18 in sales tax for six months at 2% interest is $0.18. Not a lot of people will be signing up to fill out paperwork for ~$0.18. Especially when, because it happens at scale, it only means the state has to raise the tax rate by that amount to raise the equivalent revenue to cover the bond interest it has to pay because it didn't get the money sooner.
- giarc 9y agoI'm not sure what you are arguing at this point. Newegg is not required to collect sales tax, nor are they incentivized to do so either.
- zrm 9y agoAs far as I know they are not required to provide the state with this information either, which they are incentivized to do even less because customers are very much going to hate it, even more than they would dislike paying the sales tax up front.
- giarc 9y agoThe lawyer quoted in the article seems to imply it's an act of good faith providing the records. "I do think it’s an overreach, but the discussion we have every day with clients is how much risk are you willing to take?” he said. “If you want to tell Connecticut to go pound sand, we can do that. If you want to have a discussion about when to begin collecting tax on your terms, we can do that as well.”