5 ms·

Isn't interstate commerce non-taxable, as per the constitution?

• jws 16y ago
  As long as there is more than one lawyer on the planet it won't be that simple. Amazon has fulfillment centers in Texas and a subsidiary as well. This may be sufficient to trigger Texas' state sales tax laws.
  • Figs 16y ago
    I wonder how long it will be before all the data centers move to places like the Bahamas...
    • lfittl 16y ago
      Though I'd clearly separate data centers and fulfillment centers. Much harder to ship from the Bahamas ;)
    • Tangurena 16y ago
      New York is one of the states that treats co-lo as enough of a presence to trigger the "you must now collect sales tax" requirement. I think TN is another. However, in this case Amazon had at least one warehouse and at least one office in TX.
• Kaizyn 16y ago
  The states get around this by insisting that companies doing business in their state must collect sales tax on state residents.
  • jhgfdsahgf 16y ago
    Easy way around it - all deliveries to Texas are shipped from an Amazon warehouse in New mexico and, deliveries in NM are shipped from Arizona etc. All the orders are taken by Amazon Bermuda.
    • evgen 16y ago
      It does not matter where you ship from, if you have a "presence" in the state you get dinged for sales tax on sales to residents in the state (or at least that is what TX and a lot of other states are claiming...)
      • jhgfdsahgf 16y ago
        But the warehouse in Texas will be owned by Amazon(texas) inc and the delivery was from a completely separate company Amazon(NM) - they all happen to be owned by Amazon(Bermuda)
• tzs 16y ago
  These taxes aren't on the commerce in the items. Rather, they are written as taxes on using the items in the state. The courts (including the Supreme Court) have decided that this is OK under the interstate commerce clause as long as the tax doesn't make goods from out of state cost more than goods from in state. So, if a state were to try to enforce a tax on mail-order goods from out of state, but did not tax those goods when bought in state, then they would be in for a Constitutional smack down. This gets interesting when a tax was also collected by the state the goods came from. What the courts have decided is that the destination state can only collect the difference between what the receiver paid to the origin state and what the tax would have been for a local purchase. Thus, if you buy a car in a state with a 4% tax, and then take it to a state with a 6% tax and try to register it there, they can collect 2%. None of this, though, is the issue in this case. No one seriously disputes that Texas can make Texas residents pay this tax. The issue is whether Texas can make Amazon collect the tax at time of purchase for Texas. If not, Texas will have to ask its residents to track their Amazon purchases themselves and remit the tax they owe. That's what most states do now--and it is widely ignored. Most people, in fact, have no idea that they are supposed to keep track of the out of state purchases and pay state tax on them.