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Not punished, just asked that they collect sales tax instead of relying on customers to pay use tax.
by awa 15y ago
Not punished, just asked that they collect sales tax instead of relying on customers to pay use tax.
- NoPiece 15y agoLook at this not in terms of a big company like Amazon, but a start up or mom and pop web retailer which would be required to collect and distribute taxes to 50 different states. What a nightmare. The "no physical presence" exemption makes sense, and is very important.
- babl 15y agoTrue, but Amazon probably makes close to a billion in annual revenue in CA, I feel like that must account for some kind of taxable "presence."
- dangrossman 15y ago50 different states and at least several thousand distinct regions (counties, cities, townships, etc) with different sales tax rates and different taxable item classifications. You can't even tell which one a customer lives in by their address.
- awa 15y agouhmm.. so you mean to say Walmart.com have people who can handle problem this but Amazon cannot!? To me, the implicit 10% discount to customer seems like major incentive for Amazon to not to do this rather than the technical difficulty of the issue. I understand a startup having difficulty spending resources doing this, but not many startups have affiliates, Also, we should be worried that Amazon will cause states to make laws which will ultimately harm startups.
- aphexairlines 15y agoThis is why Amazon's management has stated several times that they would prefer a national sales tax than dealing with this mess.
- r00fus 15y agoAmazon ran Target.com's web store... They know well how to solve this problem because they already did it! Complexity is a flimsy excuse for a giant like Amazon.