12 ms·
I am really disappointed to hear this news, actually. I would rather Amazon have fought the state's clear attempt to unconstitutionally tax interstate commerce
by gergles 15y ago
I am really disappointed to hear this news, actually. I would rather Amazon have fought the state's clear attempt to unconstitutionally tax interstate commerce and gotten clear precedent that forcing companies without a physical presence in a state to collect sales tax there is bullshit.
It's the same reason why I do not believe in 'use tax'. It is a tax which exists solely to tax interstate commerce (which is exclusively the domain of the Federal government) that I am stunned nobody has attempted to fight yet.
The argument that "Amazon gets an unfair advantage abloobloo" is garbage -- Amazon has to pay a local company to ultimately get the items to you, which absolutely does pay local tax - UPS has to buy gas in California, pay employees in California (and pay the associated exorbitant California payroll tax), pay for inspections, facilities, etc... The state is collecting their pound of flesh out of the transaction in one way or another.
(Not to mention the complexities of the tax code that aren't even consistent on a ZIP code basis - it's the last weekend of August, you're shipping to an address covered by the HRT district in Virginia Beach, VA, and you're selling a $105 bikini. For $500, what's the tax rate? Hint: all of those factors (date, exact location down to the house number, price, item type) play into how much the tax rate is. It is not a naive lookup table of "zip code: tax rate".)
- rphlx 15y agoI've never seen a UPS truck at a regular gas station. Perhaps they too found some way around retail gasoline taxes.
- brianobush 15y agothey pay taxes, but the rate might be lower for commercial diesel like it is for farm use.
- repiret 15y agoSome of the taxes you pay on gasoline and diesel are meant to be public road use taxes. If you're not burning the gas by driving on a public road, they don't need to be paid. You can apply for a rebate based on how much you burnt off-road (for example, you have a logging truck that burns 10% of its gas on private logging roads). If you have an engine that you use exclusively off-road (such as in farm equipment), you can buy whats called pink diesel or dyed diesel. You don't have to pay the public road use taxes on pink diesel, but it stains your engine. The engine of a vehicle used on public roads can be inspected to see if its ever burned pink diesel, and if it has, you get in trouble.
- repiret 15y agoI don't know about UPS specifically, but: If you consume more than about 1,000 gal/month, you'll buy your gas from a "cardlock" gas station. The station typically has no attendent and no services other than a gas pump, and requires minimum monthly purchases. If you consume more than 50,000 gal/month at a single fleet depot, you'll get a tank and buy the gas by the truckload - the equivalent of what an independent gas station does. If gasoline consumption is a large enough fraction of your total spending, and you're big enough, you'll buy gasoline futures directly from the folks who peddle in them; or buy it directly from the refineries. You'll have this gasoline delivered to the tanks at your depot. If you need to use a third party's tanks, you'll deliver it directly to their tanks. For example the FBO (gas station) at my local air port refuels four Sky West/United flights a day, in addition to the occasional private jet and lots of 100LL to the general aviation crowd. If they put jet fuel in your Citation X, you need to give them a bunch of money, some of which they use to buy more jet fuel. When they put jet fuel in a SkyWest plane, SkyWest delivers more jet fuel to them and pays a nominal fee for their storage and pumping services. Federal Hours of Service rules limit the UPS drivers to 11 hours of driving a day. If you assume a UPS truck gets 8 miles/gal and averages 45 mph, then a 75 gallon tank is enough for all day, and they would only need to refuel at the depot.