Posted on 02/11/2011 6:18:58 PM PST by NCjim
As a result of an ongoing tax dispute with Texas, Amazon.com has decided to take its ball and go home.
The online retailer said Thursday that it would shutter its Irving distribution facility April 12 and cancel plans to hire as many as 1,000 additional workers rather than pay Texas what the state says is owed in uncollected sales tax.
Texas wants $269 million from Seattle-based Amazon in past-due sales tax. It sent the bill to the company last October.
“Despite much hard work and the support of other Texas officials, we’ve been unable to come to a resolution with the Texas comptroller’s office,” Dave Clark, vice president of operations for the facility, said in a letter sent to its employees here announcing the closure.
“Closing this fulfillment [distribution] center is clearly not our preferred outcome,” he said.
“We were previously planning to build additional facilities and expand in Texas, bringing more than 1,000 new jobs and tens of millions of investment dollars to the state, and we regret the need to reverse course.”
State officials weren’t backing down Thursday.
“We regret losing any business in the state of Texas,” said Allen Spelce, spokesman for the comptroller’s office. “But our position hasn’t changed: If you have a physical business presence in the state of Texas, you owe sales tax.”
Amazon continues to appeal the tax bill through an administrative process, Spelce said, “and it’s going to be a while” before a decision and potential appeals are completed.
(Excerpt) Read more at dallasnews.com ...
And will get zero.
Without digging out my accountants eyeshade.. cursory glance seems that TX is wanting sales tax for ALL Amazon’s Sales, not just TEXAS Sales.
If that’s the case... I’d be cheering Amazon OUT..
Yes. Roads should be private.
Dead assed backwards.
The state should have zero authority to make individual citizens keep financial records of their economic activity and pay for each transaction.
You deserve an IRS audit for your post, because that is the inanity you just proposed as the norm.
Yep.
Gas tax, property tax, vehicle registration tax, etc.
What does/should a sales tax have to do with road maintenance?
Roads are in the constitution.
Am I on FRee Republic ?? or am I in the KOS ZONE?? Hearing a lot of “TAX that CORPORATION” crap.
after a little further investigation, it appears that TX is trying to tax Amazon for ALL its sales.. not just TEXAS Sales (which they already ADMITTED they paid).
Amazing how long some of these Liberal TROLLS can live here.
Here in NH we have no sales tax (and no income tax). Amazon could build here to distribute to the New England states.
A great place for them would be the Pease Trade Port next to the old SAC Airforce base now being used for cargo flights.
The greedy government, local, state and federal think everyone owes them (as of now 50% of everything they make) and bleed companies dry also...When a company can go oversea’s for their steel, pay for it, pay for the shipping of it back into the country, pay tariffs on it and its still cheaper than buying steel in the US, its unions and government regulations that deserve the scorn.
Texas does collect sales tax on internet purchases from out of state. Whenever I type in my ship to address, it automatically add Texas sales tax. I buy from many large online sites, and all do it.
True, but locating in a state where they make fewer sales will lower the state sales tax hit. If, for example, they relocate to North Dakota, they'll have very few sales in that state compared to the sales they make in Texas.
According to the article:
“Amazon.com was asked to play by the same rules and has responded by eliminating hundreds of Texas jobs,” said Danny Diaz, a spokesman for the Alliance for Main Street Fairness in Washington, D.C. “Amazon could have chosen to collect the sales tax as Texas retailers do, but instead they opted to protect their special sales tax loophole to the detriment of hardworking families.”The dispute is over whether the distributer gives Amazon a physical presense, which would then require they they collect sales tax for purchases made by residents.
Amazon insists that the distributer is independent:
Amazon, with $25 billion in sales last year, has operated the Irving center since 2006. It argues that a subsidiary company owned the center. The state audited Amazon after reporting by The Dallas Morning News questioned whether the retailer was complying with state law.But now they claim they will close the distributer. Which means that they have direct control over it, which means it is hard to argue that it is independent.
Texas is asking for $269 million in unpaid sales tax, for sales over multiple years. Amazon had $25 billion in sales; if Texas was going after all of that, the amount due would be $1.25 billion a year. So clearly they aren't trying to tax ALL sales.
According to another article: "The state says that Amazon is responsible for the tax it has not collected on online sales made in Texas. The $269 million includes the taxes, plus penalties and interest, from 2005 to 2009."
Note that this is $269 million that people in texas owed on items they purchased; that $269 million is made up by the other texas residents who don't cheat on their taxes.
Note also that that $269 million, when not collected by Amazon, is then the responsibility of the individual residents. Unfortunately, since Texas has local sales taxes, it's a bit complicated for the residents when Amazon doesn't do the job of collecting the sales tax.
Texas residents should follow this process: Sales and Use Tax
Also FAQ for Texas Use Tax:
You used property purchased from an out-of-state retailer. In general, if you purchase a taxable item from an out-of-state retailer without paying Texas tax and use the property in Texas the purchase is subject to use tax and must be reported. If you paid Texas use tax to such a retailer, you are not required to report the tax. That retailer must provide you with a receipt showing, among other things, the amount of use tax collected. You should retain a copy of the receipt showing you paid Texas tax.Use Tax Form:...
Do I owe tax on goods purchased via mail-order catalogs or Internet merchandise?
Yes. A seller who uses catalogs or the Internet to sell goods is treated the same as any other seller of taxable items. If you purchase merchandise through a catalog or the Internet from a seller located in Texas, you owe Texas sales tax on the purchase. If you purchase merchandise through a catalog or the Internet from a seller located outside of Texas and use the taxable item in Texas, then you owe Texas use tax on the purchase. An out-of-state mail-order company or an Internet company may hold a Texas Sales and Use tax permit and collect Texas tax. If the out-of-state seller does not have a Texas permit or does not collect Texas use tax, the use tax is due and payable by the purchaser.
...
If you do not hold a Texas sales and use tax permit and you bought items on which the seller did not collect Texas sales or use tax, you must report your purchases on form 01-156, Texas Occasional Use Tax.
When to File: This return, with payment, should be filed on or before the 20th day following the period (month or year) during which items subject to use tax are brought into the Texas.Imagine having to fill out this form once a month, every time you make a purchase from Amazon. But that is what Amazon is forcing it's Texas customers to do, by not collecting the tax for them.
The only people who benefit from this, are TAX CHEATs. I guess I could do that hysterical rant "Am I fn Free Republic? Or am I in the Democrat Zone, where we cheer people who cheat on their taxes????" But I won't, because there is a weird disconnect when it comes to discussing this issue -- conservatives who would NEVER think to cheat on other taxes, defend their right to cheat their own state out of legally required tax payments.
WHich also cheats their fellow state residents, since they have to pay more taxes to make up for the tax cheaters.
Three cheers for amazon standing up to the tax bullies. Moving to a friendlier state is what Going Galt is all about! Wish more companies had the balls amazon does!
Only if the online merchant has a bricks-and-mortar presence in that state.
Get real. It’s not “tax bullying” for a state to collect sales taxes from Amazon, just as it does from all other merchants doing business in the state. The Amazon warehouse is a legitimate bricks-and-mortar physical presence in Texas.
Amazon’s crap about a negative business climate in Texas is just that.
Us Texans like bidness. We also like fair and honest play, and Amazon is nothing but a tax cheat in this instance.
So, did you have a source for your claim that Texas was trying to tax Amazon for all their sales? Because I can’t find it, and you certainly didn’t provide it in all your ranting.
And I’m sorry that you didn’t understand, but most of my comment to you wasn’t really about you, and it also wasn’t a quote of the article. It was quotes from OTHER articles, along with extensive quotes from the Texas tax information web site.
If you read the whole article, you should have known that most of what I wrote didn’t come from the article. And even if you didn’t, the fact that I TOLD you in the comments exactly what I was quoting, AND gave you links, should have been a clue.
But thanks for the good laugh, it’s been a long time since my kids were young enough to use the “wild crazy-man rant” style of argument.
Doesn’t matter ... You’ve already marked them GUILTY... so HANG THE WHOLE BUNCH to save the cost of a trial to your precious taxpayers.
Troll
Doesn’t matter ... You’ve already marked them GUILTY... so HANG THE WHOLE BUNCH to save the cost of a trial to your precious taxpayers.
Troll
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