Posted on 10/31/2013 11:36:04 AM PDT by matt04
Massachusetts residents have only a few days of tax-free shopping left on Amazon.com.
Beginning Friday, the state will apply its 6.25 percent sales tax to purchases made from Amazon, though the tax will not apply to third-party vendors who use the site.
The state reached an agreement with Amazon last year. Owners of traditional "brick and mortar" stores have long complained of being at a competitive disadvantage to online retailers who are not required to collect sales taxes.
State revenue officials tell The Boston Globe the tax on Amazon purchases is expected to raise nearly $37 million for the state in the current fiscal year.
(Excerpt) Read more at masslive.com ...
Gotta fill those EBT cards somehow.
Things like more support for homosexual rights, in part.
This is going to be the coming trend. Remember though, this isn’t a “new” tax at all. MA residents should have been paying Use tax on purchases they made from Amazon (or any out of state vendor for that matter) if the items purchased were taxable.
Amazon has the largest media exposure, so that’s why they’re always in the news.
My company pays 3 times more in Use tax than we do in sales tax. Companies are easy to audit and so we self assess properly. Individuals are another story, but the tax applies to them just the same.
Its not the 6.25% sales tax that has them at a disadvantage. It is the selling of the same book at half the price that is.
This is just a money grab ‘cuz they can.
Joins:
Arizona
California
Georgia
Kansas
Kentucky
New Jersey
New York
North Dakota
Pennsylvania
Texas
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Maybe Massachusetts will take McCain too?
But then you get nailed for shipping. So you lose either way.
I can't wait to get outta this chicken shiite State, Commonwealth, Socialist Hellhole or whatever the hell it is.
State and Federal governments getting better all the times and taking more and more to only support those that vote them in power and money vie welfare and government jobs.
The law has always been that if a business has a brick-and-mortar business presence in the state, it is required to collect sales tax on sales made to residents of that state, even if the sale was mail-order.
Buy a book from Barnes and Noble, and you’ll pay sales tax, because Barnes and Noble operates a business in your state.
What Amazon is doing is basically fraud. They have shipping centers in Massachusetts, and in many other states, but they own them through shell corporations that exist solely for the purpose of allowing them to pretend that they don’t have a brick-and-mortar presence in the state.
There are states that don’t have sales taxes. And there are businesses that locate their shipping centers in those states for the specific reason of not having to charge their customers sales tax. Amazon could do that, and if they did, they’d not now Massachusetts a dime.
The problem with that, of course, is that the no-sales-tax states aren’t conveniently distributed around the country so as to make for rapid shipping. Most businesses that depend on rapid shipping locate their shipping centers around the country so as to speed shipping, and collect sales tax for those states where they are located.
Amazon has chosen to locate their shipping centers around the country so as to speed shipping, and is playing legal games to try to avoid collecting sales tax for those states where they are located.
They are in the wrong on this. They know they are in the wrong on this. They’ve just been playing the game for as long as they could get away with it.
(There are quite a number of local officials who are insisting that they should have the authority to enforce sales taxes on businesses that have no operations in their jurisdictions. This is something to which I am very much opposed. But this is not the question at hand, with respect to Amazon. Amazon most definitely does have a business presence in Massachusetts.)
Yeap. If my local store sells the book for $15, plus the 6.25 sales tax, but Amazon sells for $10, plus the 6.25 sales tax, and if people are shopping enough with Amazon and use Amazon prime... still going with Amazon.
The State is not wise enough to realize that most of AMAZON business is NOT to avoid a sales tax.
One sits at home, coffee cup at hand and easily shops. No high priced gas consumed, no rude sales clerks, no traffic jam, no new dent in the side of the car, no extortion at a parking garage, no teens running amok at the mall.
No, just a quiet night at home with the family.
And, on schedule, the package is delivered.
It is the wonderful convenience.
The State gets its drop of blood, but it will NOT diminish Amazon and the internet shopping.
Since when are Brazil, Colombia and Peru in Massachusetts?
This is not a money grab. This is getting the people to follow the law. Every year on the state taxes you are REQUIRED to put down how much your purchased on line. You should be doing this and if not then you are sorta stealing from your state (if they have a state tax).
Are you serious? You forgot the sarc tag.
Touche...
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