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Newegg Defies New York Sales Tax Law
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Aug 27, 2008 08:05 AM
from the not-expanding-here-thanks dept.
from the not-expanding-here-thanks dept.
JagsLive informs us that the electronics retailer Newegg.com is defying New York lawmakers; it has suddenly stopped collecting sales tax from New York online shoppers. The "Amazon tax," which went into effect June 1, requires online merchants to collect sales tax if they have any affiliates in the state. Amazon is complying but has sued the state on constitutional grounds. Overstock.com dropped all of its New York affiliates and then joined the Amazon lawsuit. Newegg started out complying with the law on June 1, but stopped collecting taxes for New York on August 21. From Newegg's letter to its customers: "After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008," reads an email the company tossed at customers late last week, including at least one loyal Reg reader. "This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
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I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
You don't have to pay sales tax in your state on goods purchased in another state. The whole problem with internet companies is deciding what "state" they are in.
The argument Amazon et. al make is that under the US constitution the federal government has sole jurisdiction to regulate interstate commerce - and New York imposing a sales tax on goods purchased in another state would run contrary to that.
The arguments in court certainly are going to surround in what "state" Amazon.com is operating in.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
"You don't have to pay sales tax in your state on goods purchased in another state. The whole problem with internet companies is deciding what "state" they are in."
Yes you do, albeit indirectly. You have to pay a "use tax [wikipedia.org]" on anything purchased outside of your tax jurisdiction which you then bring in for use or consumption. This is a whole branch of our tax code that doesn't cope well with the modern, internetworked world.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
An outside observer might wonder why this is such a big deal since the tax is going to be paid as use tax rather than sales tax. The difference here is that sales tax is charge at the point of sale while the use tax is charged on state tax returns.
Use tax is notoriously hard to enforce because the state necessarily doesn't know about any items you bought in a different state. Many people lie about their use tax liability on their state tax returns because the state usually doesn't have any evidence to the contrary.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Right.. but the Use tax applies to citizens within a state buy something from out of state. Of course I don't understand how that survived any Interstate commerce challenges. It seems to be that while indirect, it's still affecting Interstate commerce.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Interesting)
It doesn't even cope well with the paved world. If you buy a box of matches in Ontario County, NY, use half of the matches, drive to your home in Monroe County, NY, and then use the other half, you have to pay the difference between Monroe County tax and Ontario County tax on half the purchase price of the box of matches. Somehow you should get the tax difference on half the purchase price back if you do it the other way around, but good luck with that.
Just a way to make sure that they can arrest any citizen in the country on tax evasion charges any time they want.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
"This is a whole branch of our tax code that doesn't cope well with the modern, internetworked world."
Modern? Ever heard of a Sears, Montgomery Ward, or Best Catalog? Buying goods from an out of state vendor predates the modern income tax system and even the IRS in this country. Heck, buying from catalog predates indoor plumbing in a lot of places. The Sears catalog was commonly used as toilet paper in outhouses. This was a big deal back then when it was hard to enforce use taxes but now that the technology exists to squeeze more money from the taxpayer, governments are jumping at the opportunity.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
Except, you do have to pay sales tax if you buy something out of state.
It's just that if you buy something out of state, the store isn't obligated to collect the sales tax. The purchaser is supposed to declare the item and pay it later to their state.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
It doesn't matter how they feel. New York State can't tax a purchase made in Texas (or wherever Amazon is located) any more than they can tax a purchase made in Mongolia. Moreover, they can't impose taxes on New York citizens importing goods from other states, because the Constitution and its commerce clause forbid that.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
It is required, in theory, but the Interstate Commerce clause of the Constitution prevents them from collecting tax on any sales across state boundaries.
They still try to do so, generally under the guise of a "use tax" that's conveniently only applied to purchases from out-of-state, but as far as I'm aware such unequal taxes have never been tested in court. IANAL, of course.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that's exactly it. It save newegg the effort, and also increases their business from customers who intend to avoid paying the tax themselves.
It will even increase business from customers who DO intend to pay what they owe for 2 reasons:
1) Something you will owe later doesn't FEEL as costly to many people as something you have to pay now.
2) Many states (I'm not a new yorker, so I don't know if this applies to them) understand the difficulty in tracking your sales, and offer a flat tax option. If you intend to pay this way, then it's sort of like an all you can eat buffet. Once you've paid the flat rate, it's in your best interest to find as many retailers as you can that don't collect tax.
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but when you purchase something from out of state, the normally-unintelligible mess of tax laws become even more convoluted.
Many states have a "use" tax, which applies to items purchased from out-of-state by state residents. The burden of paying it rests on the individual, however, not the merchant (and very, very few people actually pay it except on items they can't avoid reporting, such as cars and boats).
The real issue here involves what constitutes a "presence" in a given state, as well as where the transaction actually occurs. Most states would like to claim the transaction occurs at the location of the buyer, but so far the federal government hasn't let them get away with that. More commonly, states limit their attempts to collect to vendors who have some physical presence in that state - Meaning they have some power to make life miserable for noncomplying vendors.
So then the question changes to "what constitutes a physical presence?". The largest online merchants such as Amazon have warehouses all over the country, but don't ever actually sell anything on-site, they just ship from there. So does that count as a retail presence, or not?
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Re:I'll admit, I'm a bit confused (Score:5, Informative)
And just to make things more difficult, the NY law in question isn't even talking about warehouses. It's talking about affiliates. NewEgg is located in California, but they have an affiliate program. I'm an affiliate of theirs and I live in NY. Does that make NewEgg have a physical location in New York state? Of course not. I'm not an employee of NewEgg, I'm just an affiliate. I post a link to NewEgg on my website and get a small kickback for any sales that it generates. The website that I run is hosted by a company in Texas. Does that mean that NewEgg has a "physical presence" in Texas also and should pay Texas sales tax? The whole "affiliate = physical presence" argument is just a money grab. Then again, we shouldn't be surprised. This is the state that also taxes telecommuters on their full income even if they only work inside NY for a short period of time. (See the story of Scott Smallwood: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/20/business/businessspecial2/20tax.html [nytimes.com] )
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The Register copy and paste? (Score:5, Interesting)
"After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008," reads an email the company tossed at customers late last week, including at least one loyal Reg reader. "This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
Re:The Register copy and paste? (Score:5, Funny)
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"This decision was driven by your feedback." (Score:5, Insightful)
"This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
This is obviously just a publicity statement. There is no way in the world a large corporation would assume the massive risk of defying a law like this on the advice of its customers. Something else precipitated this.
Most likely, the law department in the company examined the law, and then the risk management division (or whoever it is: I have no idea how Newegg is managed) decided that the risk was worth taking. PR, seeing an opportunity for, well, PR, made up a fluff statement about how the dear customers were the reason.
Not that I'm complaining.
Dear IRS, (Score:5, Funny)
After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that I have decided to stop paying my Federal and State tax, effective August 27, 2008.
This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued collection agency.
NY taxes (Score:5, Interesting)
I live in upstate NY as well and I see the tremendous issues NY has with attracting good paying jobs. NY is unable to attract new business' therefore they look to supplement their revenue by taxing the business' they can't attract here even if said business has no physical presence in the state. NY government has this view that they are entitled to a piece of the action. They are not. If they can't attract the business here they lose and should lose. The NY government is what is getting in the way of business' coming into NY and entrepreneurs starting new business'. I'm afraid you will see more of what Overstock did and thus hurt the NY economy even more. We in NY have politicians completely out of touch with the reality of the business world.
I find it amazing that when a government raises taxes they think the rich will pay it. The rich will just raise the cost of the goods they are selling accordingly in most cases.
Re:Use tax = sales tax and you are supposed to pay (Score:5, Insightful)
No, it means we can't ignore use taxes as an unconstitutional violation of interstate commerce. Pay if you want, but few do - And suggesting we make it "painless" by having the merchants handle the tax completely misses (and actually hides) the point that we shouldn't pay such taxes in the first place.
End this moronic madness now
And there, we agree (in word if not in spirit) - Let's entirely do away with the single most regressive taxes we have. Personally, I think we should also do away with "withholding" as well, and make everyone actually cough up $10-30k every April 15th - Watch how fast we get serious tax reform when people realize how much they actually pay, rather than merely bitching about it as a mostly-meaningless "rate" they don't really feel thanks to the government slowly boiling the frog.
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Re:Use tax = sales tax and you are supposed to pay (Score:5, Interesting)
Your rates in Wisconsin is just the half of it...
Towns in AR are incorporated around county land. The town has 1% added to already 5% making 6% - FOR THE TOWN LAND. Post Office makes these two lands appear as 1 so the only choice is charging the 6% for the county land. Military Bases and Parks also fall into these traps.
Washington state has MTA the follow the boundaries elementary school districts. Again you do not know for a given address if it is in or out school district.
Mobile AL has MTA so EVERY postal code two rates.
Texas has multiple rates that can add up to 3% over the state rate, but they are added in order so that if the full rate can be used (ie going over 3% total) then it skipped and you add the next rate.
Memphis Area has sales tax rate ONLY for the first $2500 then it drops to 0.
In most states Sales Tax is charged at the point of consumption (ie Where is the Cash Register). But that can also mean "Where is the customer's mailbox" since the goods are being delievered to customer, no consumption occurred until delivery. Texas just changed theirs back to be where the business is located, to help delivery companies (like flower) from having to figure out all the local tax rates.
Even the large tax rate companies are not being of help. They need a system that does Address Correction and Tax Rate following geo-boundaries.
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So NY wants to collect tax from the whole USA (Score:5, Funny)
Its not called the Empire state for nothing!
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Re:Any tax revolt is a good one. (Score:5, Informative)
If you are any kind of economicist you would realize that no functioning economy in the world today taxes at a rate that exceeds the Laffer curve inflection point. Regeanomics is a ridiculous idea
First off, the argument of Reaganomics is that the industrialized world is actually to the -right- of the inflection point, in other words, taxes are too high.
Meanwhile, the rest of the industrialized world has lowered corporate tax rates and investment tax rates below that of the USA. So, yeah, on one hand, you have the Europeans saying that Reaganomics is terrible, and people like you say, "oh yeah, you are so right"... but then, the Europeans lower their taxes, and suddenly the Euro goes sky high because of the flood of investment into the old continent.
Yeah, the EU is saying Reaganomic sucks, but that's not what they did, and they are laughing all the way to the bank.
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