Every Day's a Tax Holiday At Amazon 377
theodp writes "With Black Friday here, Slate's Farhad Manjoo reminds readers of how Amazon.com undersells Best Buy, the Apple store, and almost everybody else. Read his lips: no sales taxes. Unless you live in KS, KY, NY, ND, or WA, you'll pay no sales tax on many purchases from Amazon, giving Amazon a huge — and largely hidden — price advantage over most other national retailers. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos is certainly no fan of taxes — he explored founding Amazon on an Indian reservation, and recently ponied up $100,000 to defeat a proposed WA state income tax, a good investment for someone who's cashed in close to $800,000,000 in Amazon stock this year alone. So, is Amazon's tax-free status unfair? Of course it is, says Manjoo. Amazon has physical operations in 17 states in which the company and its employees enjoy the fruits of local taxes — police and fire protection, roads, hospitals, and other infrastructure that make its operations possible. Yet Amazon skirts tax collection in most of these places through clever legal tricks."
Corporations paying taxes? How quaint! (Score:1, Funny)
Taxes are only intended for the lower/middle classes and small/medium businesses. Where would we end up if rich individuals and big corporations would pay taxes? Hah, that idea is preposterous!
Amazon is just being a good citizen and serves as a shining example for others!
Re:Relevance (Score:3, Funny)
You are probably told to hate VAT because it was invented by France rather than because it is socialist.
Re:Relevance (Score:3, Funny)
In California if I use my car.. it's 27 cents per gallon tax (18c norm and they add sales tax).
What I find hilarious.. is that any so called loophole Amazon is using is a LEGAL one. Bitch all you want but it is legal.
In my case if I don't pay my tax at the end of the year, my savings just from Amazon would be around 100.00. Of course I will dutifully report any and all purchases on the declaration line.(meh)
If I order online someone else is paying taxes to operate here. The money used to get that company to my house pays taxes. So they've paid "or amazon paid" to make a trip to my house. They paid for the road and the highest vehicle registration taxes in the nation.
California is NOT a business friendly state. We already have a law that states we must pay a tax if one is not collected. It is NOT Amazon's responsibility to collect it.
For 1 gallon of gas 27c goes to California Plus if I spend a dollar at Dollar Tree it's another 9 cents to them. So 36c to drive to the store and pick up 1.00 worth of food. They wonder why this state is bankrupt?