Amazon Folds In California Sales Tax Deal 639
theodp writes "In a deal indicating all sides appear ready to call a truce, the San Jose Mercury News reports that Amazon.com is offering to back down from its referendum drive to repeal an online sales tax in exchange for a one-year moratorium on collecting the tax. Under the deal, Amazon would agree to begin collecting the tax from California residents in September 2012, unless Congress takes action on Internet sales taxes before then. The development comes a day after a NY Times editorial ripped Amazon over its sales 'tax dodge.'"
just to be clear (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Amzon isnt dodging anything (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:You're wrong, Amazon is wrong, and that's all. (Score:2, Interesting)
The only difference here is the relationship between Amazon and "subsidiaries" in California. Really though, states do not have the right to tax interstate commerce, only the federal government has that power. Sorry that the constitution got in the way here, but you know, it is the constitution.
Re:BS taxes (Score:5, Interesting)
Hey, not every Liberal likes every tax, you realize? I find sales tax in general to be regressive; I find income taxes to be too high considering the constant "need" to cut everything *but* defense and tax breaks for the rich.
If my tax dollars were going to education and health care, instead of re-education and murder in foreign countries, I'd be pretty content with the tax rates as they are now.
Re:[sigh] (Score:5, Interesting)
Personally, I support the Quill Corp. v. North Dakota ruling, and don't think a business should pay any sales tax unless it has a physical presence in the state.
So if Amazon does have a presence there, not just business partners, but an actual wholly-owned subsidiary, then in my mind that means they need to collect sales taxes on CA customers, since everyone else has to follow that law too (the Quill case dates to 1992, and was really a sequel to a case decided way back in 1967 about the same thing). We need to be clear there's a difference between this case, and other cases where an online company truly has NO physical presence in the state, and only sends things there through shipping companies (who DO pay taxes to the states they operate in).
My question, however, is why Amazon has a wholly-owned subsidiary in CA, and how this helps it with tax evasion. If they want to evade taxes, shouldn't they just concentrate all their operations in one state, preferably one like Wyoming where very few customers would have to pay sales taxes? Or is this because they want to have many warehouses spread across the country to keep average shipping times low, and they make each regional warehouse a different subsidiary?
Personally, I'm surprised this went anywhere at all for them: how can you possibly argue that a wholly-owned subsidiary is in fact a separate company? If you own it, it's part of you. I agree with their argument (in the NY case) that their affiliates are really separate companies, and that they shouldn't collect sales tax in a state just because there's some affiliates there (however, if the customer is in the same state as the affiliate, they should). Just because I contract with a separate company to allow them to sell some stuff on my website doesn't mean they're the same company as me; the ownership is totally different. This would be a little like Walmart collecting Michigan sales taxes on all its purchases in all its stores nationwide, just because it sells a few products from a company that's located in Michigan (I know, it's a bit of a stretch, but selling someone else's products in your store is exactly what Amazon does with their affiliates).
Re:[sigh] (Score:4, Interesting)
Mail order did not introduce a paradigm shift in the economy the way the internet has.
Bullshit! The western half of the United States was built on the Sears mail order catalog. Literally in some cases-- they sold kit houses!
Maybe learn some history and rejoin the conversation, huh?