Amazon & sales tax

Well this is one of those good news/bad news stories. Amazon is going to build a 1 million sq ft distribution center in WI and it will eventually employ 1,000+ people. The good.

Because it will now have a brick & mortar presence in WI, it will start collecting sales tax on all WI sales. We do buy a lot from Amazon. That's the bad from our perspective.

 

Amazon is pushing for a tax on all Internet sales. They have several distribution centers here in PA, so we pay. Check out New Egg for electronics and also Abe's of Maine, both have DC's in New Jersey, but don't collect in states where they don't operate.

 

Amazon is not pushing for the sales tax collection, it is the local / state governments. It was a huge story last year how they had to cave to the tax collection pressure.

 

Yeah Amazon is definitely not pushing for sales tax. Quite the opposite actually. Having that tax exempt status is/was a huge advantage for them over the competition.

 

In the beginning, yes. That's why he started in Washington, so he could ship tax free. Not so much now, Amazon is collecting tax in 14 states, so it's now on equal footing with other retailers. Bezos wants online retailers with sales exceeding $1mm to collect sales tax from everyone.

 

They announced their plans to place several distribution sites throughout the U.S. for faster shipping almost a year ago. I'm not liking it, but they are counting on faster shipping over tax free...even thought its not really tax free.

 

Amazon does not charge tax.

the government charges taxes and makes amazon collect it for them.

 

I expect the feds to level the playing field at some point, even if doing so seems meddlesome and of dubious legality. They would have stepped in long ago if the proceeds had gone into their coffers rather than the various states'. If that happens, people with distribution centers in their states will be glad they have them.

Whatever else happens, Amazon's super saver shipping is still attractive to people who aren't in a big hurry to get stuff. Aside from fast free shipping, are there other benefits of Prime membership?

Our lake location is 25 minutes away from most retail, so having stuff shipped does save gas. This situation, and I guess ethics, also make us reluctant to do what many others do these days- shop stores and buy online.

 

You get a bunch of streaming movies and shows, just like Netflix. But also like Netflix, only a small percentage of the stuff you get free with Prime is worth watching.

Up until just a few months ago it was easy to get Prime free for a year and then half price. You just needed to subscribe with an .edu email address for the student rate. My alma maters gave us lifetime email and I think most universities do that. Unfortunately they caught on that everyone was doing that so now they are asking for proof of enrollment when it comes time to renew. Oh well. I hardly use the streaming and where I live the free super saver shipping usually doesn't take more than a couple days anyway. So I'll probably let it expire. But it is nice to be able to just buy small items under $25 whenever you want and have it delivered right away for free.

 

As an independent retailer, the tax advantage is huge. Even if you are able to match the price on an item then collecting the sales tax is now around 9.75% in our state. It has always been unfair, IMO. Not saying it is not nice just unfair especially to small business.
I also believe that when people buy items over the internet that the state requires them to pay the tax(use tax) they just can not enforce it.

 

Actually, Bezos gave up on the tax fight because his vision of the future is to have Amazon provide same day service. That means he will need distribution centers in every state and all the major cities.

 

Thanks for the info about Prime. Not much there for us.

 

Move to Oregon

 

Or New Hampshire.

 

Damn, my wife placed a $50 order today and we were now charged state sales tax. They haven't even broke ground on the distribution center they are building in WI.

 

You also can get one free library book a month for your Kindle - and they are good books, i.e., all of the Harry Potter books are available.

Love Amazon. When I bought my Kindle a while back, I got a discount on Prime - I think $59 - so I took advantage of it. I will definitely be renewing it.

 

That sucks. I love Amazon.

Hope they stay out of Ohio.

 

I always take advantage of the free Kindle book, but you definitely don't have a HUGE selection - at least, they rarely have the books on my reading list available in the free selection. Yet, I'm able to come up with *something* every month, so....

We have also started watching the free streaming videos - our internet used to not be fast enough to stream (we live in the boonies and have satellite) but it has improved over the past year. So the last couple days of our billing cycle every month are "movie night" (we went over our bandwidth one month and had 3 days of no/sloooooow internet -would like to avoid that in the future) To follow up on what KickinChicken said - I have found the tv selections far better than the movie selection for the free Prime streaming. And when I say "better", I just mean stuff I haven't seen on tv and want to watch ;-) It's very easy for you to look online and see if there are benefits that you would enjoy - just like coupons in Vegas - you need to see if they're actually relevant to you.

PLUS you can share the Prime free shipping - my husband uses mine (and my mom is listed but I don't think she ever uses it) Between all the stuff my husband orders for his work and for home, and all the stuff I order over a year, it makes sense to keep Prime for our household. I do think it through every year pre-renewal to make sure we're on the positive side of the cost-benefit analysis!

 

I always forget how shitty paying sales tax is until I get to Vegas, oh that $2.99 item is actually gonna be $3.20.

I love living in MT