If you Live in NC and Shop @ Amazon ....

[Mousey]

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Tue Apr 20, 1:21 am ET

(Reuters) – Online retailer Amazon.com has filed a lawsuit in a federal court to block the North Carolina state government's demand it disclose all transaction details, including names and addresses, involving state residents, court documents show.

In the complaint, Amazon said that North Carolina Department of Revenue (DOR) is demanding that the retailer turn over the name and address of virtually every North Carolina resident who has purchased anything from Amazon since 2003 .

Amazon also said in the court filing that DOR also demanded the company furnish records of what each customer purchased and how much they paid.

The company said the disclosure of such information will invade privacy ...

 

[jetset]

Damned right it invades privacy - these bloody lawmakers are getting above themselves with these attacks on personal freedoms and privacy and need to be reminded that they are there by the will of the people, and hopefully for the good of the people....or have we got that wrong and it is really all about the political party they serve?

 

[Mousey]

This is supposedly all about sales taxes ... BUT... NC doesn't need to know WHO spent WHAT... all the DOR should need is a total amount NC shoppers spent...

Seems the NCDOR is fishing around for more than just the bottom line here....

 

[BingoT]

You know that really sucks
I say get rid of all them lawmakers and put them all in a............

 

[jetset]

They've [the politicians] been trying to get their hands on Internet commerce for some time, and this is just one more move in that direction imo.

As for asking for private details they don't really need, perhaps the thinking is "let's try and get as much as we can - we may be able to find some new way to wring taxes out of the consumer!"

 

[jod5413]

They've [the politicians] been trying to get their hands on Internet commerce for some time, and this is just one more move in that direction imo.

As for asking for private details they don't really need, perhaps the thinking is "let's try and get as much as we can - we may be able to find some new way to wring taxes out of the consumer!"

Truer words were never spoken, Jetset. This battle has been ongoing for quite a while. All the big name on line industries have been hit with one version or another about collecting sales taxes for sales in certain states. Almost all the big retailers, Sears, J C Pennys, etc. caved in a long time ago. I hope that Amazon will take a firm stance on this. They got you coming and going and then they want to get you for standing still! Sigh

 

[jetset]

I guess we'll see even more of this in the current economy, where individual states are battling to close budget gaps.

Just in my own 13 years on the Web there has been a significant dilution of the once idealistic vision of the internet as a medium for everyone, transcending man-made borders and empowering freedom of speech and commerce....sad but perhaps inevitable that it should now be a target for politicians everywhere as they seek to control and tax yet another aspect of modern life.

I doubt governments and politicians will ever learn to live within their/our means, hence this voracious appetite for more and more of our hard earned cash.

 

[maxd]

I'm generally not much in favour of monolithic corporations but I suppose this case demonstrates one important thing: big companies __can__ fight back whereas some small little webco would probably just roll over and do what was asked of it for lack of resources to 'fight the man'.

 

[vinylweatherman]

The UK has "import duty", and items over a certain value have to be declared to customs, who then ensure that the appropriate VAT has been collected and passed on. If not, the recipient has to pay before they get their goods. This is enforced at the borders, and does NOT rely on mail order companies collecting the tax. VAT is a "sales tax", similar to the US state sales taxes. The US makes life complicated for themselves by having states that in some respects are different countries, yet are all within one border. If Amazon posts the goods from WITHIN the US, there is no customs check.

Maybe they should levy the tax at the point of sale, so if Amazon "sell" the goods online from a warehouse in, say, California, they have to pay Californian sales tax. This would help the CONSUMER, because states would have to compete with each other to offer the best terms to businesses, and I thought this was what "America was all about" - let the market drive competition, and the less government interference, the better.

 

[tennis_balls]

Maybe they should levy the tax at the point of sale, so if Amazon "sell" the goods online from a warehouse in, say, California, they have to pay Californian sales tax.

for this reason amazon has a giant warehouse near the border in Fernley, Nevada (California has a much larger customer base and the highest sales tax of any state)

 

[vinylweatherman]

for this reason amazon has a giant warehouse near the border in Fernley, Nevada (California has a much larger customer base and the highest sales tax of any state)

Maybe this has to be addressed at federal level. The EU have already severely inhibited this kind of thing by requiring all member states to set a MINIMUM rate of VAT (sales tax if you like) of 15%, but with the option to charge a higher rate. This prevents one EU country from charging a stupidly low rate of, say, 0.5%, and having every mail order and online business set up in THEIR country. I presume Nevada has a low or nil sales tax, which is what Amazon prefer to pay, so they set up there.

For California to do any good with their case, they will have to establish whether sales tax is due at the point of sale, or point of delivery. Before the internet, the sale always took place in a shop, so sales tax was payable there.

What happened BEFORE the internet, but when there were mail order and telephone sales, since the same "dodge" could have been used then.

 

[GrandMaster]

Companies are required to collect sales tax if they have a nexus in the state, which generally means things like physical presence, property located in the state or employees working there. If the vendor is not required to collect sales tax, then as far as I know all states with a sales tax impose an equal amount of so-called use tax on the buyer. The problem is that people don't tend to pay the use tax and with the rise of the online sales and the massive drop in revenues in many states (10% or more) the problem has got more acute.

The federal government hasn't got the power to impose a sales tax on the states that don't want it. The minimum rate of VAT is only imposed because a proportion of VAT is used to fund the EU bureacracy, and the minimum rate protects the EU's revenues. Countries could make themselves more competive by reducing income tax and social security taxes and this would not be against EU rules.