Notification of Sales Tax Collection
 

I got this message/email from NewEgg.com yesterday (NewEgg is an Internet computer component distributor) -

Notification of Sales Tax Collection for Customers Shipping to New York

Dear Customer,
We want to let you know that effective this Friday, January 18th, in order to comply with applicable New York law, we will begin collecting sales tax on most orders/sales to New York state residents.

This was a Supreme Court case last year:

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/sup...-sales-n873416

Each state can make the decision for their residents.

NC has had this on the books, and it's now enforced. New York was slow at the uptake.

I missed that. It will give online sellers a headache figuring out what the local NYS sales tax is... :rolleyes:

Many won't bother. Some will use software based on the shipment zip code.

Amazon and several other companies have taken out state sales tax for some time and they just either keep it or forward it to the state....

This begs the question if, for example, NYS has the jurisdiction to come after me in TN if I don't pay it? There are several other issues with this, with tax rates and distribution being the biggest ones. Vendors have to send in their collected sales tax every month, so not only are you supposed to charge the correct tax for each sale, you are also supposed to send a payment to each state you have collected the tax for. If you sell to 50 states, you will have to write 50 checks before the 20th every month. Maybe I got it all wrong, but that part alone sounds ridiculous.

So far, nobody (not even my CPA) has been able to explain how the administration of all this is supposed to work. The more I think about it, the more I suspect that this is a step toward a federal sales tax with one rate and one check to send.

I am not a tax consultant, and don't play one on TV, but I believe that the only time you are required to collect sales tax is if your business has a physical presence in the state where you are shipping... otherwise you only collect sales tax from goods sold to people who live in the same state as you.

Other than that, I can't see that a mechanism exists for a state to go after a business in another state for non-payment of sales tax.

I'll second that notion. This is how it seems to work on eBay and Amazon. Company websites such as WalMart or Harbor Freight definitely collect sales tax..

That's the way it has been working for quite a while. There was a big to do about that here in TN several years ago when one of the big players (Amazon, IIRC) moved in and tried to negotiate a no sales tax deal with the state. From what I understand, the new order is to collect sales tax on everything shipped into a state, regardless of where you are located and regardless of presence in that state. I can't for the life of me see how they could enforce that, and I can't figure out how the administration would work either. So for now I don't charge tax on any out of state sales, I'll wait until NYS Dept of Revenue calls. :p

In dear old Ca all firearms have to go through and FFL. The FFL is required to collect the sales tax. The other part is all mail order products tax are supposed to be paid as a use tax at the end of the year in your state tax return.

The Supreme Court case referred to in this thread authorized the states to require the payment of sale tax on things shipped into the states regardless of physical location of the seller. Of course, the state has to pass a law to this effect.

Personally I have had to provide my Sales Tax number etc to (1) Aim - who sells a lot on line and (2) to the Poulin auction company. If I did not do so, they were going to charge me sales tax - I forget whether it was their state rate or my state rate. Since I have a sales tax number, I documented it with them.

Generally speaking, it will be an interesting to see how they collect it from people in other states.