MoT's WDF

I may be late to the party, but just found out about the implementation of sales tax to online merchants. I knew about amazon, but thought I could still use my old tricks to avoid the insanely high sales tax here in California. BillionareDoors and others set me straight, but being a deal forum, finding loopholes in this system could be hugely beneficial to all of us.

I didn't want to clutter up the deals thread with more questions I had, so I started this. If anyone has any info to add or advice, please feel free to share.

I will start with a question. How does this whole thing apply to overseas retailers like RGM? Could they be the new sweet spot for deals?

Here are some links from the deals thread pertaining to the subject.

https://newbostonpost.com/2019/01/27/ei ... acon-hill/

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cnbc.c ... r-you.html

Sent from my LG-M322 using Tapatalk

First, I'm not a tax export, so don't quote me, I just have to help deal with this at work

I doubt that this will affect any retailer outside the US (now). Within the US it's going to vary a lot. The bottom line is that if it's a bigger retailer, more than likely they are going to stat collecting sales tax.

Some of the rules:

• If they have a physical presence in the state (called Nexus) they should already be collecting taxes.
• The item has to be taxable in the state. Since watches are physical things, they are more than likely taxable.
• The state has to have sales tax.
• (the fun part). Each state has different limits as to when you need to start collecting taxes. For most states it's a dollar value.

The fun and joy (from the merchant side) is that each state sets it's sales tax rules and it's not uniform from state to state. I live in Wisconsin and we have a pretty crazy sales tax rate:

• Wisconsin 5%
• Milwaukee Country 0.5%
• Special 0.1%

So to properly calculate sales tax in Wisconsin you need to determine what county the person lives in (which can be difficult) and then determine if there is a special tax (Right now there is one for the Brewers stadium and another for the Packers stadium).

There are lots of systems out there that hook into popular ecommerce systems to calculate taxes. The problem is that they are not cheap. It's also very time consuming (therefore expensive) for the merchant to file sales tax in all the states.

I hate to be negative, but I'm more than a bit nervous that this may literally force some smaller sellers to go out of business or raise prices (a lot). The burden on he merchant is lot. I have no idea how places like eBay will handle this. My guess is that they will build it in and then pass the costs onto the seller. The question is can eBay do that and can they file tax on behalf of the seller.

My 2 cents.

The way to do this is for the seller to tell the state the dollar amount and let the states figure out how much to tax the individual. The incentive is that they are bringing in taxes they used to not get. It's ridiculous to expect every retailer to accommodate countless buyers. The logic is backwards and will eventually be corrected. It has to.

Robotaz wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 10:48 am The way to do this is for the seller to tell the state the dollar amount and let the states figure out how much to tax the individual. The incentive is that they are bringing in taxes they used to not get. It's ridiculous to expect every retailer to accommodate countless buyers. The logic is backwards and will eventually be corrected. It has to.

I'm pretty sure that that will never happen and I honestly doubt that you'd want it to happen. There would be a whole lot of personal information that would need to pass back and forth. To get some of the Wisconsin taxes correct you almost need to get down to the street level of information. Do you really want the various states to know everything that you purchased (you'd have to tell them everything to determine if it's taxable).

While I don't like it, I do (kind of) understand where the states are coming from. Before the Internet if you wanted to do business in a state you had to 'setup shop' there. There was no question then that you were subject to that states sales tax. Yes, there was mail order, but I don't believe that was anywhere close to the modern ecommerce volume. So now the tax code is being 'modernized' to keep up with the Internet.

ffeingol wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 11:50 am

Robotaz wrote: ↑Mon Jun 17, 2019 10:48 am The way to do this is for the seller to tell the state the dollar amount and let the states figure out how much to tax the individual. The incentive is that they are bringing in taxes they used to not get. It's ridiculous to expect every retailer to accommodate countless buyers. The logic is backwards and will eventually be corrected. It has to.

I'm pretty sure that that will never happen and I honestly doubt that you'd want it to happen. There would be a whole lot of personal information that would need to pass back and forth. To get some of the Wisconsin taxes correct you almost need to get down to the street level of information. Do you really want the various states to know everything that you purchased (you'd have to tell them everything to determine if it's taxable).

While I don't like it, I do (kind of) understand where the states are coming from. Before the Internet if you wanted to do business in a state you had to 'setup shop' there. There was no question then that you were subject to that states sales tax. Yes, there was mail order, but I don't believe that was anywhere close to the modern ecommerce volume. So now the tax code is being 'modernized' to keep up with the Internet.

The state doesn't have to know anything about what I purchased other than the price and my zip code. If there are categories of items and nonlinear taxation, then the state needs to post it and tell businesses to submit the correct tax code with the purchase. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying, so maybe I'm responding to something else.

I'm mostly concerned with an environment that encourages business growth and prosperity. Telling businesses to do the job of the state is a job killer.

As far as setting up shop, it's a big difference building a store in one place and delivering goods to all places. I think states are making a ridiculous situation that strangles business.

I’m just going to sit here in Oregon and keep my mouth shut.

atdegs wrote:I’m just going to sit here in Oregon and keep my mouth shut.

Perfect. Just keep that mouth shut and send me the watches I ordered to your address lol.

Sent from my LG-M322 using Tapatalk

Dub Rubb wrote:

atdegs wrote:I’m just going to sit here in Oregon and keep my mouth shut.

Perfect. Just keep that mouth shut and send me the watches I ordered to your address lol.

Sent from my LG-M322 using Tapatalk

I’ll definitely send most of the watches.

Yesterday I got a notification on my ebay home page that my account will likely be affected by new sales tax regulations. It sent me to this page linked below. It seems that a lot more states will be taxing ebay purchases starting tomorrow, 7/1.

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/paying ... 1#section2

Rakuten (the shopping site, not the cash back site) has never showed sales tax for me before today but it is showing up now. I'm in PA. They also have a list of states with recent changes at the link below.

https://support.rakuten.com/hc/en-us/ar ... -how-much-

The states need revenue, yes. Rather than a complicated to impose & regressive method such as sales.tax, they should just use some other form of taxation, like a progressive income tax.

barutanseijin wrote:The states need revenue, yes. Rather than a complicated to impose & regressive method such as sales.tax, they should just use some other form of taxation, like a progressive income tax.

We have plenty income taxes. People who save their money shouldn’t be taxed to cover people who don’t. Sales tax ensures people who want to spend money on the system pay for the system.

I buy a lot and pay a lot. If I need to I can stop buying and save. To me it’s logical and not punitive to anyone.

atdegs wrote:

Dub Rubb wrote:

atdegs wrote:I’m just going to sit here in Oregon and keep my mouth shut.

Perfect. Just keep that mouth shut and send me the watches I ordered to your address lol.

Sent from my LG-M322 using Tapatalk

I’ll definitely send most of the watches.

Ahh, a forwarder like www.shipito.com can help here. They have addresses in US ( Inc Oregon) and overseas. You pay additional costs for S&H so often the tax is cheaper. It may be more helpful for stuff that can't be shipped to CA for some reason. Many performance auto parts are in this category. They are legal off-road on non-pollution controlled vehicles but you can't get a vendor to sell to a CA resident. Even when the retailer is already in CA. Same with some shower heads, spray glue and many other things we just get our undies in a wad about in this state.

Sent from my TB-8704V using Tapatalk