On Line Sales and Sales Tax

[wingnuts]

Originally Posted by SonnyInPhx

Watch out...if they could find a way to do it, they would charge you for the amount of air you breath...saying that your exhaled breath is adding to the carbon footprint and creating more air pollution.

Shhhhhhh, don't give them any ideas....[emoji106]

[RVPioneer]

Originally Posted by wnytaxman

That's a very good point. I would hope that we never see a national sales tax. Our sales tax here in NYS was going to be temporary and I believe it was at 2%. Now we are close to 9% and I can guarantee you that it is not temporary.

Wasn't the Income Tax supposed to be temporary to pay for WWI? Still here after 100 plus years. If they can tax it they will. And it will never be enough. I'd expect something close to a 5% internet sales tax at some point in the future for states that charge sales tax. Just think of all the good it will do.

[Jake21]

Originally Posted by powerboatr

here in texas we have been paying them for quite sometime

Yeah, but no state income tax. Property tax is the money maker in TX.

[NCC-1701A]

Our founding fathers had the Boston Tea Party over a fraction of a percentage of tax. I wonder what they would think if they were here today. Would probably want to have the King and his "low" taxes back!

But...that said....I think it's only fair to the stick and brick retailers that if there is a sales tax (and BTW...most are Sales AND USE Taxes, so people are probably supposed to be "self-claiming" them after any exemption limit anyway...yeah...right) it should apply whether bought online or not. In Minnesota, I've been paying them for many online purchases for quite some time now...county tax included. But then, we are the Land of 10,000 Taxes!

[Jim18655]

Pennsylvania has a "use tax" that you're supposed to pay when you file state income tax. 6% on any out of state purchase that the retailer doesn't collect sales tax on.

[wnytaxman]

Originally Posted by Jim18655

Pennsylvania has a "use tax" that you're supposed to pay when you file state income tax. 6% on any out of state purchase that the retailer doesn't collect sales tax on.

Most states that charge sales tax have that same line item on their tax returns. It is probably one of the least used lines on any state tax return. There is no way a state can enforce that issue without a massive expenditure of manpower which is very unlikely to happen. For individuals, the use tax reporting is totally voluntary.

[nothermark]

What I see is large operations like Wayfair who delivers stuff sold by Walmart will be collecting. The small custom shops will still ignore it unless they are caught. It will continue to be hard for a state to figure out that some small shop 10 states away sold something to one of their state residents and did not collect taxes. OTOH the large dealers like EBay are easy to track as are credit card sales. It also occurred to me that Paypal will probably automatically add the tax for all the small vendors that use them.

The local S&B will still suffer because they don't stock what a lot of folks want. Those folks are now able to go on line for what they want instead of settling for what the local folks want to sell.

[Superburban]

Originally Posted by wnytaxman

Most states that charge sales tax have that same line item on their tax returns. It is probably one of the least used lines on any state tax return. There is no way a state can enforce that issue without a massive expenditure of manpower which is very unlikely to happen. For individuals, the use tax reporting is totally voluntary.

I got a statement last year from Amazon, stating how much we bought, and that they also reported it to Colorado.



I just ignored it, since my only income from the VA disability, is not taxed.



Interesting, looking at Colorados tax page, they say we should also be paying tax on purchases made when we were out of the state, and brought the items back to Colorado.

Taxpayers owe use tax when they store, use or consume a taxable item in Colorado for which they did not pay sales tax. This most commonly occurs when a purchase is made from an out-of-state seller either over the internet, through catalog sales or by a Colorado resident traveling in another state.

[FlyingDiver]

Originally Posted by Superburban

they say we should also be paying tax on purchases made when we were out of the state, and brought the items back to Colorado.

IF you didn't pay sales tax on it in the state you purchased it.

[Superburban]

The web page does not say anything about whether you paid a sales tax in the other state. I tried to find the actual law, and quit. Not that big of a deal in my book.

[FlyingDiver]

Originally Posted by Superburban

The web page does not say anything about whether you paid a sales tax in the other state. I tried to find the actual law, and quit. Not that big of a deal in my book.

It's the first line of the paragraph you quoted. "Taxpayers owe use tax when they store, use or consume a taxable item in Colorado for which they did not pay sales tax."

If it was a vehicle, they would charge the difference in tax paid vs CO tax owed. Wonder if there's any provision for that for the use tax?

[Superburban]

Ok, I read it as not paying Co tax. My bad.

[docj]

Originally Posted by wnytaxman

I’m not aware of anyone being able to buy consumer goods directly from China.

I guess you haven't heard of AliExpress? https://www.aliexpress.com/?src=goog...hoCvk4QAvD_BwE


There's a lot of good stuff you can buy direct from China and it gets to the US rather quickly.

[wnytaxman]

Joel, I did not know that you could buy goods directly from China. I wonder how the potential new tariffs will impact those goods.