Amazon & Collecting State Sales Taxes

Some postings that have been deleted occasionally land in my e-mail box ...

 

Not in mine, thank goodness.

 

Sometimes the deletion is not fast enough that a particular posting still lands in some mail box ...

 

You're buying the downloaded music from Amazon. E.g., Amazon is building distribution centers in Texas; Amazon has a physical presence in Texas; therefore, Texans who download music from Amazon will pay taxes.

Agreed that those driving newer cars shouldn't be penalized, but disagree that those driving older cars should pay higher registration rates as car ages, to serve as a discouragement.

Why? The general context here is trying to cut down on all forms of pollution. Lots of pollution is generated through manufacturing a new car (e.g., thousands of gallons of water used, emissions from steel plants, and on and on). One way to reduce all forms of pollution is to stop buying so much stuff, like a new car every five years.

I drive a 1994 Honda Civic, which averages 28mph. It is a smaller and lighter car than most cars on the highway, thus polluting less. It's been well maintained by my local mechanic.

 

I used to do it, but gave up. Do people really order thousands of items online annually? At my most active, it may have been dozens.

 

Yes, this has the potential to change retail.

An example...I decided I wanted to buy a copy of the new Monopoly "Millionaire" board game. The local Wal Mart has it for about 25 plus tax.

Amazon had it for 18.99, Prime free shipping and no tax. Ordered today, probably delivered tomorrow.

Soon amazon will be charging the tax...but I'd rather wait a day than deal with Walmart.

 

I don't understand why you say "prime free shipping." Prime cost 79.00 per year, so it's not free, and neither is the shipping associated with that type of account.

To be sure, you may order so much from Amazon it is worth it to you, but it's not free shipping. For example, if you order 40 times from Amazon in one year (that would seem to be on the high side), then you are paying approximately 2.00 shipping for each order.

The only way to get "free" shipping is to order > $25.00 and wait.

 

That's true, but we have certainly made our money back on Prime, whether it be shipping, videos, Kindle book borrowing, plus other perks. We've watched hundreds of hours of films and tv shows on the roku.

(In disclosure, we got a special deal on Prime for $40.00)

 

Good for you. I hadn't thought of all that other stuff (I don't do Kindle, or download movies to watch), so I can see there is a lot of value added in your case, esp. since you got prime for 40.00.

 

That's one way to look at it, and I'm not going to argue that that perspective is incorrect.

Certainly Prime isn't free, but I don't think it's fair to equate super saver shipping on orders over $25 with Prime 2-day shipping or with the small extra cost of getting overnight shipping. I've ordered a couple of things that I definitely wanted quickly -- and one in particular that I needed to receive before leaving for a trip. Had I paid for express delivery without Prime, that items probably would have cost me around $20 shipping. Do that a few times per year and you're spending the same to ship those few items as you would getting everything shipped by 2-day shipping for an entire year. And, of course, you can order a single item such as a cd or dvd that doesn't cost $25 and not have to worry about finding something else to add to the order to get free shipping. The videos available to view for free to Prime members is just icing on the cake.

I held out on Prime for a few years because I didn't think it was worth it. I started a free trial and discovered how much I valued having everything shipped with a tracking number, and having everything I order arrive in 2 days or less. Then again, I order a lot of stuff from amazon.com.

 

Amazon Prime is great. There are tons of TV stuff I can watch that are free.