OT - Ping: whoever it was that suggested Amazon to me

"sf" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> However, their price was lower than
> what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to pay tax.

But you still owe the Use Tax. Be sure to send a check today.

sf wrote:
> My new digital camera is here.
>
> I didn't "join" Amazon, so I paid for shipping (very reasonable). All
> in all, I saved $55+. Hubby read the customer feedback, so we didn't
> buy from the lowest price vendor. However, their price was lower than
> what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to pay tax.
>
> FedEx was awesome! Hubby got a chuckle because the vendor's
> documentation said it was shipped the day before we ordered it
> (regular 3-5 day delivery). He tracked it this morning. FedEx said
> it was on a truck scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, but it came
> today.... TWO DAYS after we ordered. Wow! Whatta country!

Cool. What model did you get?

I'm trying to think of the OL company I bought my camera from...they
were awesome, too.
-L.

sf wrote:
> My new digital camera is here.
>
> I didn't "join" Amazon, so I paid for shipping (very reasonable). All
> in all, I saved $55+. Hubby read the customer feedback, so we didn't
> buy from the lowest price vendor. However, their price was lower than
> what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to pay tax.
>

You have to pay use tax since the sales tax wasn't collected by the
merchant. I know two people who made relatively small purchases who got
a letter from their states revenue department citing "Internet" purchases.


> FedEx was awesome! Hubby got a chuckle because the vendor's
> documentation said it was shipped the day before we ordered it
> (regular 3-5 day delivery). He tracked it this morning. FedEx said
> it was on a truck scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, but it came
> today.... TWO DAYS after we ordered. Wow! Whatta country!

George wrote:
> sf wrote:
>> My new digital camera is here.
>>
>> I didn't "join" Amazon, so I paid for shipping (very reasonable).
>> All in all, I saved $55+. Hubby read the customer feedback, so we
>> didn't buy from the lowest price vendor. However, their price was
>> lower than what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to
>> pay tax.
>>
>
> You have to pay use tax since the sales tax wasn't collected by the
> merchant. I know two people who made relatively small purchases who
> got
> a letter from their states revenue department citing "Internet"
> purchases.
>
I've never had that happen and I shop almost exclusively online. Apparently
TN is none to bright about such things. I heard a brief report a couple of
months back about TN trying to pass a bill of some sort to require sales tax
to be collected on online and catalog purchases. Never heard another word
about it.

Jill

jmcquown wrote:

>>You have to pay use tax since the sales tax wasn't collected by the
>>merchant. I know two people who made relatively small purchases who
>>got
>>a letter from their states revenue department citing "Internet"
>>purchases.
>>
>
> I've never had that happen and I shop almost exclusively online. Apparently
> TN is none to bright about such things. I heard a brief report a couple of
> months back about TN trying to pass a bill of some sort to require sales tax
> to be collected on online and catalog purchases. Never heard another word
> about it.
>
> Jill
>
>

My state tried that but seems to have chosen to enforce the existing
sales & use tax laws. PA has a line item on the state income tax return
where you declare use tax on an item if you didn't pay sales tax. The
letters I have seen state something like this: "we noticed you made
Internet/mail order purchases but have not declared sales tax on line xx
or submitted use tax form xx-1.."

George wrote:
> jmcquown wrote:
>
>>> You have to pay use tax since the sales tax wasn't collected by the
>>> merchant. I know two people who made relatively small purchases who
>>> got
>>> a letter from their states revenue department citing "Internet"
>>> purchases.
>>>
>>
>> I've never had that happen and I shop almost exclusively online.
>> Apparently TN is none to bright about such things. I heard a brief
>> report a couple of months back about TN trying to pass a bill of
>> some sort to require sales tax to be collected on online and catalog
>> purchases. Never heard another word about it.
>>
>> Jill
>>
>>
>
> My state tried that but seems to have chosen to enforce the existing
> sales & use tax laws. PA has a line item on the state income tax
> return
> where you declare use tax on an item if you didn't pay sales tax. The
> letters I have seen state something like this: "we noticed you made
> Internet/mail order purchases but have not declared sales tax on line
> xx
> or submitted use tax form xx-1.."

There is no state income tax in TN so maybe that's why they can't figure out
the Use Tax thing

Jill

sf wrote:
> My new digital camera is here.
>
> I didn't "join" Amazon, so I paid for shipping (very reasonable). All
> in all, I saved $55+. Hubby read the customer feedback, so we didn't
> buy from the lowest price vendor. However, their price was lower than
> what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to pay tax.
>
> FedEx was awesome! Hubby got a chuckle because the vendor's
> documentation said it was shipped the day before we ordered it
> (regular 3-5 day delivery). He tracked it this morning. FedEx said
> it was on a truck scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, but it came
> today.... TWO DAYS after we ordered. Wow! Whatta country!
>
Last year I bought some stuff from Thinkgeek in New Jersey. It was
shipped via FedEx and arrived in Australia two days later, on the same
day as the email saying it had been despatched. Awesome indeed!

Christine

On 15 Jun 2006 01:52:01 -0700, -L. wrote:

>
> Cool. What model did you get?

Canon A700 Powershot. It came with a 16mb memory stick. We bought a
package of two 1 GIG memory sticks (2 GIGs total) that are on sale for
$60 at CompUSA, so we're all set. Life is good!
--

Ham and eggs.
A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.

On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:41:30 +1000, Old Mother Ashby wrote:

> sf wrote:
> > My new digital camera is here.
> >
> > I didn't "join" Amazon, so I paid for shipping (very reasonable). All
> > in all, I saved $55+. Hubby read the customer feedback, so we didn't
> > buy from the lowest price vendor. However, their price was lower than
> > what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to pay tax.
> >
> > FedEx was awesome! Hubby got a chuckle because the vendor's
> > documentation said it was shipped the day before we ordered it
> > (regular 3-5 day delivery). He tracked it this morning. FedEx said
> > it was on a truck scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, but it came
> > today.... TWO DAYS after we ordered. Wow! Whatta country!
> >
> Last year I bought some stuff from Thinkgeek in New Jersey. It was
> shipped via FedEx and arrived in Australia two days later, on the same
> day as the email saying it had been despatched. Awesome indeed!
>
I'm assuming you paid for the expedited delivery time, we didn't.
--

Ham and eggs.
A day's work for a chicken, a lifetime commitment for a pig.

sf wrote:
> On Fri, 16 Jun 2006 17:41:30 +1000, Old Mother Ashby wrote:
>
>
>> sf wrote:
>> > My new digital camera is here.
>> >
>> > I didn't "join" Amazon, so I paid for shipping (very reasonable). All
>> > in all, I saved $55+. Hubby read the customer feedback, so we didn't
>> > buy from the lowest price vendor. However, their price was lower than
>> > what we could do locally and of course we didn't have to pay tax.
>> >
>> > FedEx was awesome! Hubby got a chuckle because the vendor's
>> > documentation said it was shipped the day before we ordered it
>> > (regular 3-5 day delivery). He tracked it this morning. FedEx said
>> > it was on a truck scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, but it came
>> > today.... TWO DAYS after we ordered. Wow! Whatta country!
>> >
>> Last year I bought some stuff from Thinkgeek in New Jersey. It was
>> shipped via FedEx and arrived in Australia two days later, on the same
>> day as the email saying it had been despatched. Awesome indeed!
>>
>>
> I'm assuming you paid for the expedited delivery time, we didn't.
>
I didn't knowingly pay any extra, I wasn't offered any choice as one is
with amazon. I don't recall thinking that the shipping charge was
particularly steep.

Christine

George wrote:
> You have to pay use tax since the sales tax wasn't collected by the
> merchant. I know two people who made relatively small purchases who got
> a letter from their states revenue department citing "Internet" purchases.

Now how would a state revenue department know whether someone has made
"Internet" purchases? The only way would be if the merchant reported
the purchase to the state revenue department in question. Last time I
checked the government did not have access to my cancelled checks or
credit card bill, and I'm only one of over 4 million people in my
state. Even if they could legally look at your credit card bills and
bank statements do you really think they're going to look at the credit
card bills and cancelled checks for several million people? Anyway, I
don't know about other states but the state I'm familiar with says
taxes must be paid on items "that are USED in the state". Well what
constitutes "used"? A person can always say they bought the item for a
gift and that item won't be used within the state's boundaries. As of
now the only time online merchants have to collect sales tax is if
they're sending the merchandise to someone who lives in a state where
the merchant has an actual physical presence. If I live in Ohio and
order something from a company in California I don't pay tax on it
unless the company in California has a warehouse or office in Ohio.

[email protected] wrote:
> George wrote:
>
>>You have to pay use tax since the sales tax wasn't collected by the
>>merchant. I know two people who made relatively small purchases who got
>>a letter from their states revenue department citing "Internet" purchases.
>
>
> Now how would a state revenue department know whether someone has made
> "Internet" purchases? The only way would be if the merchant reported
> the purchase to the state revenue department in question. Last time I
> checked the government did not have access to my cancelled checks or
> credit card bill, and I'm only one of over 4 million people in my
> state. Even if they could legally look at your credit card bills and
> bank statements do you really think they're going to look at the credit
> card bills and cancelled checks for several million people? Anyway, I
> don't know about other states but the state I'm familiar with says
> taxes must be paid on items "that are USED in the state". Well what
> constitutes "used"? A person can always say they bought the item for a
> gift and that item won't be used within the state's boundaries. As of
> now the only time online merchants have to collect sales tax is if
> they're sending the merchandise to someone who lives in a state where
> the merchant has an actual physical presence. If I live in Ohio and
> order something from a company in California I don't pay tax on it
> unless the company in California has a warehouse or office in Ohio.
>

Don't think I am in agreement or defending this.

Many states have agreements with each other to exchange information.
Since everything is electronic, auditing is really easy. Say a company
in state "A" gets a periodic audit. The state now has all of the
transaction information for that company. They filter out all
transactions for state "B" and send it to them. When state "B" audits a
company in their state they reciprocate.

You are required to pay sales tax on (most) purchases regardless of what
you plan on doing with the item. Giving a gift doesn't relieve you of that.


And don't think banks will protect your information. Most simply roll
over and hand over whatever is requested.

>>
>> Now how would a state revenue department know whether someone has made
>> "Internet" purchases?

Easier than you think. Some state audit the records of the sellers. Not
every state has the laws and power to do that, but some have reciproicity
agreements with other states.



>> Anyway, I
>> don't know about other states but the state I'm familiar with says
>> taxes must be paid on items "that are USED in the state". Well what
>> constitutes "used"? A person can always say they bought the item for a
>> gift and that item won't be used within the state's boundaries.

Burden of proof is on you. Your state will not easily accept your
interpretation. Should you be audited, the cost of trying to "make your
case" will be far more that just paying the tax due.


>> As of
>> now the only time online merchants have to collect sales tax is if
>> they're sending the merchandise to someone who lives in a state where
>> the merchant has an actual physical presence. If I live in Ohio and
>> order something from a company in California I don't pay tax on it
>> unless the company in California has a warehouse or office in Ohio.

Mostly true, bit some of the larger mailorder houses were being pressured by
the states to do collecting. I don't know how this has been the past few
years. Some businesses were fighting it, others, I understad, caved in and
collect the tax.

"Edwin Pawlowski" <[email protected]> wrote

> Easier than you think. Some state audit the records of the sellers. Not
> every state has the laws and power to do that, but some have reciproicity
> agreements with other states.

> Mostly true, bit some of the larger mailorder houses were being pressured
> by the states to do collecting. I don't know how this has been the past
> few years. Some businesses were fighting it, others, I understad, caved
> in and collect the tax.

Frankly, considering the financial pressure most states are under,
I'm not sure what's holding up state sales tax on internet purchases.
It would be a bear for individual sellers, I don't know how that would
work, but the larger places, already collecting sales tax for whatever
state, no question they are going to have to expand their tax collection.
It's a matter of time.

nancy