|
Online retailers doing business in New York will be required to register with the state beginning June 1, 2008 to collect taxes, or face audits for prior quarters for failing to register.
Amazon.com is suing the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance (DTF) over a new state law that requires Internet retailers to collect sales tax on purchases shipped to state residents.
Amazon has argued that since it does not have a physical presence in the state that it should not be required to collect taxes on shipments going to New York. "Amazon has no physical presence in New York," according to the suit. "It does not own, lease, or otherwise occupy any physical property in the state, and none of its employees works or resides in the state."
In addition Amazon says the New York law is unconstitutional based on a 1992 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that claims states are prohibited from requiring out of state retailers to collect sales tax unless the company has a physical presence in the state.
In the Quill v. North Dakota case, the Supreme Court re-established the rule that a state could not impose sales tax collection on a business unless the company had employees or property in the state.
New York defends the law by arguing that the Amazon Associates program, which allows Web site publishers to receive commissions by promoting Amazon items through their sites make Amazon liable to collect taxes on its behalf for those affiliates who live in New York.
One piece of bright news for Amazon and other online retailers is that the state of New York is not seeking back taxes. Tom Bergin, a spokesman for the state Department of Taxation and Finance told WebProNews,"The legislation provides for a limited amnesty for online sellers who register as sales tax vendors and start collecting taxes by June 1, 2008."
"If the seller registers and starts collecting sales tax by June 1, the seller will not be liable for tax not collected for sales tax quarters prior to June 1. Conversely, if you don’t register and it is later determined that you should have, you could be subject to tax dept audit for quarters prior to June 1."
Brick and mortar companies are generally supportive of the "Amazon Tax," saying it levels the playing field by forcing online retailers to collect state sales tax. The down side is that it could potentially mean fewer sales for online retailers.
The choice between paying $100 for an item or $108 would definitely affect the sales of other online merchants besides Amazon. In an increasingly uncertain economy the consumer cannot afford frivolous spending.
If the New York law is upheld, you can be sure a whole host of other states will follow its example and implement similar laws. The New York law is projected to generate $50 million in revenue this year and $73 million next year–an amount that any cash-strapped state would be happy to collect.
What is not stated in this article is that New York State has over 50 different sales tax rates – 1 for every county – and some counties have up to 5 separate tax rates.
This will definitely be taken to the supreme court as overly burdensome to all but the largest online retailers.
Let’s all yell – "Screw you New York State Tax Man!!"
NYS lawmakers are such a bunch of whores. Oh, wait, no, that’s wrong, at least a with a whore you get something for your money, and comparing the two is just an insult to a girl trying to make a living. c**kroaches, that’s more like it.
I thought New laws only took affect from the time they passed onwards. This law is taling about online retailers owing back tax that was never collected in the first place, because it wasn’t required. And then the scare tactic of If you comply we won’t worry about the back taxes you now suddenly owe us. What is the difference with this or New York deciding that they are retro activly adding a new tax to something that was tax exempt (like food in many places) and telling all the grocey stores we want the new tax paid retro active to 2000 (pick any year).
Just another case of greed. I don’t believe there is any provision in our State law that requires me to comply with New York auditors. If they win we just won’t sell in New York. It will hurt New Yorkers the most.
In a time when people can’t even afford gas to drive their cars to work, people losing their homes because they can’t afford to pay the mortgage - and the ungodly cost of healthcare – New York now wants to suck more money out of us. When will it end? And the question I’m most afraid of – what’s next?!! Screw New York – the city that never sleeps should go take a nap and leave us all alone.
NY has the highest paid goverment officials in the country and very probably the biggest pork barrel spending of any state. NYS government has to be stopped spending the taxpayers money and padding the goverment representatives bank accounts from their part time jobs.. Our services are no better than other states. I can’t believe the residents of this state have put up with this for so long. To now try to tax people doing business out of this state is the same mob tactics the gangsters use here in good old NY They are looking quite a bit alike these days. People here keep wondering why business is moving out of state. Pretty soon, no one will do business WITH this state, with all it’s restrictions and taxes. Wake up people, we have to stop this out of control government spending. Cheers to Amazon.com for sticking right back to this greedy,bloated, pork barrel spending, prostitute patronizing, (not that that is bad unless my money also pays for that), repressive, corrupt, lying,…. government. Hopefully more big vendors will have the stones to just say NO to NYS.
I will cut off all of New York before I comply.
Once NY starts their online plunder, other states will jump on the gluttony bandwagon. No thanks.
This has to be stopped before it gets started, and I am glad New Yrok chose to take on an online giant that can afford to fight back, rather than some small company that gets squashed. ("Precendent set, let the tax money roll in!")
If you can see the site I used as my hompage, it is one of hundreds. If this ill-thought, commerce-damaging piece of political vandalism goes through, I will NOT sell a damn thing to anyone in New York state.
Screw you NY tax man, I hope you hear from a never ending stream of really angry people!!! And I will be on the front lines making that happen for you.
My shopping cart will state that my company no longer does business with NY state residents, and will include a phone number and email
Well, for those of us who are located outside the USA and have online stores that ship to New York, then what?
I suspect that we are in for a nice windfall if this Tax is imposed because we will not only out compete New York Retailer s but will kick the pants off all USA retailers.
If we don’t pay this tax, what is New York going to do to us? What is their jurisdication against us? Fuhgettaboutit!
So basically, New York will cut off it’s nose to spite it’s face and the rest of the USA will follow while we in the business diaspora catch the money falling from the competition tree. Cha-Ching!
WHAT’S NEXT? $ 4.00 GAS? Opps! Geez us, what happened to America’s ablility to compete? Where has th e leadership gone?
This tax law is just another reason why companies continue to move their business out of the country. People commonly blame the companies but the blame should be directed straight at the source, the corrupt and stupid lawmakers.
This is a cheap shot. If NY wants their sales tax from their citizens who purchase things out-of-state and online, they need to do their jobs and educate their citizens to pay up. In WA state, legally all citizens are supposed to pay the State any unpaid sales tax on purchases online or out-of-state. I don’t know if the same is true everywhere else. Having said that, WA state DOR never actually enforces that rule on anyone other than businesses within the state. So here NY is trying to do the impossible task by requiring the online businesses to do what NY’s DOR could not do themselves.
I like the thought of online businesses completely boycotting NY entirely! Just don’t ship there. Then maybe the citizens will arise and get the NY government to wake up and put their taxpayer’s money to better use.
IT’S THIS KIND OF THING THAT PUTS THE SMALL RETAILERS OUT OF BUSINESS
This article was a little unclear, making it sound like every online retailer will have to register. That is not true. The key is that Amazon has an affiliate program, where they pay people a commission for referrals to their site. Since some of their affiliates are in New York, the state is making a case that they have a presence in New York—even though they themselves are not physically there. This would be a verrrry broad definition of ‘presence’. The little guys don’t have to worry if they have no office, store, etc. in New York
This response has been posted before…who is this posting this? Is this some New York legislative assistant trying to quell the burning outrage of the community at large.
You are probably trying to make us ambivalent so nobody does anything….
Yeah great, so let’s NOT tell people that this may not apply to them. Brilliant idea. Let them go ahead and register and pay taxes to New York when they don’t have to. Isn’t that just as unfair?
I was stating simple fact. Does not mean I am not outraged by what’s going on. Gee, why would I care…the beginnings of potentially losing my whole livelihood and all.
I’m simply not going to do business in New York, or any other state where I would have to pay sales tax other than my own state of California. Until this is resolved, or until June 1 I’ll continue to do business everywhere, but if this goes into affect I will not sell or ship to any customer in New York. You voted for them, you have to take the heat!
I live overseas, am not an American and now NY think I must become a tax collection agent for them. Sorry, but that won’t happen… And how can they legally backdate a tax law to a time that they see fit?
Oh – silly me, they make the laws and need a little extra cash to finace their profligate money-wasting habits.
But the worrying thing is that if this law goes through then the cost of anyone doing business online will go up, there are many mom and pop businesses who will suddenly be forced to become tax collecters. The extra burden on them will force many out of business especially when other states jump on the bandwagon as they surely will.
What do we have to do stop this nonsense?
I did business in NYC for a lot of years, as well as in other states, and had a tax number and reported quarterly in each. Without a doubt, the NY State Taxation Bureau makes the IRS look like pussycats. They consistently "corrected" my numbers to try to get me to pay them (a considerable percentage) more, but my (excellent) accountant sent them backup docs and told them to take a hike.
A friend who moved out of NY State told me that his Accountant advised him to sell his grave plot since NY State would use its existence to prove he was still a resident and subject to NY taxation.
And yes, I will for sure stop doing business with New York State Residents if this Draconian Tax Grab goes forward.
Well said everyone. We will just stop doing business in NY if we have to collect sales tax for NY. Imagine if every state would do that. Not only are there such varied tax rates across states, counties, localities, there is also a big difference in what is taxed. Some states like NJ don’t tax clothing, many others do.
This would be a nightmare. I can’t imagine even finding an accountant that could fill out the 50 quarterly returns required if an online store had to file to every state.
If states want the sales tax from small businesses internet sales, the simplest way is to treat the web store as a brick and mortar store. All sales are taxed based on location of store owner. Sure the state would lose sales tax from other internet sites that ship to their state, however they would gain by collecting tax on everyone in their state that ran an internet site and collected the sales tax for goods shipped out of state.
I seem to remember there was some talk about this a few years ago where states were getting together to join together for a uniform sales tax for internet sales. I haven’t heard much about it lately, but when I first looked into it, it was still very complicated.
Come June 1 I won’t be selling to any NY addresses either. Not from my business and not from my private sales. If New Yorkers want my stuff they can get a PO in NJ, PA or Conn.
well my bro already gave me a credit card in his name (lives in new jersey)
i shall be shipping my stuff there and do a monthly pick up of my stuff. have a nice day. i live in new york and i hate my state and representatives
To the writer of this article, I think you are confusing people & they are freaking out. This does not apply to anyone unless they have an affilate advertising program or a legitimate physical presence in the state. Here is a link to a CNN article:
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/02/technology/amazon_suit.ap/index.htm?postversion=2008050217
Sorry it just doesn’t matter this is illegal and the State of New York needs to quit trying to grab money where ever they can. This is the beginning of the end for online retail if stuff like this passes.
Amazon already pays enough taxes to the federal and local state government where it operates why should it pay the states where it sells goods as well?
Tell me EXACTLY what the State of New York has done to deserve any of those transaction funds?
From CNN
"The state Legislature and Gov. David Paterson passed the law as part of the 2008-2009 budget. It applies to companies that don’t have a brick-and-mortar presence in New York but have at least one person in the state who works as an online agent — basically someone who links to a Web site and receives commissions for related sales."
They already TRIPLE tax workers in NY City:
Besides the Federal and State Income Taxes they have a City income tax too.That alone is why my Dad an MD left Manhattan for Dallas TX. And yes all it would do is encourage seller that are based in other countries to sell more in NY since they would be shielded from an out of control government that is streching the laws beyond sanity and the court agreed to being a Nexus. As an online store we have to deal with suspicion of our sites, overcome resistiances of using an online cart unlike shopping in a physical store down the street. That is their advantage and why they should support the States Tax collection agency. Oh and why should Retailers in the FIRST PLACE even collect Taxes they dont owe but the customers do owe. Get Real.In this 21st Century with the electoronic and onlin programming tax agancies could grab the tax when users in their state with registred bank account, there or Credit Card with theie physical address or billing address in NY State and note any online transactions that enter the Credit Card sysstem and see themselves it it is tacable and not and directly collect it from those would might benefit from the Sales Tax being even colleected. We are not THEIR Hires or employees EITHER. Let them Collect their OWN SALES TAXES and NOT US FOR THEM.
This should be taken seriously. What is failed to be noticed is people will just stop buying online. This will NOT generate more income for NY but will rather cause an extreme setback and hurt everyone everywhere doing business online. An online website despite the location should be subject to pay taxes to the state the owner resides in or the website has registered a DBA or similar. Such as I am in VT and own a website and therefore it should be treated as a brick and motar in VT. If you come from NY to VT and buy a product you can gaurantee you will be paying VT sales tax. It makes no difference if you ask us to ship it to your home address in NY or if you bring it yourself. You being the consumer would pay VT tax and not NY tax.
What next? You happen to be in VT when you visit our website so you have to pay 6% and then you live in NY and have it shipped to your home so now you pay NY tax as well? There is no more a chance of that than there is of NY’s recent desicions doing anything more than causing an online resession and what better time to pull this BS than when the country is hurting already. I now wonder if the folks that came up with this can get any brighter?
As of today a notice has gone up on all of our websites where purchases can be made as with our clients websites that clearly states that any resident of NY is not permitted to make purchases from our website. Sorry NY residents but if you dislike this action take it up with your congressmen since there seems to be an incredible breakout of the greed virus.
Before I go I must ask. Mail order has been around for many more years than the internet. Does NY get paid tax for mail order sales where the company is not in NY but the buyer is? I think not. So now what is the difference?
THIS EXCERPT IS TAKEN DIRECTLY FROM THE TAXATION HANDBOOK FOR NY:
please read this and get a grip! if you just ship stuff here via common postal carrier you do NOT pay NY taxes, etc!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Even though you are located outside of New York State, if you have
customers in New York State, and you have sufficient connection with
New York State, you may be required to register as a vendor for New
York State and local sales tax purposes. For example, if you are located
outside New York State, make sales of taxable products to persons
within New York State, and regularly deliver the products in your trucks
to your New York State customers, you have sufficient connection with
New York State and must register as a vendor and collect and remit
sales tax. Also, if you solicit sales of taxable products or services
through employees, salespersons, independent agents, or service
representatives located in New York State, you must register as a
vendor for New York State sales tax purposes.
If the only connection you have with New York State is the delivery of
your products into the state by U.S. Postal Service or common carrier,
you are not required to register or collect sales tax. Thus, some out-ofstate
businesses (including some mail order companies) may not have
sufficient connection with New York State to be required to collect and
remit sales tax.
Although, as an out of state business, you may not be required to collect
sales tax from your customers in New York State, your customers are
still responsible for the use tax on their purchases. The use tax
complements the sales tax. An example of when use tax applies is when
a New York State resident purchases taxable products or services
outside of New York State and then brings them or has them brought
into New York State for use here. For more information, see Publication
774, Purchaser’s Obligations to Pay Sales and Use Taxes Directly to
the Tax Department: Questions and Answers.
If you operate a business in New York and you do business in New York, then you have an obligation to collect and submit tax for those sales. It has nothing to do with Amazon as they are simply a method for conducting the sales, but the sales go through them, but they aren’t the seller.
When I do sales in my state through eBay, they collect tax if the sale is made to someone in the state. I don’t think they should be as the sale is between me and the buyer and it is my obligation to report the sales tax on MY sales tax number.
The solution to this is to simply not ship anything to the State of New York. Post a notice on your website: " SORRY, WE DO NOT SHIP TO THE STATE OF NEW YORK". Maybe the residents of New York will eventually have the guts to throw the greedy politican bastards out of office and fire their zealot bureaucrats. If not, they can do without merchandise from out of state. I will never collect any sales tax for any State other than my own. I expect most vendors will do likewise.
Here! Here! I agree we just don’t ship to NY, maybe the residents will stand up to the greedy politicians and say "no more"…..
I am a RESIDENT of NEW YORK and a small online BUSINESS OWNER in NEW YORK…
I am very disturbed by this article and its misleading information! The NY department of taxation is trying to get Amazon and similar companies to sing up and pay these taxes because they have affiliate programs that include RESIDENTS of NEW YORK- so they ARE CONNECTED "taxation-ally" speaking to the state.
General retailers from any other state that do NOT have these types of affiliate programs or locations/employees in the state of New York are not liable under this law….
As a resident of NEW YORK I am VERY DISTURBED to see people ACTUALLY being stupid enough to state that they will not sell to me because I live here… you DO want business don’t you???
We should all know by now how the MEDIA can really screw up a story… why are we not taking the time to review the truth of these facts from the proper places before flying off the handle??? When I read this article, that was the first thing I did- turn right around and look for the facts from the NY Dept of Taxation….
Ok, getting down off my soap box for now…
So you are a resident of NY. My condolences.
Aren’t these affiliates also residents of NY? Under NY tax law aren’t they responsible for paying taxes on their income to the State of NY? So your greedy state is just looking for another pocket to stick it’s hand in. If these affiliates aren’t paying their taxes, that is a NY problem not an Amazon or any other retailer problem. Affilates don’t make the sales so they can’t charge them sales tax on top of the income tax. Suck it, that is how life works.
You should be "DISTURBED" by the actions of your elected politicians and not fly off the handle and start calling people "STUPID".
We do understand the issue just fine. Your elected officials are greedy rat bastards and feel they are above the Supreme Court in their actions. You have no balls, you put up with this crap from your own state, and whine when the business community says enough.
What it comes down to is that if you visit my website and see a product I have reviewed or recommended and click my affiliate link and buy it, then you have created a transaction where the retailer will have to collect my state sales tax, AND if they happen to BE in your state, then they have to collect your state sales tax too??? What kind of craptastic logic is that?
No one twisted this story, don’t blame the media or anyone else. Blame yourself and your fellow new yorkers for this and deal with it.
I will no longer sell to NY residents either.
Here in Indiana the resident is liable for reporting purchases made from other states on their State Income Tax form. The state tries to collect taxes owed from such purchases. I’m sure that only a small percentage of people actually claim anything purchased from out of state. New York should educated their own citizens and taxate them till there’s nothing left to tax. But leave me out I’m just a small town Joe in Indiana.
What ever happened to "taxation without representation". It is one of rights as citizens of this Great Nation of Our’s ( I think??????)
NY has no jurisdiction in my state they can KISS MY BUTT. I don’t know who they think they are but they won’t get any tax out of me so like I said the big rotten apple can KISS MY BUTT. After all we had a disclaimer on our site stating the buyer is reasonable for all taxes within their state.
This article was a little unclear, making it sound like every online retailer will have to register. That is not true. The key is that Amazon has an affiliate program, where they pay people a commission for referrals to their site. Since some of their affiliates are in New York, the state is making a case that they have a presence in New York—even though they themselves are not physically there. This would be a verrrry broad definition of ‘presence’. The little guys don’t have to worry if they have no office, store, etc. in New York. I got this info from CNN.
It doesn’t matter if it’s a little business or big business it’s unconstitutional for them to collect taxes if amazon has not brick or mortar presence or employees.
I got this info from the United States Supreme Court.
This hasn’t gotten to the Supreme Court or any court yet. This issue will be challenging current law. However, I totally agree that it is greedy and sucks big time for those affected.
The size of the business was not the point. Big or small, it doesn’t matter. If you have 1 or 1,000,000 employees and you don’t have a physical presence and you don’t have an affiliate program with affiliates in NY, you will NOT BE AFFECTED BY THIS. The little guys are the ones reading this and freaking out saying they are not going to do business in New York, and potentially losing sales and hurting themselves, when they probably will not even be affected. Just thought I’d try to point that out since this point was not emphasized in the article. I had the same thoughts as most people posting here until I did some more googling.
The supreme court has set a precedent on this case. They said you had to have employees or a physical presence in the state to compel a corporation to pay taxes. An affiliate program is NEITHER of those. Sure it will go to court but a reasonable person would see that an affiliate person isn’t an employee of the company.
You SHOULD freak out today because this is how income tax started. It was to be a temporary solution to solve a debt problem the government had. They didn’t explicitly set a moratorium on it….and guess what the government got fatter and fatter and couldn’t ween itself off the income tax. So it stuck.
People at the time probably thought….big deal an income tax. I don’t make any money. I’m a farmer it won’t affect me. 25 years later when they sold their farms they probably were kicking themselves for not caring.
Maybe someone else can get their info from God and let us know what he says.
I can envision New York’s next step will be to tax any sale that comes from even a temporary "presence" in the state. For example, if a salesperson visits a prospect in New York and then eventually makes a sale to that prospect, will that sale be taxed because the salesperson was "present" in the state for a few hours?
How about if you hand your business card to someone while attending a trade show in New York and that somehow turns into a sale? Will all future sales that result from that meeting be taxed by New York state?
What happens if a Texan and a Californian meet during a layover at JFK and the Texan eventually buys something from the Californian? Maybe that should be taxed because both had a "presence" in New York that resulted in a business transaction.
I think this is the pocket-filling thing if i have ever heard of one. Maybe if these politicians would stop being so crooked and stealing money from the taxes they get now this would not even be an issue. I live in NY in the town ofSmithtown
Govt. is just the biggest gang in town. I say if they pull this then boycott NY….don’t do any business there at all. Then they’ll lose the related taxes generated by the se businesses form the people doing business with them.
Also, anonomyze the sites.
Fight organized crime!!! Abolish government!!
well my bro already gave me a credit card in his name (lives in new jersey)
always has trusted me to pay anything back
i shall be shipping my stuff there and do a monthly pick up of my stuff. have a nice day. i live in new york and i hate my state and representatives
As a resident of NY you are still required to pay a tax on goods purchased outside of NY.
wrong. im using my brothers card lives in new jersey shipping to a new jersey address. wrong!!!!!!!!!ok if my brother buys the stuff for me in new jersey gives it to me whats wrong with that?
so your brother’s going to be the one liable for NJ tax.
Have you ever thought about how much money of a dollar is left after it’s changed hands a few times?
For example I buy something from a store and their profit is 1 dollar. They take that dollar and pay and employee. He gets taxed @ 20% leaving 80 cents. He then takes that 80 cents and then spends it on something. 80-5 cents (6.25% sales tax) and now it’s down to 75 cents. The new company pays their employee and now it’s only 60 cents after the employee pays their income taxes. (15 cents for 20% income tax rate)
And the cycle goes on and on. This doesn’t even include the amount of taxes incurred if you buy something like gasoline which has many more taxes associated with it.