Amazon.com had better think up a better business model than cheating Uncle Sam and other nationalities out of their fair share of sales taxes.
Wall Street Journal reports: TOKYO (Dow Jones)–The Tokyo Regional Taxation Bureau told Amazon.com Inc.’s (AMZN) affiliated company Amazon.com International Sales to pay back taxes of $119 million, the Asahi Shimbun reported in its Sunday morning edition.
Amazon’s Japanese affiliates, called Amazon Japan and Amazon Japan Logistics, are responsible for sales and logistics operations in Japan while Japanese customers make contracts of purchasing products with Amazon’s affiliates in the U.S. Therefore those U.S. companies booked sales in the U.S. from their business in Japan.
And in the U.S., Hawaii has gotten the pink slip from Amazon (in addition to Rhode Island and North Carolina): Market Watch (via WSJ) reports: Amazon.com is ending relationships with its marketing affiliates in Hawaii to avoid collecting sales tax.
Amazon should start collecting tax
yes, it’s great that I save on sales tax when I buy through Amazon, but it wouldn’t stop me from shopping there if they began collecting taxes.
legally, I’m supposed to declare these purchases and remit the tax to our State, but who the hell has time to calculate that? the store should collect it at the pop.
now that everyone is starving for cash, they think they can make online sellers pay uncollected taxes… they ain’t gonna happen without making businesses go bust… Amazon could be a great source of tax revenue (as could be Buy.com and Ebay and Overstock, etc.) if we would pass the laws that force them to collect it.
Amazon Takes Ball, Goes Home
Observations from Kris Kleindienst, bookseller, on her blog:
Guess What? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Ball~
Affiliates
Amazon is ending it’s association with affiliates in states like Hawaii but I believe they still have 3rd party sellers in that state. I wonder why a marketing affiliates counts as a presence in the state but an Amazon 3rd party seller filling an order does not count as a presence in regards to taxes.