For those of you who collect and pay your state sales tax [this will include me after today!]. If you make a sale on half.com or Amazon Marketplace, and it mails to someone in your state, what do you do? Pay the sales tax yourself? Do you record it as the price the buyer paid, or the adjusted amount you get, minus the shipping allowance? Or do you disregard where the item is sent?
posted on December 15, 2000 07:09:09 PM new
hi keziak.
Re Half.com, We are paid by half.com not by the individual seller. Half.com is centered in a state that is not the one I reside in and pay sales taxes in. Accordingly I do not consider those sales as originating in my state, I consider as payment for goods I supplied to Half.com and drop shipped to their buyer. Not sure what your state laws are though.
for Amazon Marketplace, I don't know yet how they are handling it and what the seller's position should be. I think but am not sure that Amazon might be charging sales tax where appropriate to the buyer. If this is correct then Amazon is the entity that should be transmitting the sales tax collected.
posted on December 15, 2000 07:30:39 PM new
From half.com member agreement
"
Responsibility for Taxes. Half.com is based in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and thus will collect and remit Pennsylvania state sales tax for all goods shipped to Pennsylvania addresses.
"
posted on December 16, 2000 07:30:56 AM new
Hi all - thanks for the input. I was also thinking that we act pretty much as drop-shippers for these sites, but I wanted to know if anyone else had given it much though. Appreciate it -
posted on December 16, 2000 08:28:08 AM new
Y'all can do as you please, but don't deceive yourselves.
If you ship something to your own state, you must pay the tax. It doesn't much matter that you're "getting paid from" or "the transaction originated in" or "half.com says this about.." Pennsylvania.
You've got to ship it out of state to avoid paying the tax.
posted on December 16, 2000 09:32:44 AM new
sg52: OK, but what is the price that is used to calculate the tax? The price the buyer paid the site or the amount the seller is credited minus the shipping allowance?
posted on December 16, 2000 09:54:53 AM newsg52: OK, but what is the price that is used to calculate the tax? The price the buyer paid the site or the amount the seller is credited minus the shipping allowance?
In my state, as well as I suspect all others, it is the selling price of the merchandise. Commissions paid to some third party are fully taxable if they're included in the price buyer pays.
Shipping varies from state to state, but one is not generally allowed to reduce the selling price and up the shipping fee as a means to avoid taxes.
I'm sure that not all states are exactly the same, but none has a loophole big enough to drive the ship through imagined in this thread.
posted on December 16, 2000 10:02:21 AM new
If anyone wants to know----Amazon does not charge the sales tax to people who live in Washington State where Amazon is located---so I suppose it is the seller's responsiblity to send it in if they get a sale from someone in Washington State if they also live there
