Sales Tax Demand - Online

[Coaster]

Originally Posted by inthewoods

Why didn't everyone get the letter? I have a co-worker that asked around and he's the only one that got it. You'd think that if Maine Revenue Service was going after this tax, that you'd see more letters and information via the news.

And expect folks to remember that they bought underwear at Amazon 6 years ago? Or that someone bought a $10 mug in New Hampshire?

Do you know how this will be enforced? Can they look at your credit card statements, or have access into your Amazon account to see what was purchased over the last 6 years?

I didn't get the letter (and even if one did, they didn't have you sign for it). I suspect that many of these will just go into the round file.

Did he perhaps pay the tax sometime in the past and thus got on a list at Maine Revenue Service? We've never gotten one, either, and I don't think we've ever paid the "estimated" tax on our tax return, altho I should check that since we've had our taxes done by an accountant in recent years. We don't shop online, and we're not close enough to the New Hampshire border to take advantage of its lack of a sales tax.

Basically it can't be enforced. Getting a court order for the records of every person in Maine who might have shopped on line would tie up MRS for the next century. In the past the Maine State Police would on very rare occasions station someone at the New Hampshire liquor store in Portsmouth who would radio the license plate numbers of Maine cars whose drivers were buying large amounts of cheap NH liquor. And local cops used to cruise through neighborhoods in Maine border communities looking for cars with NH plates parked overnight in front of Maine homes to catch people who "lived" in a NH post office box so they could buy and register their cars there taxfree. I haven't heard that they've done either of those things for quite some time now.

State governments have lobbied Congress for years for an internet sales tax bill and have failed.