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Old 06-18-2013, 08:41 PM
 
Location: Minnesota
5,147 posts, read 7,480,367 times
Reputation: 1578

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Amazon Cuts Ties In Minnesota Ahead Of New Sales Tax : The Two-Way : NPR

Hmmm. I didn't even know the legislature did this. Frankly, I'm looking forward to the measure that's going through Congress. I don't even mind paying sales tax on my Amazon purchases. I just want it to be the BASIC state sales tax, not the hokey numbers in the metro area that exist for all sorts of little projects by local governments. I think the state should have sold bonds if the projects were worth doing and then, if necessary, taxed the whole state an increased amount. Well, Amazon supports nationwide online sales taxes, and I think it will get what it wants. Then maybe this state law will become moot.
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Old 06-19-2013, 06:49 AM
 
20,793 posts, read 61,323,996 times
Reputation: 10695
This isn't about people buying things on Amazon and having to pay tax on them, you already do this. This is about small businesses that sell products through Amazon and Amazon having to deal with the taxes for them. Many bloggers, for example, rate products or whatnot for Amazon and get paid by how many people go to Amazon from their website. Amazon now has to deal with the taxes for those paid referrals. One example are the blogs that look for the bargain books for Kindle, they will no longer get paid to refer people to those books.
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Old 06-19-2013, 08:34 AM
 
Location: Minnesota
5,147 posts, read 7,480,367 times
Reputation: 1578
Well, those are entrepreneurs who are suffering. But people in the lowest wage category were faced with increased suffering from other deficit-closing proposals. This has a narrower effect than those proposals would have had.
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Old 06-19-2013, 09:23 AM
 
1,816 posts, read 3,028,992 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by golfgal View Post
This isn't about people buying things on Amazon and having to pay tax on them, you already do this.
Well...only sort of. You're supposed to report your online purchases and pay taxes on them (in other words, Amazon doesn't enforce collection of this), but who actually does that? I can't think of a single person. And the state doesn't enforce it. It wouldn't be worth their time unless it happens to come up in an audit.

From what I understand, it does somewhat apply to the sales tax. These bloggers would be considered more or less "employees" and therefore Amazon would have a presence in Minnesota and therefore be liable to directly collect sales tax and deal with all of those affiliates in a different manner.

Really I just see this as Amazon trying to use their might to force an issue and rile people up. Some people I follow on Twitter through a fit yesterday over and over blaming Dayton for this. That Amazon was "forced" to stop paying people. That's absolutely incorrect. Amazon chose to stop this because they didn't like the policy and no amount of complaining is going to change that fact. One man tweeted about it four times in a row, shared it with his employees, and then wrote a blog about it on his business's website (I happen to follow that as well). Frankly the opinion being posted on the company's website absolutely turned me off to them as I generally don't like business openly being political (especially when they have the facts wrong).
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Old 06-19-2013, 01:18 PM
 
5,342 posts, read 14,144,755 times
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You don't pay taxes on online purchases unless the company selling the product has an actual physical presence in the state. For example:

purchase something on bestbuy.com=pay tax
purchase something on wesellelectronicsoutoftexas.com=no sales tax

For the state to say that someone blogging for a company on their home computer on a contractaul basis = the company having a phyiscal presence is a farce! The state just cost a bunch of MN residents their income AND gained nothing. The companies just fire the bloggers and they can still sell in the state tax free. Guess they will just have to hire new bloggers over in SD.
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Old 06-19-2013, 01:37 PM
 
1,816 posts, read 3,028,992 times
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For a long time Minnesotans were supposed to report their purchases. They just don't. The Department of Revenue even says so. There's an exemption on a small amount of purchases, but that's it. So this tax isn't exactly new. It's just that companies weren't required to pay it.

What I don't understand is that since this tax is actually coming, it doesn't matter if there's a presence in the state or not. We'll have to pay tax on Amazon purchases soon anyway. Amazon is likely more angry about this because they don't have warehouses in the state, which is normally their bargaining chip to support sales tax for online purchases. In the end, it's all whining.
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Old 06-19-2013, 02:29 PM
 
Location: Bel Air, California
23,766 posts, read 29,074,074 times
Reputation: 37337
I don't report my purchases but make up for it by tattling on my friends, family and neighbors when I find out what they might have recently purchased. Sometimes though, I think the Attorney General's receptionist isn't even taking notes on my calls lately.
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Old 06-19-2013, 03:11 PM
 
Location: Sioux Falls, SD area
4,869 posts, read 6,933,785 times
Reputation: 10185
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ghengis View Post
I don't report my purchases but make up for it by tattling on my friends, family and neighbors when I find out what they might have recently purchased. Sometimes though, I think the Attorney General's receptionist isn't even taking notes on my calls lately.
I'll bet you're that 1 person who collected a reward for tattling on your employer about their pirated software. Hope the reward makes up for the lost income from getting canned.
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Old 06-19-2013, 03:50 PM
 
Location: Bel Air, California
23,766 posts, read 29,074,074 times
Reputation: 37337
Quote:
Originally Posted by jmgg View Post
I'll bet you're that 1 person who collected a reward for tattling on your employer about their pirated software. Hope the reward makes up for the lost income from getting canned.
moderator!
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Old 06-19-2013, 05:51 PM
 
Location: MN
1,669 posts, read 6,236,760 times
Reputation: 959
The same thing has happened in almost every state that has tried to pass a similar law. I am not sure why the MN legislature thought it would be any different in MN.

Online companies only have to collect state sales tax if they have a physical presence in the state. The state changes the definition of a company's physical presence to include website owners that display ads for the company. The company then drops their relationship with those website owners, so they still no longer have a physical presence under the new definition. Many people lose their income, the state collects no additional sales tax, and the state loses some income tax.

It is not just Amazon... Overstock and many others also dropped their MN affiliate relationships.

Luckily my Amazon Associates account is registered to my FL address.
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