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November 10, 2011 08:40 AM UTC

Amazon going with the new flow?

  • 10 Comments
  • by: NeonNurse

(This might not be easy to make work in Colorado, but Amy Stephens can consider herself at least partway “refudiated” – promoted by Colorado Pols)

An interesting news item hit a bookseller mailing list I’m on.

“Today, on the floor of the U.S. Senate, a bipartisan group of legislators, led by Senators Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Richard Durbin (D-IL), Mike Enzi (R-WY), and Tim Johnson (D-SD), introduced the Marketplace Fairness Act, legislation that would provide states with authorization to require remote sellers to collect and remit state sales tax. Joining as original co-sponsors of the bill are Senators John Boozman (R-AR), Jack Reed (D- RI), Bob Corker (R-TN), David Pryor (D-AR), Roy Blunt (R-MO), and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI).”

It is strongly supported by the American Bookseller Association, which is trying to drum up encouraging letters to senators from its members.

Here’s the part I think Pols will find most interesting: [bold added by me]

Also coming out in support of the bill was Amazon.com.  In a statement issued today, Paul Misener, Amazon.com vice president, global public policy, stated: “Amazon strongly supports enactment of the Enzi-Durbin-Alexander bill and will work with Congress, retailers, and the states to get this bipartisan legislation passed.”

We are pleased to hear about Amazon’s support,” said Teicher. “Despite its long record of vigorously battling sales tax equity, we welcome Amazon to the fold. As the bill moves through the legislative process, we hope we can continue to count on Amazon’s support.” (Mee-ow!!) [italics also added by me]

ABA is asking its member booksellers to urge their Senators to support the Marketplace Fairness Act. To make their advocacy outreach easier, ABA has prepared a template letter that booksellers can adapt and e-mail or fax to their senators. To access the letter, booksellers should go to ABA’s E-Fairness Action Kit, scroll down to their state, and click on the link for “Letter Supporting the Marketplace Fairness Act.”

There is an article here http://arstechnica.com/tech-po… that has a concise explanation of the bill.

My theory is that Amazon has been stonewalling the tax thing partly because there was always a slim chance it would all just blow over. BUT (I suspect) they’ve also been making software preparations behind the scenes for some time, in order to be ready to hit the ground running.

Within the last, oh, couple weeks, a new item appeared in the page a seller uses to sell via Amazon, a category to check off what tax category an item falls under. (!) That bill could pass tomorrow and I am pretty sure Amazon will be able to seamlessly take up the task for not only its own products, but the thousands of sellers who sell through their site. I think being able to say they are good to go, tax-wise, will make them even more attractive to nervous dealers who don’t want to mess up and get the tax boys after them!

Again, the last two paragraphs are just speculation on my part. But interesting, right?

Comments

10 thoughts on “Amazon going with the new flow?

  1. From the link above:

    Thanks to the final bill text now available (and linked above), it’s clear that sales tax can only be required if states first simplify their tax code for out-of-state companies. Minimum requirements for this are spelled out in the bill, but they require things like having a single mailing address for all tax payments to the state and the possibility of a paying single “blended” rate rather than calculating every single local sales tax rate separately.

    1. If they can’t figure out some standardized database that allows retailers to figure out local tax rates and goods covered, then this is a good compromise.  It’s going to be difficult for Colorado to get an agreement on a blended rate, though; home rule is a major impediment to crafting a solution, counties with low sales tax rates will complain if the rate is significantly higher than the state base sales tax while areas with higher tax rates will continue to complain about lost revenue if it’s too low.

    2. The Sears freaking catalouge figured this out more than 100 years ago.  And they only had regular USPS mail to work with.

      Sniff, sniff, it’s so hard

      Yeah, yeah, before you start telling me how hard it is know that I did it for 37 states under even more strange circumstance for a start up company generating  gross $200k per month.  It’s tedious and a pita, but it’s a tedious pita for everyone . So what’s your point?

        1. We should eliminate sales tax for most things.  

          It’s regressive, it suppresses consumption, and it’s difficult (expensive) to collect.

          The only time it’s a net positive is when it’s applied to something for which a disincentive to consumer is good: tobacco, gasoline, carbon, etc

  2. The bill as linked in the article requires the state to either belong to the streamline sales tax compact (Colorado is the ONLY sales tax collecting state that is not affiliated in any way) or have a single agency that administers all sales taxes including local taxes.  How much you want to bet that the home rule cities in Colorado will go for that. I can tell you which way to bet if you want to double your mortgage.

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