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yourdaddyjoe · Supporting Member

California is sticking it to the rest of the world to be their Tax Collectors...
http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jan/20/business/la-fi-internet-tax-20110120

broommaster2000 · Moderator

Why does everyone has to mess around with the fabric of true freedom, the Internet. Neutral

radar · Silver Status Member

sniper · Silver Status Member

Less than 3 months and I'm gone! Faq-U

We think we're gonna file an extention and file 2011
taxes in Idaho. Faq-U

And,

Almost forgot, Faq-U Part 2

My truck tags are due by june 1st.

It won't be $130 this year. Faq-U

yourdaddyjoe · Supporting Member

Bottom line... If you sell to a buyer via eBay or other online auction site in the State of Kaliforniastan, you will be required to collect Kaliforniastan sales tax, report it and pay Kaliforniastan the tax you collected.

If you sell to a Kaliforniastan customer more than 3x in a calendar year, you will be required to have a Kaliforniastan State Business Permit.

yourdaddyjoe · Supporting Member

This goes for the whole world! All internet sales to residents in California.

AirGunEric · Site Admin

Something is skewed, somewhere in this setup.

Originally, as I recall, the proposal was that business such as Amazon "affiliates" that are located in California (an "affiliate" is a business that sells its products through Amazon) would be required to charge California sales tax on shipments shipping within California (or if this "affiliate" has any of it's own offices in California). It seems that Amazon had been side-stepping existing law by claiming they were selling the goods, and the "affiliate" was somehow unrelated, despite the fact that they were fulfilling an order entirely within California and collecting payment- although technically not from the California customer, but from Amazon out-of-state.

And that is where it all went funky- Amazon was basically jerking the tax system around- and I assume would lose if the state decided to take them to court over it and argue that despite it being Amazon, out of state, collecting payment- but another company shipping the product within California, this "affiliate" was a de-facto "division" of Amazon and located in California. However, courts take alot of time, then there are appeals and so on- so maybe, someday, the state would get its due- obviously they feel legislation is a faster road to this, and then the onus of going to court would be on someone else- i.e. Amazon or a coalition of other, smaller companies. Amazon would still likely end up losing, so they probably wouldn't fight it at great expense, but leave it to some sort of coalition of vendors from outside California.

What the specifics of this proposed law are, I have no idea, but if they are only trying to nail tax avoiders such as Amazon- great. If, however, the proposal is to tax anything/everything coming in to California, then they really are acting like a bunch of a-holes. And then of course, they can turn this into a "right wing" talk of 'states rights', claiming that is what they are doing, while collecting additional taxes from everyone (something the "right wing" can't stand)- quite the conundrum I must say...

yourdaddyjoe · Supporting Member

I just found out about this today when I full filled 3 orders going to California today that where purchased via my eBay acct.

eBay automatically charged my customers sales tax.

I called in and spent over 1/2 the day trying to sort this out as I have no physical presents in California. I got more answers from the LA Times than eBay or the California State Board of Equalization (The Tax Collectors).

As the way the 2009 rulings and posted information on the State Board's website stands. I do not collect taxes for the State of California as I have not physical presents there and am a out of state seller on eBay.

The new "law" also states that I have to do over $500,000 in business in California in order to collect tax... yet a min of 3 sales to California residents requires a Business Licenses in California... WTF?

oddtodd · Silver Status Member

That's just a load of BS. My wife sells on Ebay all the time and never has sales tax collected. I don't know why, but she doesn't. Hopefully you will be able to get your business up and running so you can let someone else deal with the BS.

yourdaddyjoe · Supporting Member

I wonder if this is working out. I sold a couple spring guides to a CA resident and no taxes where charged this time.