Ars Technica ran a report today about a series of lawsuits in New York that will have implications for anyone who buys anything online.
The gist of the article is that, barring an appeal, Amazon and other such web presences are going to have to start charging sales tax for customers in New York – yet another reason not to live there.
The issue here was sales from stores residing in New York and selling through Amazon storefronts. Amazon was not requiring the collection of taxes, arguing that the storefront was not "in" NY. Current law reads that if the store in question does not have a Brick&Mortar presence in the state the customer resides in, they do not have to collect that state’s sales tax. NY argued that, since if the Seller is in NY, then that qualifies as a store front, and they could collect taxes. Amazon, not wanting to get burdened with the cost of collecting sales taxes, disagreed and sued. The judges, perhaps realizing that their paychecks are dependant on tax revenue, decided otherwise and threw the case out.
The long view on this is simple. If they succeed in taxing sales at this level, how long before they go back after all internet sales in the never-ending avaricious quest for more of your money. They already tried it once, and got shouted down. But how long will they continue to listen to their constituents, with all of them hurting for cash. For us, those of us that do most of our particular business over the internet are going to be looking forward to increased costs – assuming that we are still able to buy our cigars in six months. We might be engaging in a whole different level of piracy.