Connecticut DRS Moves to Collect Back-Taxes on Newegg Customers

The sales tax up by me is like 8%.
Near work I paid around 12.5% on the last cup of coffee I had. Guess where I buy coffee now?

Gas near me is $2.27. Next to work (just north of Chicago) regular was $2.87.... I buy pretty much nothing next to my work except parking which is required for me to drive a car there. in the last 2 years parking has gone from $85 to $115 a month. I don't know how people put up with taxes in/near Cook County, IL.
 
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Master_shake_ said:
can they really collect retroactively?
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Yeah. They send you a bill, and are giving you the option of not paying interest + fees if you pay within the next few weeks.. Let's just say they're somewhat substantial. Anyway, if you don't pay your taxes, you pretty much pray you'll never get pulled over, and the last time I owed something, they wouldn't allow me to renew my license and registration until I paid my taxes. (A tax bill got lost, as they had it going to an old address, and I received it 5 years later after I was going to try to renew my license.)
 
panhead said:
It is whining, Tax rates in the US are at historic lows. (and deficits are reaching historic highs).
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And our deficit/government spending is at historic highs.... Guess how this is going to play out..... For bonus points, guess who is going to end up paying for this money grab in the end? I'll give you a hint, it won't be the top 1%
 
Read an article earlier ranking CT as the 2nd highest taxed state. Not surprising they're trying to gouge some more.

Thankfully moving from 4th highest to 6th lowest next week. Taxes are bs if you don't even get healthcare or a decent retirement.
 
I wonder what made them single out Newegg specifically and not the plethora of other online stores. I did a lot of purchasing on my government card and I was instructed specifically to seek out places that didn't collect taxes so we didn't have to deal with the paperwork. There are a lot of them out there, especially corporate centered businesses. Hell, Tiger Direct doesn't collect taxes either, or at least they didn't used to.
 
I got an email from Newegg yesterday regarding this :>

***************
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO CONNECTICUT CUSTOMERS.

A recent Connecticut law requires Newegg to disclose the amount you spent with us for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016. We do not collect sales tax on behalf of the state, but customers are required to file a sales or use tax form and pay tax on all taxable purchases.

During that three year period, you purchased the following amounts from us for use in Connecticut:
  • 2014 total $6651.85
  • 2015 total $1093.99
  • 2016 total $10652.70

In accordance with the new law, Newegg provided the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services with the total dollar amount of purchases made by you during these years, but no information about your purchased item(s) other than the dollar amount of the purchase(s) has been provided.

You may find details of how and when you must file your return at the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services’ website: www.ct.gov/drs.

Thank you for shopping at Newegg.

Your Newegg Customer Service Team
 
dbwillis said:
I got an email from Newegg yesterday regarding this :>

***************
IMPORTANT NOTICE TO CONNECTICUT CUSTOMERS.

A recent Connecticut law requires Newegg to disclose the amount you spent with us for the years 2014, 2015 and 2016. We do not collect sales tax on behalf of the state, but customers are required to file a sales or use tax form and pay tax on all taxable purchases.

During that three year period, you purchased the following amounts from us for use in Connecticut:
  • 2014 total $6651.85
  • 2015 total $1093.99
  • 2016 total $10652.70

In accordance with the new law, Newegg provided the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services with the total dollar amount of purchases made by you during these years, but no information about your purchased item(s) other than the dollar amount of the purchase(s) has been provided.

You may find details of how and when you must file your return at the Connecticut Department of Revenue Services’ website: www.ct.gov/drs.

Thank you for shopping at Newegg.

Your Newegg Customer Service Team
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Yet the CT Department of Revenue letter says they received "a list of purchases", not just totals .. so at least one party is lying (and it's probably not Newegg). Further, I bet CT DRS just took totals as submitted by Newegg and claimed them as the taxable amounts .. while many of the purchases may have been those of giftcards (no sales/use tax due) or for resale or otherwise not for use by the owner of newegg's account (again, no sales/use tax due). There's a lot of bluffing on the part of CT DRS.

Newegg's behavior is also hard to understand or appreciate. They clearly (just from the comments in this thread) have benefited from not charging sales tax vs. their competition. e.g., Amazon, and are now throwing their customers under the bus. I tend to think they could have told CT go pound sand at a fairly minimal legal cost. And if they could not, they clearly had an option to start collecting tax (as Frys chose to, I believe) instead of hurting their most loyal customers with this retroactive disclosure. They chose to betray loyalty, clearly with the dirty calculation of continuing to attract unaware customers by not charging the sales tax upfront. I don't see how even for the profit-only motivated minds this could be the right calculation. No one aware of this will choose to shop at newegg if pre-tax price is the same (or even slightly lower), as you'd be paying the same tax at the end (at tax filing time), but in case of purchases at Newegg there will be extra work of going over year's worth of purchases to calculate sales/use tax.
 
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Anyone get the email today from newegg saying that ct isn't going to seek taxes now?
The bottom of the email said 'confidential'
 
dbwillis said:
Anyone get the email today from newegg saying that ct isn't going to seek taxes now?
The bottom of the email said 'confidential'
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Well, now, we all knew SOMEONE was going to let the cat out of the bag. I guess we just found out who the weakest link is. ;)
 
You know, if I thought that the sales taxes that I pay when ordering from Amazon, Newegg, etc. were going to "exciting things," like infrastructure, schools, etc. I wouldn't really mind. But being a cynic, I know that the tax money I'm paying goes into slush funds in states that I don't even live in. So, yeah, it pisses me off.
 
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