Illinois Court Throws Out 'Amazon Tax' Online Sales Law

CommanderFrank

Cat Can't Scratch It
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The Associated Press reports that the Illinois State Supreme Court has struck down the state law requiring online retailers like Amazon to collect sales tax due to violating Federal law.

The court's majority argued that there doesn't seem to be a difference between digitally linking customers and using means that aren't taxed, like advertising promotional codes in print publications or radio broadcasts.
 
About damn time. I was a small time seller on Amazon back in 2011 when Illinois passed that law, and got a nice little email about no longer being able to sell on Amazon. Was able to fix that by moving what little business I had to Indiana where I have family living there.

Then Illinois raised personal income tax from 3% to 5%. Greedy bastards couldn't get enough money, the state is still broke, and I had at least one tax refund held up for over a year because they tried to find a way to skew the numbers so that I supposedly owed them hundreds in taxes (I eventually won that one).

I no longer live in Illinois, thank goodness.
 
About damn time. I was a small time seller on Amazon back in 2011 when Illinois passed that law, and got a nice little email about no longer being able to sell on Amazon. Was able to fix that by moving what little business I had to Indiana where I have family living there.

Then Illinois raised personal income tax from 3% to 5%. Greedy bastards couldn't get enough money, the state is still broke, and I had at least one tax refund held up for over a year because they tried to find a way to skew the numbers so that I supposedly owed them hundreds in taxes (I eventually won that one).

I no longer live in Illinois, thank goodness.

Holy shit, are you complaining about 5% tax?
 
Yeah try the nearly 10% in Oregon.

Last I checked in Oregon there was no sales tax though :).

Holy shit, are you complaining about 5% tax?

5% income tax in Illinois, 15%-ish federal income tax, 8.75% sales tax where I lived in Illinois, 6.2% social security tax, 1.45% medicare tax, yada yada yada. It all adds up. 35-40% of our income going away to taxes is a pretty bitter pill to swallow. Let's not forget property taxes (paid directly in the form of higher rent) as well!

To see a 67% increase in state income tax in one year is a little much though, you must admit.
 
They don't have sales tax in OR which is why income tax is higher, the point is irrelevant.

Illinois has a high sales tax rate, as high as 10% in places like Chicago. And they have a 5% income tax. Compare to MI with 4.5% income and 6% sales. Or Indiana as another poster pointed out.

So what is the problem? It doesn't make sense, if you have a state with more people and a denser population then you should be able to more efficiently offer them services. So your rates should be lower than states with poor economies like MI, or with less population, and a less dense population. Yet somehow many states and cities see fit to pull bullshit and do exactly the opposite and tax people higher where the population is more dense. It only proves the point that all the BS urban planners try to feed us about how city life is more efficient is just that, BS, and it only points out that those governments get away with more shit in those areas.
 
I'm actually STUNNED at this.
I've lived in Illinois most of my life (there was this little fling with the Army, but the less said about that the better). And I'm just floored (floored I say!) that someone in the government, somewhere, decided that they WEREN'T entitled to more of MY money...
 
Well, just because they can't get amazon to collect it directly, doesn't mean that you aren't still paying your due use tax anyway right?
 
Well, just because they can't get amazon to collect it directly, doesn't mean that you aren't still paying your due use tax anyway right?

It is not reasonably enforceable. No state has enough people and the commitment to try to chase after and prosecute any significant number of citizens who order stuff online. And most people are not organized enough to pay it even if they wanted to. Are you really going to go digging through all your emails for every place you ordered from online, tabulate the expenses and send it in? If you know enough you might find this already done in your bank statements but most people do not.
 
Just pointing out people's hypocrisy... They get all mad that an entity is collecting sales tax so they can't cheat on their taxes anymore.

IIRC here you can pay it online and I think it's due within two weeks of the purchase or something. I've never heard of a single person (non-business) signing up for a Dept of Revenue account to pay use taxes though. Strange how we've essentially legalized cheating on state taxes because of the interstate commerce laws.
 
The sales tax thing certainly is complicated. And even more so by our countries unique history. But in the end whatever solution happens it needs to be fair and reasonable to both comply and enforce and that is where the problem is. I personally deal with sales tax in 3-4 states. I consider it to be a virtual hell. I cannot imagine any mid to small size business being able to survive if they need to comply with sales tax in every state they sell to unless they have high profit margins. At the same time it is ridiculous to ask citizen's to waste their time filing. All of this is what is wrong with America we are being drowned in red tape and it makes us less efficient and there fore less competitive. Either their needs to be a federal sales tax that the government deals with redistributing so businesses can just pay 1 entitie. Or they need to abolish sales tax and move to another more enforceable tax such as property tax or income tax.
 
Just pointing out people's hypocrisy... They get all mad that an entity is collecting sales tax so they can't cheat on their taxes anymore.

IIRC here you can pay it online and I think it's due within two weeks of the purchase or something. I've never heard of a single person (non-business) signing up for a Dept of Revenue account to pay use taxes though. Strange how we've essentially legalized cheating on state taxes because of the interstate commerce laws.

It is not cheating to avoid paying what amounts to armed robbery and extortion. It is self defense. It is no different than the mafia going around and demanding protection money from stores.
 
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