Group Seeks Amazon Boycott Over Sales Tax Fight

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A coalition of nonprofit groups is calling on people to boycott Amazon and cancel their accounts until the online retailer gives in to California and starts collecting sales tax. Bwahahahahahahahahah! Like that's going to happen!

The nonprofits along with several state lawmakers Monday called on Amazon to "stop cheating California" by trying to repeal the law through a ballot referendum. Amazon's opponents announced a Web campaign intended to organize opposition efforts and explain how customers can close their accounts.
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OK I read this wrong. I thought they were boycotting again Amazon collecting sales tax, not boycotting them to collect sales tax.

WTF ... :confused:
 
Yeah so I bet if your went through all the shell corporations of these so called non profits you would find that the union of retailers in California or the California government is behind these so called "non profits"
 
I am joining them, I want to pay more for stuff I buy off Amazon. This is a recession, and spending more of my money on taxes is what will help the economy....




Of course, I don't live in California or believe anything I just typed.
 
As if getting sales tax from Amazon would fix their Challenger Deep deficit.

If California wasn't bleeding money like a stuck pig, they wouldn't be worrying about this.
 
ReconSniper said:
I am joining them, I want to pay more for stuff I buy off Amazon. This is a recession, and spending more of my money on taxes is what will help the economy....




Of course, I don't live in California or believe anything I just typed.
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I'm not sure about that. The government needs to learn to budget with what money they have, and they need to stop giving massive tax breaks to the rich - particularly the super-rich - if they need money so badly. (Did you know that Warren Buffet only paid 17% of his total taxable income last year?)

Getting us out of the recession would require more people giving money into the economy, not the government.

Now if you had said paying taxes through retailers might help the national and state debt and the deficit, then yeah it would a little.

Did I get this right? Accounting makes my head hurt.
 
There is a lot of irrationality surrounding taxes.

Last weekend we in Massachusetts had our annual "sales tax holiday" which essentially is a sales tax free weekend.

Stores like Target and best buy were filled with customers showing irrational exhuberance and buying $300 TV's and $100 iPods.

I know that in a recession every bit counts, but really? Our 6.25% sales tax really doesn't take a large toll. Woop de doo... You just saved $6 on that iPod. Go buy yourself a large pizza at Domino's... Oh wait, you can't. They cost too much...

On the other hand, these small taxes on each item add up in value over millions of transactions to actually amount to a real amount of money that can pay for services that government needs to provide for a society to function.

When online retailers don't collect sales tax, customers save a pittance and in exchange ruin their states economies.

Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.

No online company should be exempt from sales taxes, no matter who they are.
 
Azhar said:
I'm not sure about that. The government needs to learn to budget with what money they have, and they need to stop giving massive tax breaks to the rich - particularly the super-rich - if they need money so badly. (Did you know that Warren Buffet only paid 17% of his total taxable income last year?)

Getting us out of the recession would require more people giving money into the economy, not the government.

Now if you had said paying taxes through retailers might help the national and state debt and the deficit, then yeah it would a little.

Did I get this right? Accounting makes my head hurt.
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I presume you are referring to this recent editorial written by Mr. Buffet himself?

when the sage of Omaha speaks, I listen. When he says higher corporate tax rates and higher taxes on the wealthy really don't incentivize them from investing, like many believe, I believe him.
 
Stop using Amazon haha.. Seems to me these charities just want more special government money to collect :)
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
There is a lot of irrationality surrounding taxes.

Last weekend we in Massachusetts had our annual "sales tax holiday" which essentially is a sales tax free weekend.

Stores like Target and best buy were filled with customers showing irrational exhuberance and buying $300 TV's and $100 iPods.

I know that in a recession every bit counts, but really? Our 6.25% sales tax really doesn't take a large toll. Woop de doo... You just saved $6 on that iPod. Go buy yourself a large pizza at Domino's... Oh wait, you can't. They cost too much...

On the other hand, these small taxes on each item add up in value over millions of transactions to actually amount to a real amount of money that can pay for services that government needs to provide for a society to function.

When online retailers don't collect sales tax, customers save a pittance and in exchange ruin their states economies.

Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.

No online company should be exempt from sales taxes, no matter who they are.
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Actually, I get a Large cheese pizza from Dominios for 5.99. I use the coupon code FIVEOFF. It does not work in all areas, and pricing does vary. Add in DRINKS for two free 20 ounce drinks, and EBCS for free cinnastix, and EBE-LCC for 2 free lava cakes and I am set. So yeah, large cheese pizza, 2 20oz drinks, cinnastix, and 2 lava cakes for 5.99 + tax. I order this once a week at least and have for the last 6 months. You just have to know how to work the system.
 
A guy was collecting sigs last week outside of Target on behalf of Amazon's tax fight. Of course I signed the petition. First time I ever signed such a thing. A lot of others also did :)
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
I know that in a recession every bit counts, but really? Our 6.25% sales tax really doesn't take a large toll. Woop de doo... You just saved $6 on that iPod. Go buy yourself a large pizza at Domino's... Oh wait, you can't. They cost too much...
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I don't consider $85 of tax on a $1000 item small. Your state income tax rate is also half of what I pay in California.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
There is a lot of irrationality surrounding taxes.

Last weekend we in Massachusetts had our annual "sales tax holiday" which essentially is a sales tax free weekend.

Stores like Target and best buy were filled with customers showing irrational exhuberance and buying $300 TV's and $100 iPods.

I know that in a recession every bit counts, but really? Our 6.25% sales tax really doesn't take a large toll. Woop de doo... You just saved $6 on that iPod. Go buy yourself a large pizza at Domino's... Oh wait, you can't. They cost too much...

On the other hand, these small taxes on each item add up in value over millions of transactions to actually amount to a real amount of money that can pay for services that government needs to provide for a society to function.

When online retailers don't collect sales tax, customers save a pittance and in exchange ruin their states economies.

Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.

No online company should be exempt from sales taxes, no matter who they are.
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What you're saying would make sense if the government allocated the money properly in the first place. Actually, come to think of it, if we did that, we still wouldn't have to collect sales tax online.

Oh well...
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
There is a lot of irrationality surrounding taxes.

Last weekend we in Massachusetts had our annual "sales tax holiday" which essentially is a sales tax free weekend.

Stores like Target and best buy were filled with customers showing irrational exhuberance and buying $300 TV's and $100 iPods.

I know that in a recession every bit counts, but really? Our 6.25% sales tax really doesn't take a large toll. Woop de doo... You just saved $6 on that iPod. Go buy yourself a large pizza at Domino's... Oh wait, you can't. They cost too much...

On the other hand, these small taxes on each item add up in value over millions of transactions to actually amount to a real amount of money that can pay for services that government needs to provide for a society to function.

When online retailers don't collect sales tax, customers save a pittance and in exchange ruin their states economies.

Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.

No online company should be exempt from sales taxes, no matter who they are.
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sounds good except that sales tax does not pay for the roads or the police, property taxes and gas/wheel taxes do that. The delivery companies do pay those taxes. Also if you allow states to levy taxes then on good coming into the state, it would not be a big step to have custom style check points at state crossings. California must first demonstrate that they can live within thier means before they should get more revenue. I think that it is as simple as that.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
There is a lot of irrationality surrounding taxes.
Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.
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You seem to be largely confusing the shipping company and amazon here. The shipping company pays taxes on the to use the roads and pay police services. Amazon should not since they are not receiving these services themselves. This is the way the law has worked since the Sears catalog was the biggest thing in retail. This all comes down to politicians that can't budget and retailers that would rather shut down the competition than update their business models.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.
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Amazon isn't a shipping company. It's UPS or Fedex that uses the roads, and UPS/Fedex DOES charge sales tax - so there's your sales tax for road maintenance (not to mention the gas taxes added on to power those UPS/Fedex vehicles as they travel). You just don't realize this because online retailers just show you 'Shipping & Handling' as a total and don't show you the itemized bill with taxes/fees/gas fees etc added on like when you ship a package yourself. Go ahead, go ship a package at UPS/Fedex. You'll see all those 'Local Sales Tax', 'State Sales Tax', 'Gas Fee', that you normally don't see when an online retailer only shows you the total.

Police investigation when an item is stolen? Wow. You must have some connections, because for most people what happens is Amazon reships a replacement. If it's lost in shipping they file a claim since they pay insurance on their shipments to UPS/Fedex. For you they call your local police and start an investigation, really?

Few people live in a state where Amazon has sued a competitor. I can't think of any states they've done that, but I'll concede that maybe they've done that in one or two states before and I've just never heard about it.
 
WtBadAss said:
sounds good except that sales tax does not pay for the roads or the police, property taxes and gas/wheel taxes do that. The delivery companies do pay those taxes. Also if you allow states to levy taxes then on good coming into the state, it would not be a big step to have custom style check points at state crossings. California must first demonstrate that they can live within thier means before they should get more revenue. I think that it is as simple as that.
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If they had more revenue, then they could live within their means :p

Seriously, living within ones means is a two sided equation. You have to spend in accordance with what you earn. when you have a deficit, you have to cut spending OR increase revenues. Both are equally viable.

Now I agree, California does some excessive and wasteful things with their tax income, but making this a debate about California's tax spending completely misses the point. That is not what this is about at all.

It is a debate about fairness. If Company A has to collect sales taxes for selling to the same customer as Company B, then Company B should have to pay sales taxes as well. I don't really care how you solve this dilemma, just make them even.

What I would do to make this not seem like a tax increase would be to lower the sales taxes overall, and then force the internet giants to pay the same rate, so that the total sales tax revenue is the same, just that the burden is borne evenly by everyone.

The government should not be in the position to pick winners and losers, which is what they are doing in this case. By forcing local businesses to collect sales taxes, and not doing the same for Internet businesses, they are essentially promoting internet business. The governments job should be to provide a level playing field. As long as local businesses need to collect sales taxes and internet companies don't, the playing field is not level.
 
Ualdayan said:
Amazon isn't a shipping company. It's UPS or Fedex that uses the roads, and UPS/Fedex DOES charge sales tax - so there's your sales tax for road maintenance (not to mention the gas taxes added on to power those UPS/Fedex vehicles as they travel). You just don't realize this because online retailers just show you 'Shipping & Handling' as a total and don't show you the itemized bill with taxes/fees/gas fees etc added on like when you ship a package yourself. Go ahead, go ship a package at UPS/Fedex. You'll see all those 'Local Sales Tax', 'State Sales Tax', 'Gas Fee', that you normally don't see when an online retailer only shows you the total.

Police investigation when an item is stolen? Wow. You must have some connections, because for most people what happens is Amazon reships a replacement. If it's lost in shipping they file a claim since they pay insurance on their shipments to UPS/Fedex. For you they call your local police and start an investigation, really?

Few people live in a state where Amazon has sued a competitor. I can't think of any states they've done that, but I'll concede that maybe they've done that in one or two states before and I've just never heard about it.
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I'm giving general examples of services any company needs to rely on that governments provide, not specific examples. If there were no police, fire, courts or roads then they couldn't do business in the state. Simple as that. There are other state services they use as well.
 
tbh last I checked even with the law that California passed, Amazon is not required to collect sales tax. Unless they were incredibly dumb and re-established relations with their affiliates in California, they have not nexus in California, and so they can't be required to collect sales tax (legally). See National Bellas Hess v. Illinois and Quill Corp. v. North Dakota. If having floppy disks and mail catalogs don't count as a sufficient nexus, I doubt having a website is.
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637264 said:
I'm giving general examples of services any company needs to rely on that governments provide, not specific examples. If there were no police, fire, courts or roads then they couldn't do business in the state. Simple as that. There are other state services they use as well.
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I just can't think of any services that an out of state entity uses inside a state that isn't getting paid for. Roads - get paid for by the delivery company and are rolled into your shipping costs as explained prior in the thread. Courts - if they're going to sue somebody they're going to do it in their home state or the home state of the corporation they're suing. Fire protection is built into property taxes, be it your home property taxes, or the property taxes Fedex/UPS get charged for their warehouse facility.

Taxes are already being collected be it property taxes on their warehouses and offices, income taxes on their profits, or sales taxes on the shipping. It's just that it's all rolled into other figures rather than being itemized for you to see.
 
You get more tax revenue if you get more people working. The more people who work, the more they spend, the more they spend, the more money goes into the treasury. People don't spend money because of tax breaks, they hoard it...like now...
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637259 said:
It is a debate about fairness. If Company A has to collect sales taxes for selling to the same customer as Company B, then Company B should have to pay sales taxes as well. I don't really care how you solve this dilemma, just make them even.
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If you want it to be about fairness, wouldn't it be fair to say that an Amazon warehouse in another state entirely (for example Washington) is less of a strain on the public infrastructure of California than 1,000 Wal-Mart superstores actually in California? Any retail store can have the exact same taxing requirements as any online store - all they have to do is give up the advantages they have over online stores, and thereby lessen their use of the state's infrastructure. If Wal-Mart had no retail stores in California they wouldn't have to collect anything more than Amazon does which has no retail stores. Of course they'd never do that because they realize that physical presence gives them a significant advantage.
 
Hey lawmakers, stop cheating the people and then we can talk about whether or not Amazon is cheating anyone.
 
plunger said:
A guy was collecting sigs last week outside of Target on behalf of Amazon's tax fight. Of course I signed the petition. First time I ever signed such a thing. A lot of others also did :)
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Since Amazon started signature collection (and other groups), there has coincidentally been radio commercials running that warn of signature collectors as a source of identity theft sponsored by some Californians Against Identity Theft organization that didn't exist until recently. Just sayin'.
 
vincentharris said:
Yeah so I bet if your went through all the shell corporations of these so called non profits you would find that the union of retailers in California or the California government is behind these so called "non profits"
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Probably not actually. There is a big push in the public sector (those paid with state funds) to get taxes levied everywhere just for their job security.

I tend to teeter each way depending on the specifics of a tax, I think property taxes based on value of a home is fucking stupid, where as things like gas taxes based on quantity is stupid (feds get the lion share of this anyways).

I would like the see the tax returns of all these protesters though, lets see how many of them actually put reported their "use-tax" and if not let them say with a straight face they didn't buy anything online tax-free
 
Zarathustra[H];1037637160 said:
There is a lot of irrationality surrounding taxes.

Last weekend we in Massachusetts had our annual "sales tax holiday" which essentially is a sales tax free weekend.

Stores like Target and best buy were filled with customers showing irrational exhuberance and buying $300 TV's and $100 iPods.

I know that in a recession every bit counts, but really? Our 6.25% sales tax really doesn't take a large toll. Woop de doo... You just saved $6 on that iPod. Go buy yourself a large pizza at Domino's... Oh wait, you can't. They cost too much...

On the other hand, these small taxes on each item add up in value over millions of transactions to actually amount to a real amount of money that can pay for services that government needs to provide for a society to function.

When online retailers don't collect sales tax, customers save a pittance and in exchange ruin their states economies.

Of course Amazon should pay sales taxes. They take advantage of the services the state has to offer including the roads used to deliver the packages to peoples homes, the police they call when their shit gets stolen, the courts they use to sue their competitors, so they should have to pay for them. It's as simple as that.

No online company should be exempt from sales taxes, no matter who they are.
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Ok, lets tear this one apart

1. its not a pittance, not by any means. That $6 will buy you a large pizza at Little Caesar and still have money left over, to use your crappy analogy. And of course the more you end up spending, the bigger the save. $62.50 off that $1000 car repair? yes please, and thank you.

2. States ruin their own economies by spending more than they have, period. You're seriously going to fault consumers? How about the retards you elected that couldnt budget their way through a McDonald's happy meal, much less a state.

3. No, amazon should not have to pay sales tax. Its a f-ing law. Interstate commerce is NOT state sales taxable, period. The states that ARE pulling this shit are breaking the damned law, end of story.

Oh, and Amazon doesnt get those benefits from the roads, police or anything else you mentioned. the shipping company does. Be it UPS, FedEx, or whomever. And those companies DO have to pay taxes to the state, and they pass that cost right along to Amazon, who must in turn pay the higher shipping and insurance rates.

But go on ahead and keep deluding yourself. The only people calling for more money to go to taxes are those who have too much of it.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Or the Warren Buffets of the world who pay such a meager percentage of their income.
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Lets say Warren Buffet gets taxed for %50 of his income then. Who is it going to hurt? Certainly not him. He will just lay off some people that work for him, not buy as many new cars, etc... he wont suffer a bit, but all those people who were making a living from what he was spending? They're screwed.

That's why higher taxes, and the idea of taxing the rich doesn't work. Stop buying into this class war bullshit the media is trying to feed you and follow the actual money.
 
Actually, Warren Buffet WANTS to be taxed more. He effectively pays 17% of his income in taxes.

Anyway, what does the rabble rabble job creators, rabble rich have to do with the fact that the actual deadbeats here are people shopping online in CA?
 
rhone89 said:
That's why higher taxes, and the idea of taxing the rich doesn't work. Stop buying into this class war bullshit the media is trying to feed you and follow the actual money.
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...which if you do, leads you to the top 0.1%. Of all of the growth in the last decade, nearly all of it has gone to the top 1%.

Our most prosperous times were also during some of our times of highest tax rates. I'm not claiming they are correlated; but to say that high taxes make growth impossible is clearly false.

We're currently in 2 (.5) wars that need to be paid for.
 
TwistedAegis said:
...which if you do, leads you to the top 0.1%. Of all of the growth in the last decade, nearly all of it has gone to the top 1%.

Our most prosperous times were also during some of our times of highest tax rates. I'm not claiming they are correlated; but to say that high taxes make growth impossible is clearly false.

We're currently in 2 (.5) wars that need to be paid for.
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Correct, because the Goverment has made piss poor budget decisions, causing said top 1% to invest their money elsewhere.

Incorrect. There is a DIRECT correlation between higher taxes and lower growth, and lower taxes and higher growth. No one said growth with higher taxes is impossible, but it is damned sure going to be less than it would be with lower taxes.
 
The Cobra said:
You get more tax revenue if you get more people working. The more people who work, the more they spend, the more they spend, the more money goes into the treasury. People don't spend money because of tax breaks, they hoard it...like now...
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Amazon doesn't employ that many people. You know who employs more people? The combined force of local B&M companies. Do you know which of the two has to be arbitrarily ~8% more expensive than the other due to sales tax rules that were written long before internet sales became the animal they are?
 
Last month, news broke of one California-based online entrepreneur who had decided to ditch California and move to Nevada in the aftermath of Gov. Jerry Brown signing the law. ”I always figured that in California, home to Silicon Valley and a million tech startups, they’d never pass a law like this,” said Nick Loper, who formerly operated ShoesRUs and has now opened a new venture, ShoeSniper.

Per the piece in which Loper is quoted, more than 70 affiliates had at that stage already left California, according to online businesses.

Then, last Thursday, another online entrepreneur, Erica Douglass, posted a mock “It’s Over” letter to California on her blog. Douglass, who sold an internet company she had built for $1.1 million in 2007 when she was just 26, cited multiple reasons for moving to Austin. Among them were unnecessary paperwork requirements mandated by the state, and high taxes as well as business fees. However, the straw that broke the camel’s back, was according to Portfolio, Brown signing the Amazon Tax into law.

Backers of the legislation seemed to believe that affiliates would be happy to work with other retailers who also operate affiliate programs, or that online retailers targeted by the law would not end affiliate relationships and the threat was idle.

In neither case do those assumptions now seem correct.​

Their boycott isn't going to bring back these retailers. This boycott is meaningless and I gather these boycotters probably spend very little on Amazon.com. I may have to make a purchase through Amazon in spite of what they're doing.
 
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