Amazon and sales taxes

[swake]

It looks like Amazon is about to start charging sales tax in Oklahoma. This is good news but there remains a question, is this just state sales tax or will cities receive new revenue as well?

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/state/oklahoma-watch-amazon-expected-to-charge-sales-taxes-soon-for/article_7f8f08af-0758-546a-913e-b9c45bdf37f4.html

[patric]

It looks like Amazon is about to start charging sales tax in Oklahoma. This is good news but there remains a question, is this just state sales tax or will cities receive new revenue as well?

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/state/oklahoma-watch-amazon-expected-to-charge-sales-taxes-soon-for/article_7f8f08af-0758-546a-913e-b9c45bdf37f4.html

What is Oklahoma doing to earn that money?   ...and what are Oklahoma citizens getting in return for paying it?

[RecycleMichael]

What is Oklahoma doing to earn that money?   ...and what are Oklahoma citizens getting in return for paying it?

A fair playing field.

[swake]

I think this will be nothing short of huge, especially for cities (if they are getting funds as well), as Amazon and others have "disrupted" into more and more businesses it has killed sales tax revenue for the state and cities.

It will have the ancillary benefit of helping brick and mortar stores. If the price is the same online and in a store many people will forgo shipping costs or want the instant gratification of not waiting for shipping.  This needs to be expanded to more and more online stores.

[BKDotCom]

Keeping track of what is owed for "use tax" is now more of a hassle.
Some retails collect taxes, others don't
What taxes do they collect?
etc.

[Townsend]

It will have the ancillary benefit of helping brick and mortar stores. If the price is the same online and in a store many people will forgo shipping costs or want the instant gratification of not waiting for shipping.  This needs to be expanded to more and more online stores.

I click "buy" and it's on my doorstep in two days.  No crowd, no driving, no checkout line, no bad roads, no parking, no door dings, no shipping = no brick and mortar.

[cannon_fodder]

What is Oklahoma doing to earn that money?   ...and what are Oklahoma citizens getting in return for paying it?

The legal question has always been what is Amazon getting?  My understanding is that Amazon could not be forced to collect sales taxes on behalf of the State of Oklahoma because they had no actual operations in the State of Oklahoma.  They don't use our roads, infrastructure, etc. (UPS, USPS, and FedEx do... which all pay Oklahoma taxes). However, citizens of the State of Oklahoma are not exempt from reporting the purchase and paying the tax.  It just never happens.

Amazon's other argument (other than "you can't make us") is that other online transactions are not taxed.  Etsy, Ebay, smaller retailers, whatever.  So it hurts their competitiveness if they are forced to (police the big guy, not the little one).  Given that Amazon is the 80 gorilla in online sales, they aren't likely to lose their hegemony.

Finally - it is sadly basically irrelevant inn the big picture about how broke our current leadership has left us.  Assuming Amazon accounts for a full 50% of all Oklahoma online sales and we tax it all, the estimate is it will bring in an additional $150,000,000.00.  Or enough to make up for 16% of this years budget shortfall.    

I'm not against collecting online sales tax, but it seems like the government is trying to say we are broke due to online sales.  The numbers provided in that article just don't support that conclusion.

[Hoss]

I click "buy" and it's on my doorstep in two days.  No crowd, no driving, no checkout line, no bad roads, no parking, no door dings, no shipping = no brick and mortar.

Which is exactly why I use it.  Prime pays for itself (for me anyway) usually in the first two months of the year.  Plus you get TV shows much like Netflix.  I only go shopping for groceries at brick and mortars now.  I understand the whole 'shop local' thing, but people are looking for ways to save.

[Cats Cats Cats]

While Amazon has the ability to write a program to handle this I am sure.  These are the codes that they will have to use to determine how the sales tax will be calculated.  Imagine making every ebay seller having to do this in every state.  There is a county and a city code that has to be entered.  Sometimes part of the city won't have a county tax and the other part will.  It can get confusing.

https://www.ok.gov/tax/documents/copo2Q15.pdf

[Townsend]

Gov. Mary Fallin: Amazon to charge sales taxes starting in March for customers in Oklahoma

http://www.tulsaworld.com/news/state/gov-mary-fallin-amazon-to-charge-sales-taxes-starting-in/article_7f8f08af-0758-546a-913e-b9c45bdf37f4.html

As much as I trust OK's government, my first reaction to this headline was "I wonder if Amazon agrees with her."

[Conan71]

The legal question has always been what is Amazon getting?  My understanding is that Amazon could not be forced to collect sales taxes on behalf of the State of Oklahoma because they had no actual operations in the State of Oklahoma.  They don't use our roads, infrastructure, etc. (UPS, USPS, and FedEx do... which all pay Oklahoma taxes). However, citizens of the State of Oklahoma are not exempt from reporting the purchase and paying the tax.  It just never happens.

Amazon's other argument (other than "you can't make us") is that other online transactions are not taxed.  Etsy, Ebay, smaller retailers, whatever.  So it hurts their competitiveness if they are forced to (police the big guy, not the little one).  Given that Amazon is the 80 gorilla in online sales, they aren't likely to lose their hegemony.

Finally - it is sadly basically irrelevant inn the big picture about how broke our current leadership has left us.  Assuming Amazon accounts for a full 50% of all Oklahoma online sales and we tax it all, the estimate is it will bring in an additional $150,000,000.00.  Or enough to make up for 16% of this years budget shortfall.    

I'm not against collecting online sales tax, but it seems like the government is trying to say we are broke due to online sales.  The numbers provided in that article just don't support that conclusion.

The story Townsend posted has an estimate of about $56 million, after the cities and counties get their cut the state nets about 1/2 of that.

If Amazon doesn't have nexus in Oklahoma, I'm trying to figure out what their incentive is to start collecting sales tax as supposedly it makes them less competitive.  Honestly, even with sales tax, I'll use them because of the convenience of not having to leave my home or office if it's not something which is terribly time-sensitive.  That has never kept me from using Best Buy, Target, etc. online.  For me, they are selling convenience, not necessarily beating the pants off everyone else's prices.

[TheArtist]

I click "buy" and it's on my doorstep in two days.  No crowd, no driving, no checkout line, no bad roads, no parking, no door dings, no shipping = no brick and mortar.

Its good to walk a little and get some exercise on occasion, especially if its an enjoyable walk.  Its also nice to be out and about with other humans on occasion. People are meant to both walk and be sociable its part of our nature (studies show that to be true despite some peoples claims otherwise).  Its also nice to see and feel an object in person before you purchase it (our soaps, candles, coffees and chocolates are also a delight to smell!).  We also work to create an enjoyable, and hopefully someday a magical, wonderful, environment at our store.  Neat things to see (far more enjoyable to see them and experience them in real life) that you can only find at our store and not online. Does Amazon have live music? occasionally throw parties with free wine, cheese and snacks? Puppet and magic shows? Book readings with author meet and greet? Friendly people to help you find that perfect gift? Amazon will also never have any DECOPOLIS product that we create just for our store. It also won't feature any of the one of a kind local artwork and crafts we have along with parties where you can meet the artist and talk to them about the art (along with having a free drink and snack while doing so).  Soon we will have interactive things at DECOPOLIS, museum artifacts, games you can play with friends (Tiki Toss in our Atomic Tiki Room) Bottle opener? hows this for you, Pop off your soda lid in Madame Minko's Magical Plinko and see what your fortune is!) etc. etc.  My theory is, create a great experience and then get em to spend a little money while they are there doing so. So more and more I hope to make DECOPOLIS a more enjoyable place to visit.  Mark my word, some day I will have a "store" that people will pay to get into. It won't be where I am at now, but some day, mark my word. In essence isn't that what Disney World is?  You pay to go there, pay to get inside, then pay to stay at their resorts, pay to eat their food, and you buy their stuff too!

But I guess you can sit at home and buy something online.  Woo hoo sounds like fun! Way to enjoy life!

[TeeDub]

They may not have everythigng DECOPOLIS has, but they have a lot.

http://www.decopolis.net/discovitorium/


Sparkling Mike   https://www.amazon.com/Schylling-Mens-Sparkling-Robot-Multi/dp/B000WHRYT6
Mechanical Planet Robot   https://www.amazon.com/Schylling-space-Mechanical-Planet-collectible/dp/B000PFJZXS/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1486131411&sr=1-1&keywords=mechanical+planet+robot
Cosmo (Wind up Robot)      https://www.amazon.com/Schylling-Cosmo-Tin-Robot-Figure/dp/B00BTWDB7C/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1486131571&sr=1-1&keywords=cosmo+wind+up+robot
Robot Lilliput       https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dtoys-and-games&field-keywords=robot+lilliput

[cannon_fodder]

...My theory is, create a great experience and then get em to spend a little money while they are there doing so. So more and more I hope to make DECOPOLIS a more enjoyable place to visit.  Mark my word, some day I will have a "store" that people will pay to get into...

But I guess you can sit at home and buy something online.  Woo hoo sounds like fun! Way to enjoy life!

DECOPOLIS isn't competing on a "cheapest product" basis. You have a angles to draw in customers and then hope they buy things from you.  That angle is to try to be interesting, engaging, and local. It works for me.

But Walmart, BestBuy, Barnes and Nobles, and Bed Bath and Beyond aren't pushing that same angle.  Walmart is sheer value, get your stuff here cheap!  Best Buy tries to be "cool" and show off lots of product as well as have knowledgeable staff, but some people do their research online and take the reviewers word for it...no need to see it.  Barnes and Nobles had an advantage when people had to browse paper books and ask "what's good," that advantage has really become harder to keep.   The stores are still a great way to go "shop,"  but for people that are looking to "buy" it is hard to keep a competitive edge with commodity like products.

As long as you are doing something different, then I think you are adding that competitive edge that makes people WANT to buy from you.

[TheArtist]

They may not have everythigng DECOPOLIS has, but they have a lot.

http://www.decopolis.net/discovitorium/


Sparkling Mike   https://www.amazon.com/Schylling-Mens-Sparkling-Robot-Multi/dp/B000WHRYT6
Mechanical Planet Robot   https://www.amazon.com/Schylling-space-Mechanical-Planet-collectible/dp/B000PFJZXS/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1486131411&sr=1-1&keywords=mechanical+planet+robot
Cosmo (Wind up Robot)      https://www.amazon.com/Schylling-Cosmo-Tin-Robot-Figure/dp/B00BTWDB7C/ref=sr_1_1?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1486131571&sr=1-1&keywords=cosmo+wind+up+robot
Robot Lilliput       https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_2?url=search-alias%3Dtoys-and-games&field-keywords=robot+lilliput

Yea, apologies, we are working on the website, looks terrible right now and that stuff is just something to "hold the space" while we work on creating the rest.   

What I am really talking about are our own line of products.

  My intent is to create a new product or line of products every quarter.   So far we have our own exclusive T-shirts, matted posters (those should be going up next week) card line, postcards, our own Coffees, teas (Just got word that our new "Tulsa Tiki Time Teas" are being made right now! Can't wait for people to see them, they are so cute! and have some great flavor blends), chocolates (DECOPOLIS Art DeCocoa), keychains, buttons, magnets, coasters, etc. and will soon be adding jewelry, keychains, books, toys, puzzles and games, etc. 

There are two great things about doing our own lines. We can sell them at prices competitive with stuff you get elsewhere, including online, and we make more from them. The profit margins on our cards and prints for instance are so much higher than purchasing similar items from a wholesale card company for instance.  Also, the items being unique to our "brand" alleviates some of the competitive factors related to amazon and big box stores.