Taxes on E-Commerce! Now this is an area that is really exploding! My guess is that by now you’ve heard all about the controversial “Amazon Laws”, laws which have been enacted or are currently being legislated in several states. But just in case you’ve missed all the excitement, these presumptive nexus laws (what they’re really called) have been passed by numerous states to require on-line retailers who lack a physical presence in their state, to collect sales tax on internet sales made to in-state purchasers. The news stories are everywhere, and generally focus on Amazon.com’s resistance to comply with these new laws. By the way, these presumptive nexus laws were nicknamed “Amazon Laws” after their largest target, and also because Amazon.com (and Overstock.com) sued the State of New York after it passed the nation’s first presumptive nexus law in 2008.
Which states have passed an Amazon Law, which states are repealing them, how Amazon is reacting to their passage, how these laws are impacting internet marketers and small and medium sized businesses, other approaches states are taking to circumvent nexus, the constitutionality of these Amazon Laws; these are all relevant and exciting topics to discuss. And if you’ve seen the results of my last poll question, “What SALT Topic Do You Want to Know More About”, you know that the majority of survey participants (60%) said they wanted to know more about Sales Tax “Amazon Laws”. (See side bar for poll questions and results) As I said, there’s so much happening in the e-Commerce / Internet Tax area.
I’ve recently been asked to become the e-Commerce / Internet Tax contributor to a multi-contributor blog that is slated to be launched in the next few weeks by SalesTaxSupport.com. If you’re not familiar with SalesTaxSupport.com, it’s a free sales tax information website for small-medium business users. SalesTaxSupport.com works with State Department of Revenue offices across the country, as well as sales tax accountants, SALT practitioners, attorneys and software/solution providers to source helpful sales & use tax content. I’m very excited to be joining this collaboration and look forward to providing The State and Local Tax “Buzz” readers with links directly to my SalesTaxSupport.com contributions and similar posts. You can find out more about SalesTaxSupport.com by clicking on any of the links I’ve provided in this post.
