Any idea why Crucial is charging out of state purchases sales tax?

[GhostMac24]

Title says it all. Just tried to check out on the Crucial website and they are wanting to charge me out of state sales tax. Anybody else experience this? I am in NC and they are in Idaho.

Thanks in advance for any replies!

 

[maflynn]

Probably the same reason macmall is and various other online vendors. States are pushing internet sites to start collecting them.

 

[talmy]

I've seen another thread about MacMall now collecting sales/use tax. Maybe there is now some clearing house that makes it easy for merchants to collect taxes for all the jurisdictions? I know there is software available that calculates the use taxes due by the customers, but I find it hard to believe that any merchant would forward collected taxes to the 7,000 taxing jurisdictions in the US!

 

[GhostMac24]

So much for savings a few $'s in tax and shipping by buying some things online. I guess I'll just support my local vendors then.

Totally OT, but IMHO there should be a different tax rate then if they are going to charge tax at non resident businesses. The tax revenue is to pay for (partially) the infrastructure use the company uses when doing physical business in the state. Not to mention, it takes an accounting toll on those companies collecting it as they have to collect, pay, and file each state/city/county they collect tax for. No doubt that affects their bottom line and thus the costs get passed along to the customer which ultimately affects them in lower sales.

 

[talmy]

OTOH but still OT, customers that buy mail order to avoid paying sales taxes hurt the local merchants (who have to collect the sales tax) and therefore their local economies. It also hurts the state and local governments which will have to raise taxes to maintain the same service levels.

From my point of view, living in a state with no sales tax (but plenty of other taxes!) I buy virtually everything online because of convenience and often a small cost savings. I'm even a 5 minute walk from work to an Apple Store, yet buy online (it's still cheaper because of Discover card cash-back, and there is better selection: build to order and refurbs). I'd hope that most people aren't buying online strictly for tax avoidance.

 

[GhostMac24]

Totally agree and I try to support my local vendors whenever possible as I would like to see the $$$ stay local and help the business. But when the state govt feels they deserve the full sales tax I have to call bs.

I buy online for the convenience and the price (if it is a good savings) and not to avoid paying tax. I just have a more idealogical take on why I don't agree with paying "local" sales tax to purchased items out of state. If anything, the out of state business should be able to collect a small tax that THEIR "local" government benefits from.

 

[talmy]

If anything, the out of state business should be able to collect a small tax that THEIR "local" government benefits from.

Interesting thought! Presumably the businesses are paying property taxes, income taxes (in states that have them), and have employees that they pay, who in turn pay taxes. The local governments benefit by reduced wear on their roads and traffic problems. And, of course, local online purchase would still be paying sales tax, so I think they come out all right! The online Apple dealer Powermax is located here in Oregon, and I'm sure they pay plenty of taxes.

I've got a problem here that probably will become worse. I've got a book that I have printed and shipped to bookstores. In cases where the printer has a nexus in the bookstore's state I get charged sales tax because the tax is based on the shipping address and not the purchaser's address. Normally a reseller would present a tax-exempt certificate to the printer to avoid the tax, but Oregon doesn't have these certificates! So the destination state actually gets to collect sales tax twice on a single retail sale.

 

[GhostMac24]

Now that is crazy.

Nice chatting with you

 

[accessoriesguy]

Amazon, your my only hope.

 

[Anonymous Freak]

Totally agree and I try to support my local vendors whenever possible as I would like to see the $$$ stay local and help the business. But when the state govt feels they deserve the full sales tax I have to call bs.

I buy online for the convenience and the price (if it is a good savings) and not to avoid paying tax. I just have a more idealogical take on why I don't agree with paying "local" sales tax to purchased items out of state. If anything, the out of state business should be able to collect a small tax that THEIR "local" government benefits from.

It really depends on the wording of your state's tax laws. Washington state, for example, has both a "retail sales" and a "use" tax.. The idea is that when a consumer acquires something of value, they pay taxes on it. If they buy from a Washington retailer, they pay retail sales tax directly through the retailer. If they buy from some other source, they are supposed to file a "use tax" form. Yes, according to Washington law, if you so much as buy a pack of baseball cards online, you owe the state of Washington money on it. If you buy a used $50 bicycle off Craigslist, you're supposed to pay the state tax.

I dunno, I think a comes-out-of-my-paycheck-automatically income tax is easier.

 

[GhostMac24]

I know that my state tried to force Amazon to collect sales tax and Amazon won in court citing customer confidentiality. I would agree since there is NO REASON the state needs to know what I am purchasing. Further, the highlighted the cost of doing business would be huge (and passed on to the customer) to have to maintain a database of all county and state tax requirements and then file to each for payment. THey actually ended up dropping and NC based "affiliate" so they would not be violating the law in NC. Of course that hurt the NC affiliates as Amazon was a huge base for them.

 

[product26]

why dont you contact their customer service and ask?

 

[GhostMac24]

And hope to get what answer? You believe that your basic CSR has those answers? I highly doubt it.

Anyway, for the roughly $7 in sales tax it's not worth my time to sit on hold and then deal with a SCR when I could just order online.

Just thought somebody here would have had experienced it. Wasn't looking for the "why" but rather if anybody else noticed/experienced that.

 

[GhostMac24]

Just wanted to update my thread to answer the tax question as well as pay a compliment to Crucial.

The reason they charge tax is that they in fact have a physical presence in North Carolina. They list all the states they have a presence in on their website. As such, you have to collect sales tax. No biggie, as for the 16gb set I bought, the sales tax was < $7

And a huge COMPLIMENT to Crucial's customer service. The day after I ordered the RAM, I received an email apologizing that the site didn't update their inventory as quick as they were selling it and that they would notify me when it came available. I responded back that it fine and to just keep me posted. I asked if they upgrade shipping options in a situation like this. I just selected the standard "free" shipping so I figured they would move it up one selection to ground or possibly 3 day. Nope, they skipped over those as well as 2 day as well as overnight. I was upgraded to the priority overnight.

I told them I didn't expect that and I truly appreciate a company that takes care of their customers like that. They have a customer for life in me!

And by the way, my RAM was in stock 2 days later and was at my door before 10am the next morning.

WAY TO GO CRUCIAL!!!

 

[monokakata]

I've seen another thread about MacMall now collecting sales/use tax. Maybe there is now some clearing house that makes it easy for merchants to collect taxes for all the jurisdictions? I know there is software available that calculates the use taxes due by the customers, but I find it hard to believe that any merchant would forward collected taxes to the 7,000 taxing jurisdictions in the US!

I used to run a business in New York state and had to collect sales tax. Although I was responsible for collecting different percentages depending on which county I did business in, I did not have to remit to all those counties. I remitted the entire amount to NY state, and they took care of distributing it to the counties.

Although I don't know, it's hard to believe that any state would make a vendor do direct by-county remittance.

Sales tax law is very arcane. I had a tax-lawyer friend and she said that sales tax issues were her favorite because although they could seem quite bizarre, there was always some underlying logic.

Agreeing or disagreeing with the logic is quite another matter!