Finally Supreme Court corrected itself. Online businesses should never have been exempted from collecting sales tax based on physical presence or nexus test. Many people shop online precisely to avoid taxes just as the advertisement by Wayfair Inc mentioned. Wayfair was selling tax avoidance as a benefit of shopping online. Amazon doesn’t collect sales tax or asks its merchants to collect sales taxes. While Amazon argues that it now collects sales tax on the products it sells directly, it is still a fraction of the total volume. Not to mention that they used the tax loophole to grow the company into an eCommerce giant.
Amazon originally set up its business model to avoid state sales taxes, limiting its physical presence to a handful of warehouses….Amazon hasn’t collected the taxes for most independent merchants who sell on its platform.
-WSJ
Every buyer shall pay taxes regardless of the medium of purchase. The practice of letting some sellers not to collect sales while forcing others to collect is discriminatory. That’s the only way all businesses can compete on the same level.
A good day for local businesses!