Quote:
Originally Posted by Cinnamon J. Scudworth
OOTP uses eSellerate for sales. In the United States, eSellerate collects sales tax in all states that have sales tax, though in some of these states it only applies when a physical product is being shipped.
In general, states are getting craftier about writing legislation to count more things beyond simple physical presence as "nexus" (the legal term that refers to the requirement for companies doing business in a state to collect and pay tax on sales in that state), and sellers are getting more risk-averse about it as they have seen Amazon and other big online retailers lose some cases.
There's been an uptick in lobbying for national online sales tax legislation that would try to standardize all of this by giving states more power to collect sales taxes from out-of-state residents, though prospects in 2015 aren't great. Even so, the good old days of not paying tax on most online purchases are pretty much over. |
Tell you one thing that's good about this. For a number of years, New York State's tax return would ask you to voluntarily declare an estimated sales tax on online purchases and, like a good-natured dummy, er, like a good citizen, I did so. Now that I see sales tax on many more of my online purchases these days, I no longer am so nice.
