Saturday, March 12, 2011

Sales Tax Dilemma Threatens Amazon

Money Morning submits:

By David Zeiler

If state legislatures across the country get their way, Amazon.com Inc.'s (AMZN) 16-year holiday from collecting sales tax will come to an end - with unpleasant consequences for the online retailer.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 1992 established that only retailers with a physical presence (called "nexus") in a given state are required to collect a sales tax from their patrons. But with state budgets being squeezed, more and more legislatures are trying to rope in online retailers - especially Amazon, a company that was specifically engineered to profit from the Supreme Court's ruling.

"[Amazon CEO] Jeff Bezos has built a company strategically around avoiding sales tax. But they're going to have to deal with this," retail analyst David Strasser, a managing director at Janney Montgomery Scott, told Forbes.

In states that have sales tax (five have none), adding it to the transaction will increase the cost


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