Quote:
Is there anything wrong with buying from a State that lowest State Taxes, or even from buying from outside the the U.S. For example the U.K.?
Legally, or physically?
In the US, if you buy from another state and the seller has a
physical presence in your state, they charge your state's sales tax.
If you buy from a seller in another state and the seller does not have a
physical presence in your state, they do not charge sales tax, period.
HOWEVER--
Almost every state with a
sales tax also has a
use tax. If you buy from out of state to avoid the sales tax, you owe the use tax, usually the same rate.
In practice, use tax is easy to collect from businesses. Buy a big piece of equipment and have it shipped to you, and there's paperwork involved. Deduct the equipment, and it's pretty obvious you owe the use tax.
Small consumer transactions are a lot harder to collect use tax for. That's not to say if some wholesaler two miles from the border sells $10 million a year to people in the next state, that the state losing the tax couldn't try to get customer addresses from the seller.
Some states have tried this, but if for example NY asks a NJ seller for their records, the seller can point out that NY has no jurisdiction over them.
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Posted 05/18/2012 9:17 pm
, TexasCoinMan!
