Amazon coming to TN?
Amazon wants to build a facility or two in our state. Which would mean that they’d have to start collecting sales tax from Tennessee customers. Amazon is trying to prevent that having TN customers pay sales tax. Good.
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January 26th, 2011 at 10:51 am
But TN has no state income tax.
January 26th, 2011 at 1:03 pm
Interesting issue. One of Amazon’s competitive advantages is that they do not collect sales tax on orders shipped to states where they don’t have a physical presence. Whether the purchasers are liable for the sales tax to their own state is another issue, the legal answer is generally “yes” but the practical answer is generally “no”.
This wouldn’t be an issue in New Hampshire (no sales tax) and would be much less of an issue in some other states where the state portion of the sales tax is still fairly low. at 7% TN is tied for second-highest in the nation (After CA) and then local sales taxes go on top of that for local retail sales, so my local tax rate is 9.75%
So if Amazon were to locate here they might lose a lot of TN customers to competitors, barring an exemption. But to grant the exemption, doesn’t the state have to admit that it isn’t really interested in collecting all of that uncollected tax from out-of-state mail-order vendors?
January 26th, 2011 at 6:52 pm
I know that would make a huge difference to me. We buy a lot through Amazon Prime because there’s no tax or shipping (we more than make up for the Prime fee in shipping costs saved).
I’m in Missouri, but despite the positive jobs aspect of Amazon ever locating a facility here, I’d MUCH rather have no sales tax.