Northern California → Amazon $ale$ tax

Just in case you haven't heard, today is the end of tax-free Amazon orders for Californians:
»apnews.myway.com//articl ··· RG0.html

This bit is interesting:
»news.cnet.com/8301-13578 ··· oophole/

But of course CA wants their cut:
»news.cnet.com/8301-13578 ··· s-taxes/

 
Bottom line is: Smart shoppers pay attention to the bottom line. When comparing retailers, instead of just the raw cost of the item, you should compare the total, out-the-door cost which includes any shipping or tax.

How to stop it?
Do CA legislators listen to CA residents at all?
If not stopped they would tax everything, even the air we breath...

Well the glib answer is next time vote for anything besides a Democrat.

Seriously though, you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned the legislature. At the state level everyone focuses on who is Governor, yet they keep re-electing the same people for the Assembly and State Senate. Term limits passed for a reason, but the career politicians just change houses once they are termed out, or get into some other kind of government role.

I don't like paying taxes on Amazon items. I buy a lot from Amazon. But let's get real. Amazon had an incredible advantage over B&M retailers and many other online retailers.

This levels the playing field for other stores - creating more jobs for small businesses.

I'm fine with this to be honest.

there is no way CA was going to continue to let that tax revenue go uncollected forever, and even more so with the state running deficits.

On the upside, you'll get your crap faster now that amazon can put warehouses near SF and LA. And maybe lab126 can finally admit it's amazon labs

Amazon has been dodging having to deal with state taxes since they've been in business, no matter where they situated their warehouses. Anytime they built a new facility, after a few years the state would bring forward a plan to start taxing those customers in that particular state. Amazon would pull up the stakes and move to another state, until that state wanted to start taxing state customers.

Vicious cycle.

Those choices has been diminishing since most states are looking into doing the same thing as here.