A little while ago, here in Maine, I has seen a public service anouncement on TV telling people that they need to pay the sales tax on online and catalog purchases over the past three years. Do other states have to do this? I thought that the sales tax was the resposability of the online store – at least that’s what I thought I heared.
I have no idea what I bought online over the past three years, nor any idea on how much I might need to pay on taxes.
I’ve never heard of that. I’m living in upstate NY, just moved from NJ. Whenever I purchased things online, it would automatically calculate in tax. And you shouldn’t be charged tax if the item is being shipped from out of state.
-Laurifer
Here are some links I found.
From Maine.gov:
http://www.maine.gov/revenue/salesuse/usetax/UseTax.htm#internet
From Portland Press Herald:
http://pressherald.mainetoday.com/insight/jansen/060730jansen.shtml
Look at this: http://www.taxfoundation.org/files/maine.swf
Maine has the HIGHEST State Local Tax Burden of all of the states, and is rated 7th for Overall Tax Burden. No wonder people from Maine keep moving out of state.
Wow, I’ll never move to Maine.
Same here, New Hampshire for me, live free or die.
Sometimes I feel people from Maine are attempting an economic self-destruction. It may be true, since so many people want Maine to be all one big nature park. It’s pretty much all one big nature park already, as I can step out my back door and walk for miles and miles and only see trees. I have done this. I litterally walked over ten miles through the woods behind my house and decided to turn around.
Now, I have nothing against nature. In fact I like it, but the Maine government keeps passing bills in support of environmental preservation, while at the same time preventing many businesses from from bringing in any economic support. For example, there was this plan for a really nice resort to be built, but it’s construction was prevented because “it would be the only man-made object visible from the top of Mount Katahdin.” Of course, from that distance it would only look like a little dot, but never mind that! You cant have something not natural visible from the TOP of a mountain!
Any state with sales tax requires this. If your current residency is in a state with sales tax but the business that you purchased from doesn’t have a license to do business within your state they won’t charge sales tax for the state you’re in.
I currently take up residence in southwest Washington. If I drove a few miles south into Oregon and purchased something at say BestBuy I wouldn’t be charged Washington state sales tax, and since Oregon doesn’t have sales tax I’m off scott free. However according to Washington state law anything I import back into Washington that I purchased while still in residency in Washington.
The goofiest part is that I’m supposed to go and report everything I’ve purchased out of state and imported (IE goods purchased on the web at stores that do not operate or have a business license in Washington, thus they are not directly taxable) and then pay the taxes on it.
Not snowball’s chance in hot Hell I’m doing that. Only on large items like cars am I going to pay those taxes on, because if I don’t they could fine me or jail me for not reporting and paying up.
I like to think it’s on principle, since the vast majority of the the nearly 8% sales tax we’re charged here goes to King county state projects (roads and highways mainly) anyway, very little trickles down here to Clark county.
These are the same type if not worst type of people you will find in lovin Texas. The put you in Jail for registering to vote.