Quote:
Originally Posted by HarryT
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but if you buy something from another state, or over the internet, do you not have to pay "use tax" equivalent to the amount of sales tax that would have been paid had you bought it in your own state? That being the case, I don't see why it would be cheaper, unless people are committing the crime of tax evasion by not paying it?
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The subject has been brought up in Congress (US) - and debated a few times since it gives internet sellers an advantage over bricks/mortar. So far it has gone nowhere. State legislatures also argue with this. But even in bricks/mortar, my state WA has about a 10% sales tax. Across the border to the south, Oregon has NONE. Folks living in the relatively large city of Vancouver, WA (as opposed to the one north in Canada) tend to shop across the bridge. Further, folks from Oregon can purchase sales-tax free in WA by showing a card (or maybe even driver's license). I may not have all of the details correct.
Of course, Canadians use to make it easy for US-ers to get back some of the VAT(is that what they charge) but the forms got more complicated and they raised the minimum amount so you need more/larger purchases to get it back.