[UKCardGuy]

Originally Posted by raulus

So let’s say for a moment there’s a business involved in large dollar transactions on behalf of customers who reside in a high sales tax state. And that business is even so cheeky as to actively advertise to customers to use their service to avoid paying sales tax. Let’s assume for a moment that for a particularly tax-happy state, the lost revenue adds up to 5% of the state budget for any given year.

Query:

1) what are the odds that the state will care?
2) what are the odds that the state will go after the business whose marketing message entices customers to evade sales tax?
3) what kind of penalties and interest might be applied to that situation that the state would seek to recoup from the business that deliberately aided and abetted their customers in evading those sales taxes?
4) what are the criminal penalties that might apply to the business so involved?

Maybe the state won’t care. And maybe no one will ever have to pay in such a situation. But it seems like the risk of the above possibilities has to be a nonzero number. And once that ball gets rolling with the right politician who gets wind of it or the right newspaper that decides to highlight the obvious and flagrant practices here, it could start to pick up momentum fast.

In the scenario you've outlined...nobody "evaded" taxes, they avoided them. Tax evasion is illegal. Tax avoidance is every citizen's right. Nobody is under any obligation to pay more tax than they owe. If the current taxation systems allow someone to pay a lower sales tax in another state....they'd be silly not to avail themselves of the better price.