Sales tax on Heritage invoice?

[frankbmd]

When I won an REA Auction for two cards a few years ago in the middle of the night, I checked my invoice on line at 4AM and it had a shipping charge of $1000.00 included. Several hours later I received an Email telling me that the shipping charge was a default number and that the actual shipping charge would be added later.

Similar type of problem creating panic, anger and a sleepness night.
Wouldn't it have been more prudent to set the default shipping charge at zero with a pending determination note?

Glad to hear this was all a computer glitch. I know exactly how you all felt.

[Leon]

Originally Posted by frankbmd

Similar type of problem creating panic, anger and a sleepness night.
Wouldn't it have been more prudent to set the default shipping charge at zero with a pending determination note?

From my perspective as an auctioneer, absolutely NOT.
Then when shipping charges get added everyone is pissed off. Much better to set a very high default if one needs to be set. Our s/w does the same thing and we set ours at $2000 immediately, then adjust them right after that to the correct amount.

[mcap100176]

Online sales tax is based upon the Amazon legislation. In exchange for a "sales tax holiday" for a few years, Amazon has been negotiating with states to build distribution centers for faster shipping. They have been negotiating with NJ, where I live, for a few months. Texas and California did theirs a few months ago. Most legislation is aimed at Amazon as there are size parameters of capital investments, job creation, employee benefits, etc. If anyone wants to have a blast reading legislation, I can link to the NJ draft bills, there are a few competing bills.

Expect more of this in future as Amazon looks to increase their presence for distribution and warehouse sites. More annoying for me, living in NJ, I face the 18.5% BP on REA plus 7% sales tax. It definitely impacts my bidding.

[Rich Klein]

As a person who believes in local stores, I'm actually in favor of sales tax or whatever tax on internet purchases. These taxes just continue to make life much harder for brick and mortaer stores who already have to fight battles because of rent, electricity, employee costs, etc while some of these costs are the same for internet busineeses, the 8 percent is not the same.


Thus, and not just in cards, in fairness to local stores there does need to be a level playing field. I could go on more of a rant, but let's just say local sales tax is unfair to small businesses as compared to internet only ones.

Rich

[buymycards]

Wisconsin is really cracking down on the Use tax. If you use a tax preparer for your income tax they are now quizzing you with several questions about items that were purchased out of state. This year I ended up filing an amended return for the previous year in order to report some out of state purchases.

So now when I am bidding on ebay, B&L, or any other auction site, I factor in the 5.5% use tax, unless I am purchasing something to flip to a dealer. I then need to keep track of these purchases and report them during tax time. My experience with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue is that they are very aggressive and thorough, so I need to be prepared and proactive in order to avoid any problems.

Rick