[isellstuff]

Amazon is suing North Carolina because North Carolina is asking for seven years of data detailing North Carolina Resident purchases in order to collect back use tax.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20002870-38.html

[Kevin]

THAT.... is some scary stuff. WTF does North Carolina think they are?

[Uncle Rico]

Does NC want the personal sales records so it can retroactively collect sales tax back up to 7 years?

[isellstuff]

Originally Posted by SeymourButts

Does NC want the personal sales records so it can retroactively collect sales tax back up to 7 years?

Yes. (Use Tax)

[Uncle Rico]

What a bunch of desperate idiots. So they plan on sending tax bills to residents of NC that made 50 million purchases.

I wonder if they realize how much this desperate ploy is actually costing them in the first place. I live in NC and am convinced the state has no idea how to manage their revenue.

[isellstuff]

If I were a politician in North Carolina, I would work it like this...

1) Get the Records
2) Declare an amnesty for all past purchases
3) Let every NC resident know that going forward, there is no amnesty, they must declare their purchases.

Anything else would be political suicide, IMHO. Amazon would have to start collecting the tax, else people just wouldn't shop there because of the added use tax hassle. Who's going to take the time to fill out the forms and remit the use tax?

[Lindy Rig]

I am an NC resident as well. And our state does NOT know how to handle the revenue. This is lame positioning. On our state income tax form we have a line to declare the value of goods purchased online so we can submit sales tax which we did not pay (or so my accountant tells me... I haven't seen anything but the signature page of a tax form in years.)

[Kellie aka Ms. B]

This seems to stem from the affiliate tax legislation implemented by NC. So now they are wanting records of all sells from all the way back to 2003?

This is the type of "toe in the door" over reach by states that some merchants are concerned about resulting in the termination of the affiliate programs even when specific language towards affiliates is removed from the legislation.

I hope that CO and some other states are paying attention to this. There are some interesting legal references in that Cnet article. States might have served themselves better not to focus on a book seller, regardless of how big Amazon is.

This will be an important case to follow and I would think would see some type of ruling before the appeals case Amazon has going with the NY law.

Go Amazon!

[LTDInvestmentsInc]

I agree that they can't manage the revenue in this state.

I hang my head in shame as a NC resident when the Governor stated over a year ago that "Amazon would not stop selling in NC" because of the nexus *&^&*. She had no clue as to what would really happen. This is a desperate move to try to force Amazon to collect the tax (and a STUPID one at that) that they mistakenly thought they would be collecting. And for a legislator stating that Amazon would be on the hook retroactive of the signing of the law was even more (*&^%^&. To tell a company that they must give up 4.6-5.75% of their revenue from sales where they didn't collect sales tax.

(*&^%$#@#$%^&*()*&^%$#@#$%^&*(