Shoppers will now be paying the same 5.75-percent sales tax online that they would in a brick-and-mortar retailer. It’s good news for local store owners, since their prices can now compete with the online giant.
The sales tax will apply to Amazon’s own sales, but third-party sellers, such as those selling used books, may or may not charge tax, depending on which state the seller is located in.
Online retailers are required to collect sales tax if they have a physical presence in the state, such as warehouses or offices.
Amazon will also soon be building some data centers down near the Columbus region, which will be the Seattle-based company’s first business location in Ohio. The data centers, owned by Amazon’s affiliate Vadata Inc., will help process the site’s massive quantities of orders from all over the world. It’s expected to provide about 1,000 new jobs over the next few years.
The state of Ohio approved state tax credits of over $81 billion to get Amazon to build their data center here. Amazon has also mentioned possible plans to expand its presence in Ohio, including a distribution center, but they haven’t provided any details on where or when that would be.
As for what will be done with the extra revenue, state lawmakers are still figuring that out. Gov. John Kasich has suggested lowering the income tax, but several options are still under consideration.
Ohio is now one of the 25 states where Amazon collects sales tax, as listed on their website.
This article appears in Jun 3-9, 2015.
Good. I’m sure Kasich will just blow it in the short term, but it’s good in the long term.
Is it really 81 billion? I highly doubt that number and suspect its 81 million.
Taxed to the hilt. And feeling it at about the same depth in our nether regions
5.75% is the state portion of the tax Amazon is charging, but it will also include the county tax as well. Cuyahoga county residents will pay an 8% rate, not 5.75%.
This will have me looking for a new online shopping source. I hate giving my hard earned money to the crooks in the govern that do not know what work is.
The rich love sales taxes because it’s a tiny portion of their total earned income. They HATE income taxes at tiered rates (and particularly hate the capital gains taxes where most make their money since the rich rarely “work”) so the push and push for more sales taxes and less income tax but it doesn’t work since 90% of the world’s wealth is in the hands of 10% of the population and 50% in 1%. ANY attempts to correct this get blasted as “income redistribution” and labeled “evil” things like socialism and communism yet the same people vote for “free trade” with Communist China so they can move their businesses there and save money using sweat shop labor and then ship the goods back to the US market without being taxed. It’s all just utterly EVIL/GREEDY behavior and screws the middle class over royally. Yet the dumb people in this country keep voting for these jokers over and over and over again. It’s sad, really.
I buy everything on Amazon and prob spend $30-50k a year there. No more. I’ll buy on other sites with no taxes.
Amazon is also “collecting” tax on grocery items that are not supposed to be taxed in Ohio.