@terry flores
Amazon gets the benefit of a nearly 10% discount compared to the retail store up the street hiring your neighbors.
In California, there is a use tax. If I buy something from Amazon and I do not pay sales tax, I need to report the purchase and pay the 9.75% (LA) to the state when I file my income taxes.
Now, I'm paying attention to this and reporting everything, so I'm not saving any money for Amazon not charging me sales tax.
Amazon's only cost for collecting and paying sales tax is the administrative cost of figuring and applying the correct rate and filing correctly. Because they collect today and would pay about the 20th or 31st of the next month, they could get interest float.
Near as I can tell, the only reason Amazon wants to be sales tax free is so they have a price advantage over the brick and mortars, a price advantage that exists only because buyers don't understand the tax laws or are cheating.
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