Tag: amazon

Struggling with an ongoing recession-era budget crisis that has seen hundreds of millions of dollars slashed from public education alone, Colorado lawmakers tried and failed to get mega-online retailer Amazon to pay state sales taxes last year. Amazon successfully dodged similar efforts in other states, but the tax man came calling in cash-strapped California last spring and, after dumping $5 million on a ballot initiative to oppose the new online tax law, Amazon announced on Wednesday it had made a deal with state lawmakers. It will charge sales tax in the Golden State next year. That gives Amazon and other online retailers just months to press federal lawmakers to pass a national law that thins their obligations in the states.

Amazon.com won another battle in its e-commerce war against Mainstreet retailers last month. South Carolina gave the online giant a $5 million building site, a property tax break and a series of other tax credits and exemptions worth tens of millions in exchange for the jobs Amazon promised to bring in setting up a distribution center there. The wrangling over the deal pitted business interests against business interests and conflicted state lawmakers, including GOP Governor Nikki Haley, who in the end backed off early opposition. It's a battle that has been waged in states around the country over the past few years and, in a lesser form, here in Colorado.

Borders Group will close six book stores and layoff 158 employees in Colorado this month. The news comes in the wake of a court order preventing online bookselling juggernaut Amazon.com from paying any sales tax in the state and a month after Amazon reported raking in eye-popping record profits.

The Seattle Times editorial board sits literally across the street from Amazon.com headquarters. It has watched the famous online retailer grow and grow and grow. Today the newspaper editors call out their neighbor for the "slick strategy" it has adopted in dodging sales taxes "all across America." The company is "the internet's widest and deepest source of products," the editors write, "which makes it too big to be excused from its obligations." It's a sentiment sure to be shared among the Colorado lawmakers who tried and failed last year to begin collecting sales taxes on Amazon purchases made in the state.

Enormous online retailer Amazon.com reacted to news that it would now be required to voluntarily report Colorado state sales taxes by canceling its relationship with affiliate web sites here-- that is, with sites that earn a small fee for each websurfer they send to Amazon through links and ads. In a letter sent over the weekend to its Colorado affiliates, Amazon announced it will continue to do business with residents in Colorado and didn't elaborate on how canceling the affiliate relationships balances against the new tax.