For years, no sales tax was collected by the seller at the time of sale unless the car parts were being shipped to an IN state address. Now, for some strange reason, sellers are charging sales tax to OUT OF STATE purchasers.

Something is wrong.

https://www.thebalance.com/sales-taxes-across-state-lines-4058714

Virginia, for one, has just started requiring on-line sellers to collect VA state sales tax. I guess they no longer trust us to report such sales ourselves. I wonder why.

I think this is an example of the law catching up with the times. This issue was the topic of a somewhat recent Supreme Court decision (‘Wayfair’) that overturned in part the ‘Quill’ case that was decided before online sales became a (if not the) primary method of commerce.

At any rate, as Rocky pointed out above, it was never the case that the sales were intended to be “tax free.” The purchaser was supposed to self-report the sale and pay their state’s use tax (at the same rate as the state sales tax) on the item. At least that is the way it was in Texas.

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Christopher
'06 Mercedes E350 station wagon (silver/black)
'85 Mercedes 300D (black pearl/palomino)
'85 Mercedes 300SD (smoke silver/burgundy)
'79 Cadillac Sedan DeVille

'05 Toyota Camry (because always running is nice)

'85 Mercedes 300D sold back to orig. owner 8-1-06
'84 Volvo 264GL Diesel, owned 2000-2013

South Dakota v Wayfair. You can thank your conservative justices, who found that states' rights allowed the various states to collect sales tax from non-resident sellers. 31 states now have de minimus rules that exempt small sellers (usually under 200 transactions or $100,000 in sales) from collections. But many states have no such rules, so essentially everyone is collecting everywhere.

To give you a small taste of what this means, New York alone has 76 tax jurisdictions. Since jurisdictions don't necessarily correspond to zip code or town, you need a map of tax rates by individual address. Any tax jurisdiction can change tax rate at any time, and can also declare selective tax holidays across the board or on a class of product or service. That's just one state. Multiply by 50, and you realize that the days of starting up your little web business are done for. You need considerable market mass to absorb this sort of cost.

A sane nation would implement a single national tax on mail order sales, with the proceeds distributed proportionally to the states. That would make it easy for small vendors to handle the accounting. But that would be too simple. Instead, the cost of tracking, collecting and paying tax is replicated at tens of thousands of vendors, large and small. My expectation is that as small vendors are hit by tax audits, they will be driven to use larger platforms like Amazon or Ebay to handle their collections and remittance problems. So less competition and consumer choice going forward.

From what I am reading, if the sale originates on the internet, sales tax rates apply for the state in which the sale originates. Example: Seller is in Nevada, Buyer is in Texas ordering online. Texas sales tax applies.

Now, from what else I'm reading, if the buyer orders through the mail or places a telephone order, there is no sales tax if the buyer is out of state.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

Formally in Canada. A lot of net retailers collect the sales tax for your province. Auto parts suppliers especially. No matter what province you buy from. Average is 13 to 15 percent.
Only one province has no sales tax and they may have put a nominal one in place recently.

For sure, internet sellers are now required to collect tax for every jurisdiction to which they deliver. Mail and phone are interesting points. Although the case was brought against an online seller, the ruling overturns a precedent that requires a physical presence in the state for the local authority to require collections. While there are always those who will split hairs, the presence test is superseded, and that's for everything: mail, phone, or any other medium. Everyone needs to be collecting for whatever they do.

As a practical matter, most vendors will find that avoiding a tax audit in a "foreign" state is worth more than testing fine points of law. So I would expect tax to be collected regardless of the medium. It will take some time for the technology, but if it isn't here, it's coming. The only exceptions will be de minimus: vendors with very low volumes in a given jurisdiction. But even that varies by the state.

Some out of state eBay sellers tax and some don't. If the eBay seller is in my state the for sure tax.

On the California income tax they expect you to say how much you bought out of state and expect to get some sales tax off of that.

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84 300D, 82 Volvo 244Gl Diesel

Ebay collects and pays the tax, not the seller. It's complicated, but Ebay will collect tax anytime the jurisdiction of the seller or the buyer requires it. California always requires collection of sales tax, which means you should be seeing it on every order. The only exception would be if you register as a tax exempt buyer. The rules are here:

https://www.ebay.com/help/buying/paying-items/paying-tax-ebay-purchases?id=4771

Ebay has hurt itself over the years. Especially on items that American vendors sell over the borders of the country. I believe it even purchased Pitney Bowes. The old postal machine company. They collect charges that they are not even legally reqired to do. With items being mailed outside the country. In my mind do they keep them or pass them along? We are entering or already are in a nickel and dime add on situation. Yet in total it is far from nickels and dimes today.

I changed a registration insurance coverage from one of our cars to another last month. Was always a free service by the insurance company. I cannot see the new 45.00 charge to do this.

Today I stopped to get a price on a construction machine and operator with a firm we have never used before. The guy started spewing out various individual charges. I had to say hold on. Give me an hourly rate and the float rate if you have it. You are not an equipment rental firm. The hourly charge includes the operator. With the way you are talking. I have no ideal of the cost plus what I am asking for does not require some things you are talking about. Well I have to see the job. Was the response.

Perhaps young people are buying into this crap. Not knowing better. Everyone has to make a dollar and I have no issue with that. Some are trying to position themselves to make a killing. I find firms like this one today do a lot of government work.

The last time I had paid for auto service on what I considered an easy change of one part. I would have done it myself. If there was enough room in our garage at the time or the weather was better.

The bill was so high and covered more than one page. I told them the only recourse I have is to stop buying things from the retail side of your operation. If I can get it other places. They tried well this is similar to what a new car dealers garage would charge. I told then that no even they do not charge around two hundred labor for a half hour job. I used to do this job myself when in business. With no complications it takes less than half an hour. Your mechanic was no longer. You also have a long list of surcharges on this bill. That do not apply to this job.


I should have know it was now a clip joint when there were about ten lifts and only one mechanic working. The combined retail and service operation has sold twice since. I think their newer practices damaged what was once a good business. This is a very large chain retailer in Canada. If something is not on sale there. Their retail is now above the average resellers price. This is a policy their own head office has engaged.


I remember that they had a hand tool priced at so much per month. It was probably just an error that they did not have the total price on the item or on the shelf edge. Yet I was unsure if that was the case. I had to take it to a bar code machine to get the price. Maximum effort to get their credit cards out there more. This company is listed on the stock market. In their minds they have become more important than their customers. Perhaps far too many people have dumbed down so far they have no chance today. Over time I hear some pretty dumb remarks in society today and I am not that smart myself.