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Comment by AdmiralAsshat | Hacker News Reader

>“Newegg Inc. has provided the Department of Revenue Services records of your online purchases during taxable years 2014, 2015 and 2016,” the letter reads. “According to these records, you made purchases from Newegg in at least one of these years but were not charged Connecticut sales tax. Therefore, you owe state use tax on the items you purchased because you did not pay sales tax to a retailer.”

Well, that's the last time I'm using NewEgg.

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I got the same letter for about 3k of purchases for an old PC I built almost exclusively from Newegg parts.

The fact is Newegg tried to fight it and got strong armed. No idea why we expect Newegg to fight a legal request from a government agency for rightful tax collection.

We all knew the gig, no tax professional, or even tax software, didn’t ask about purchases subject to the use tax.

People still comment about tax killing good deals, the fact is the tax is always there, whether you report it is sometimes up to you.

I’m probably paying the amount (want to verify the amount doesn’t include one returned item), we always knew this might happen.

My question though is why is it up to customers to report sales tax? I've literally never done this, every retailer I've bought from has included sales tax in the purchase price, collected it, and paid it. Why was Newegg not doing this?

All explained very nicely here:

http://www.ct.gov/drs/cwp/view.asp?A=1510&Q=270228

It’s technically not sales tax, but “use tax” in this case.

For years tons of online retailers didn’t charge sales tax with purchases, all of those purchases were subject to use tax. Even Amazon (or was it eBay?) wasn’t charging tax in CT a few years back iirc.

There are lots of various reasonings in why they don’t collect depending on how charitable you are to the retailers, ranging from “We get to advertise cheaper prices” to “We didn’t want to manage taxes in 50 states”

Huh, weird. Glad I don't live there. Thanks for the clarification.

> When the states first enacted their sales taxes, the tax was imposed only on in-state sales. There was no use tax. As businesses began to offer delivery services and customers realized they could avoid sales taxes by ordering products from businesses in a different state, the complimentary use tax was enacted. Currently, every state that imposes a general sales tax also imposes a use tax.

Yeah, if nothing else, it sounds like it could be a bookkeeping hassle for the customer. I've recently seen mention on a local subreddit that people here in Colorado are getting notices from Newegg about this [1].

[1] https://www.reddit.com/r/Denver/comments/7w6opn/newegg_use_t...

Why is this moral outrage never directed at people cheating on their taxes? This isn't a mere oversight: there is a specific question about online purchases on the tax form.

If we could stop people from committing crimes and using privacy rights to get away with it, we would actually have a much stronger argument for privacy rights.

The American tax code is more of a crime than a half-competent taxpayer. However I'm sure the state is more interested in serial tax evasion than Joe with a new GPU.

Because it's not consumer friendly to have to have a CPA, a spreadsheet, and a lawyer on call every time you buy a $5 USB mouse.

Yeah...they used to be the good guys fighting against bs patents. Now they are ratting out their customers?

So not related at all then.

“Ratting out”

“Following tax laws”

> Yeah...they used to be the good guys fighting against bs patents. Now they are ratting out their customers?

I'm pretty sure the state of Connecticut is to blame here, not NewEgg. It's not NewEgg's job to violate tax laws on its customers' behalf. If Connecticut-based customers dislike the actions of the state (which I hope they do), it's on them to make that known to the state.

The only language that makes NewEgg look like they are proactively giving up this data comes from a spokesperson for Connecticut itself, who has a vested interest in making it look like NewEgg is to blame, not the state.

No this is an issue with Newegg. They had the option to either "Begin collecting sales tax from Connecticut customers going forward and send that money to the state, or turn over the records."

They chose to give their records to the government which causes a major hassle for those users (and increases the likelihood that those records get breached, infringing on users' privacy). They did this at the expense of potentially hurting future Newegg sales because they'll have to honestly show users the tax while they are buying things, rather than having the government hunt down users later on.

The problem is not Newegg. The problem is the system of federal, state and local tax regimes that are in play. Since there is no uniformity at any level across the board, you will have these problems rise up.

Newegg and all companies that exist within the confines of the US national borders have a legal requirement to do certain things. This is no different to what the citizens are legally required to do.

If the state imposes a "use tax" on your purchases then you are required to follow that up. If the legal requirements are that companies are to give the purchase records to the state authorities, then that is what will happen.

Just because you find it objectionable is irrelevant.

However, if you want to start a grass-roots objection to these tax regimes then start with your local, state and federal politicians. Make it plain that they will no longer be getting the popular vote and that their cushy jobs will be taken from them permanently.

But, as you most likely know this will not happen and the situation will not change as the general populous has no interest in the matter.

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