Online Giant Looks to Avoid Sales Taxes
by Brian Leubitz
Amazon has been publicly piling money into a campaign fund to halt the new legislation that would force them to collect sales taxes. But, if they could avoid a big fight with California’s brick and mortar retailers by pulling a quick deal, they’d prefer it. One of the ways they’ve done that in a few other states is to promise some jobs in the state as long as they aren’t taxed. Queue the rumors of a deal here:
While discussions are still preliminary, sources said legislative leaders have received an Amazon-inspired plan that would give the online retailer a two-year moratorium on the new tax. In return, Amazon would bring 7,000 jobs to the state, these sources said.(SacBee)
Obviously, the retailers are none too pleased, with good justification. They are facing an uphill battle against a company that has a 8-9% price advantage right off the top. Whether this actually amounts to a) any new jobs or b)
The problem with this is that Amazon is just shifting jobs from state to state for these deals. It is a race to the bottom, while brick and mortar retailers continue to lose out, and our main streets continue to look bleaker and bleaker.
A lot of my friends have decided to stop shopping at Amazon. A few have noted that they’ve been unable to match Amazon’s prices anywhere else. But they’ve paid the higher price. Still, since Amazon is unlikely to notice the drop in business on their own–or figure out why their CA sales have sagged–we also decided to let them know.
I emailed at https://www.amazon.com/gp/help… requires that you have an account and log in first. I got a snarkey reply back that was full of outright lies. As you can imagine, they received a blistering response in return–where I pointed out their many fibs and logical fallacies. Just one example: They raised the old canard that the tax hurts small businesses. I pointed out that Amazon is hardly a small business. And that the only small businesses the tax has hurt so far are the CA affiliates Amazon themselves kicked out. That had nothing to do with the tax except that Amazon was trying to inflict pain on CA to influence the Assembly.
However, since some people have had trouble with this method, they’re mailing letters to CEO Jeff Bezos at the address below. For those who would rather place a phone call to Amazon corporate headquarters, the number is: 206-266-1000.
CEO Jeff Bezos
c/o Amazon Corporate Headquarters
1200 12th Avenue South, Suite 1200
Seattle, WA 98144
I hope Calitics readers will join us in letting Amazon know that we love our state more than we love low prices. And that we won’t shop there until they join us in building a stronger economy.
As per my view it’s good deal.
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