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Comment by nostrademons | Hacker News Reader

Amazon.com as well. In the beginning one of their biggest competitive advantages was that they didn't charge sales tax.

Outside of tech - the history of Las Vegas is fascinating. It's a whole city built on nurturing industries that are illegal everywhere else. Many of the early casinos (1920s-ish) were also built by the Mafia with funding from the Mormon Church - there's one good example of capitalism allowing a group to reap the profits of sin without engaging in sin themselves. And of course, the modern Las Vegas Strip is actually built just outside of city limits because they didn't want to pay taxes to the city.

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> Amazon.com as well. In the beginning one of their biggest competitive advantages was that they didn't charge sales tax.

Wasn't that basically the law of the land (until this year, due to Wayfair), based on the Quill SCOTUS decision?

My recollection was that Amazon started collecting sales tax many years ago, but apparently it was much more recent than that. They started collecting sales tax around 2011-2014 because many states passed explicit state legislation requiring them to.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazon_tax

As of mid-2018, just about all retailers have to collect sales taxes on their out-of-state shipments, presence or not.

Funny how the law that allowed Amazon to grow so much has been unwound just as it stops benefitting Amazon...

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/21/us/politics/supreme-court...

of their biggest competitive advantages was that they didn't charge sales tax

absolutely untrue. in the beginning, Amazon was not required to collect sales taxes (in the USA, can't speak to other countries policies) and did not grow into what it has become because it saved people a measly 8-10% off the purchase price.

> absolutely untrue. in the beginning, Amazon was not required to collect sales taxes

You are correct in that Amazon wasn't required to collect sales tax. What you are omitting is that the buyer was supposed to submit the sales tax. Of course, no buyer ever did so.

So, what Amazon did was aid and abet tax fraud on a massive scale that effectively gave them an 8-10% discount on everything they sold until legislation caught up.

This absolutely murdered my favorite local technical bookstores. I'm sure other people have other stores that they know took a beating from that.

> So, what Amazon did was aid and abet tax fraud...

I don't see how Amazon can be held responsible for its customers' failing to pay use tax. It wasn't Amazon's obligation to ensure it was paid or even to inform their customers of the requirement to pay it.

It's very much analogous to AirBnB, though, which is the point of this thread. AirBnB has no contract with your landlord or condo association; they are breaking no agreement. They also do not reside within the bounds of the municipalities whose laws they are supposedly breaking, and so are not subject to their jurisdiction.

They, however, enable large-scale lawbreaking on the part of their hosts. Technically, it's the host's obligation to ensure that they comply with all applicable laws, contracts, and regulations. AirBnB has boilerplate terms to that effect. In practice, a significant number of them don't. AirBnB looks the other way because they gain a competitive advantage from it. Enforcement is difficult.

It's quite similar from Amazon gaining a competitive advantage because their customers are supposed to pay sales tax on their own (but don't).

That’s like saying that car dealers abet drunk driving.

In the UK, they and a few other companies pioneered shipping CDs from Jersey to avoid VAT (which was 15 or 17.5% at the time).

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