NYCPHP Meetup

[tedd]

At 7:14 PM -0400 8/13/08, (Margaret) Michele Waldman wrote:
>Here's another question.
>
>Is an ebusinesses supposed to file taxes and licenses in every state they
>are doing business?

I'm not a tax man nor an attorney, but the problem is much more 
complicated than anyone here has stated.

Clearly, if you're doing business in State X and a customer who lives 
in State X buys something, then you are required to collect and pay 
State X's sales tax. That's pretty simple. But the net complicates 
things a lot.

But here is a typical problem that my wife and I face everyday, she 
is a jeweler located in Lansing, Michigan (http://earthstones.com).

One of our customers in California contacted us for a piece of 
jewelry. We show them a picture of the item via our web site which is 
located on a server in Springfield MO. The customer likes it and 
wants to purchase the piece and pays us via PayPal (a global 
company). The manufactor of the jewelry is located in Columbus Ohio 
and per our instructions and payment, they drop-ship directly to the 
customer in California. Now, who owes what State taxes?

Remember, there are four States involved (not counting PayPal) -- and 
I am positive not one of them will say "No thanks" to the possibility 
of cashing-in IF they can.

When we have congressmen like Ted Stevens who was opposed to an 
amendment regarding network neutrality and called the Internet a 
"series of tubes", we are far from resolving the State tax problem.

As Will Rogers once said "Be thankful we are not getting all the 
government we are paying for."

Cheers,

tedd

-- 
-------
http://sperling.com  http://ancientstones.com  http://earthstones.com