Amazon Sputtering Over MN Sales Tax Law

[moving123456]

Originally Posted by Beenhere4ever

By the way, I ordered some cargo shorts online at Sears and they attached some kind of tax.

Sears has always been required to collect state sales tax online from MN customers because of their physical stores in MN.

[Beenhere4ever]

Yeh, but clothing? I wonder if the last legislature snuck in some new cheater taxes.

[moving123456]

Originally Posted by Beenhere4ever

Yeh, but clothing? I wonder if the last legislature snuck in some new cheater taxes.

I didn't even think about it being clothing when I replied... I will see what I can find on that.

[Beenhere4ever]

I looked it up. In its summary of the legislature, the Star Tribune said clothing had been left alone. Which now makes me wonder about that line that says 45 cents tax. Maybe there's a tax on the warehouse the shorts came from? Which again is taxing clothing regressively because there's no way to direct any tax at the 1 percent.

[xandrex]

Originally Posted by Beenhere4ever

I looked it up. In its summary of the legislature, the Star Tribune said clothing had been left alone. Which now makes me wonder about that line that says 45 cents tax. Maybe there's a tax on the warehouse the shorts came from? Which again is taxing clothing regressively because there's no way to direct any tax at the 1 percent.

It's probably some cost they're passing along that they label as a "tax". Spirit Airlines loves to do this...they break down their tickets with bold letters saying, "GOVERNMENT'S CUT" as a way to show how they actually are really cheap. Never mind the fact that the "government's cut" is largely fees for the TSA (I know, they're not popular, but it's essentially subsidized security for an airline), money to pay air traffic controllers (the horror!), and airport-related expenses.

[Beenhere4ever]

I sent a message to the customer service asking to have it explained. A reply came back saying it was being taken off the bill. Either a screwup or a little scam small enough they hoped it wouldn't raise an alarm. Not sure which.