Amazon Starts Collecting Online Sales Tax in Virginia

RICHMOND-Amazon began collecting sales tax from buyers residing in Virginia—and Georgia for that matter—starting Sept 2. It follows a slew of other states in which Amazon has agreed to begin collecting sales taxes from residents, after years of insisting to local governments they had no legal rights to insist Amazon collect sales taxes from its customers. Just to recap: since Amazon has done this strategic 180 degree turnaround it has begun collecting sales tax in Arizona, California, Kansas, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington—and now Virginia and Georgia. Soon it will begin taxes in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Nevada and Indiana.

Amazon’s strategy no doubt infuriates other large e-tailers that have enjoyed their sales tax free status; indeed other companies such as eBay are still pushing against the idea that they must apply local sales taxes to their online customers. That is what they will have to do if the Marketplace Fairness Act is passed. The act would require online retailers to apply local sales taxes to all purchases, leveling–as its proponents like to say–the playing field with brick and mortar retailers that have no choice in the matter.