Governors Seeking Internet Tax

[Trei, Peter]

> Declan McCullagh[SMTP:declan at well.com] wrote:
> 
> Actually under current law you're supposed to be paying tax on such
> purchases (you ordering from PennsylvaniaBoks.com, in my example).
> But almost nobody does pay taxes on their mail order purchases (that
> lack nexus), so the states are peeved.
> 
> -Declan
> 
That's my understanding too. This leads to some amusing situations -
I know a person who rather than pay ~$300 sales tax on an 
engagement ring, had it sent to a friend two states over, who he than
visited at a considerable overall savings.

In New Hampshire, all the liquor stores are run by the State
(a bad thing, but not the point of this story). New Hampshire also
has no sales tax, unlike the neghbouring states (here in MA it's
5%).

On major highways and roads entering NH, you will typically
find huge state run liquor stores a couple of miles inside the state
line, which are typically filled with out of staters buying (slightly)
cheaper booze. 

A while back, MA State Troopers started staking out the parking
lot of one of these stores on a highway leading to Taxachusetts, 
and radioing ahead license numbers of MA cars loading up. They
were then stopped the other side of the state line and forced to
pay MA sales tax.

This scheme lasted a few days, until the NH State Troopers
threatened to arrest the MA State Troopers for loitering - they
were hurting business.

Ah... life in the land of the free...

Peter Trei