New York Asks Web Shoppers to Declare Their Online Purchases on Their Tax Return

[Kristijntje]

About 20 states are recouping revenue lost to unpaid sales tax on web and catalog purchases by simply asking taxpayers to estimate it in their tax returns. New York leads the way with $17 million garnered in each of the first two years of the program...

Retailers with interstate sales are not required to collect sales tax when they have no physical presence in their customer’s state, and many promote on their web sites that consumers in certain states can purchase things tax-free.

But what many consumers in such situations don’t realize, says John Logan, senior tax analyst for CCH Inc., is that they are still required by law to pay any due sales or “use” tax to their home state...

full article: http://www.internetretailer.com/dailyNews.asp?id=17979

[jezebel]

New York State Tax Form

Line 14 Declare the total of your tax-free Internet purchases
Line 15 Declare your illegal earnings from your job as a mob hitwoman

  :twistedevil:

[Anita]

Uh oh.  One of the reasons I shop online is the savings from not paying tax.  It adds up!

[mandy]

Another article on states asking consumers to pay taxes on their Internet purchases:

Did you buy anything through the Internet last year without paying sales tax at the time?

If you did, state tax collectors warn that you'd better say so by April 17 and write a check--or else.

Online purchases from sites like Amazon.com and eBay may seem to arrive in a state of untaxed bliss. But the law actually requires shoppers to pay their own state's sales tax rate--the concept is called a "use tax"--and voluntarily cough up the exact amount owed each year at tax time.

Tax bureaucrats for years have lamented the difficulty of collecting use taxes on catalog and mail order sales. Now, with online shopping growing rapidly and nearing $100 billion a year in consumer sales, tax collectors are adopting more aggressive tactics...

full article: http://news.com.com/States+push+to+tax+N...g=nefd.pop