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E-Fairness Is Spreading
Almost since the inception of internet shopping, online retailers have enjoyed a competitive advantage over “brick-and-mortar” stores – they haven’t had to charge sales tax on their transactions. Without even having to discount the price of their products, online retailers had a 5-10% price differential with other stores.

In this recessionary age of the early 21st century, with more and more states at or approaching fiscal bankruptcy (as of this writing, California is issuing IOU’s to pay its bills), the concept of E-Fairness is catching on throughout the country.

Basically, E-Fairness calls for online retailers to charge sales tax in the states in which they do business and/or have some nexus (connection/link) to those states. It does not call for a new tax, but rather that existing sales tax laws apply equally to all retailers.

So far, the states of New York, Rhode Island and North Carolina have adopted E-Fairness legislation, with some 15 or so other states considering it.
The New York law is also known as the “Amazon Tax Law,” since Amazon is the largest online retailer in the country and has based much of its business plan on not having to pay sales taxes. Amazon challenged the New York law and lost on appeal to the New York State Supreme Court. It still has not abided by the law’s requirement to pay sales taxes and is considering an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Yes, I’m writing about this because Amazon is my competition for book sales here in Sedona. But I’m also writing about this for all of the other retailers in the Sedona/Verde Valley area. Amazon may have made its reputation with books, but book sales now account for less than half of its revenues - Amazon sells everything, from books, to music to appliances and more.

And, yes, I am sympathetic to our local consumers paying as little as possible for the purchases they make. But, shopping online just to avoid paying sales tax hurts all of us. The City of Sedona is as close to being fiscally broke as you can get, and it relies on local sales taxes for most of its revenue. State Senator Steve Pierce was just here to tell us that Arizona is indeed broke. E-Fairness will eventually come to Arizona. I just hope it isn’t too late for both our merchants and our governments.

So, please shop locally. Support our local businesses, or at the very least, give them a first chance to satisfy your needs.

Remember, despite the welcome page on your Amazon account, Amazon doesn’t really know your first name. But your local merchant does. And, Amazon has never hosted a book signing event. Your local bookstore has hosted almost a thousand of them.