Quote:
Originally Posted by srplus
You can call it BS all you want. Do it again if you desire.
The State of Florida has gotten records from companies in many states and they are forcing them to collect Sales Tax for the State of Florida for all residents (when billing and shipping address are Florida). LL Bean, BassPro, Apple, Dell... the list goes on. Ask me how I know about Dell since they just collected the Sales Tax on the purchase of the shop computer as the Agent for the State of Florida Department of Revenue.
Some of these companies have facilities in Florida but most do not. The companies cave because it is cheaper to just set up the bookkeeping and comply with the request than it is to get involved in the legal wrangle with the unlimited resources of the state.
Maybe it should not be happening but it is. Fact.
Besides, since the tax is legally due and I would have to pay it in any case... I would just as soon pay it with the purchase than try to track it and pay it with a special voucher. It is a bunch of nonsense but I guarantee that the State of Florida is doing it to businesses to force them to collect the tax and many of those businesses that it has brow beaten into being their collection agent have been gifted with subpoenas for big ticket sales to residents of the State of Florida for before they became collection agents so that the State can prosecute people that have dodged the sales tax.
Maybe it should not be happening but it is. Fact.
This might open up a new job for you... you can develop a data base compiler to spit out all of the individuals who might be engaging in illegal non-payment of Sales Tax and sell it to all the companies that would rather just roll over than jump on the NATIONAL BELLAS HESS V. DEPARTMENT OF REVENUE, 386 U. S. 753 (1967) bandwagon.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by srplus
And Fred I think one of the ways that they do it is they make a large purchase from a Vendor and then the Vendor did business with the State of Florida. They have found a way to circumvent that law... We have a very smart Attorney General and I am sure he would not be doing or allowing another agency to be doing anything that is illegal.
Absolutely the last word on the topic... that is unless you need to have the last word.  |
Quote:
Originally Posted by srplus
Can't resist... set the hook in me.
Meanwhile every thirty days you will be writing another yet larger check to Godfrey and Kahn in Milwaukee, WI as their paralegal runs up the hours responding to all the legal harassment coming from the south. And then the State of Florida will go to the State of Wisconsin and tell them in chambers that if they want any subpoenas from Wisconsin honored in Florida it might be best to issue a local subpoena.
Get the drift? Don't forget the last thing, that last check to your attorney after they tell you that you have to comply and they are sorry it cost you so much money to try to fight it.
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I don't think you're getting it. OK, from your second post, I think you are, but you're just not putting the pieces together.
If those companies are collecting FL sales taxes, it is because there is something that puts them within FL jurisdiction. A warehouse, a retail outlet, a business office, who knows? But there is
something about those businesses that gives FL jurisdiction. Just like there is something about Apple (The Apple Stores in Madison and Milwaukee, for instance) that gives Wisconsin the jurisdiction to require Apple.com to collect sales tax from me when purchase online. However, it is quite obvious that Amazon has
nothing that puts it in WI jurisdiction, since I do not pay WI sales tax on Amazon purchases.
The "...unlimited resources of the state of Florida..." can go to hell. They have no legal means whatsoever to compel a foreign company
not in their jurisdiction to pay or collect their taxes. The State of Florida can have 500 lawyers write you 15 letters apiece every day of the week, and you can shred every one, ignore them, and there's nothing they can do about it. They have no authority to do anything about it.
The only thing they can do is file a lawsuit in Federal Court, and wait to lose it just like everyone else before them who tried. So unless the State of Florida has resources so unlimited that they are willing to argue against legal precedent that has been re-affirmed within the last 10 years, if I get anything in the mail from them telling me I have to collect their sales tax, it goes in the trash, which is about all the heed I am required to pay it, since they have no legal means to compel me to anything different.