[jasode]

>to have gone unaddressed for so long by such a giant?

It's complicated because Amazon isn't the one who owes the state taxes -- it's the marketplace sellers. This is a different situation from the previous cases of "nexus" which determines state taxes that Amazon itself owes. That nexus case was resolved and Amazon has been paying its own state taxes for many years now.

In other words, Amazon already pays all sales taxes for items that say "Ships from and sold by Amazon.com." Amazon does not file sales taxes for items such as "Sold by RareOldBooks and Fulfilled by Amazon."

Even if Amazon added a "sales tax" line item for 3rd-party marketplace sellers, it's still up to those marketplace entities to properly file their state tax forms and declare Amazon sales revenue. The state regulators know that Amazon can't file on their behalf but they'd at least like some "help" from Amazon by way of audited reports so they know which marketplace sellers to pursue.

In contrast, Ebay does have the ability for sellers to add sales tax for bidders when they check out. However, it's optional. Ebay doesn't actually collect the sales tax money for sellers. In other words, Ebay is just providing a sales tax "calculator" rather than acting as a sales tax "collector". Paypal also doesn't collect and pay sales tax on behalf of sellers.

[ikeboy]

There are arguments that Amazon does have to collect the tax. The theory is that they are the actual seller.

See https://www.ecommercechris.com/south-carolina-amazon-collect...,

https://www.ecommercechris.com/amazon-sales-tax-amnesty-need...

https://www.sellerlabs.com/blog/sales-tax-amnesty-what-do-i-...

[jasode]

>The theory is that they are the actual seller.

Right, South Carolina in particular wants to change the "seller of record" from the marketplace sellers to Amazon itself. Most of the other states are targeting the marketplace sellers and they want more of Amazon's help in that. (E.g. add explicity sales tax line items like Ebay and provide audit reports to help identify sales tax evaders.)

[ghaff]

Which, if sellers are going to collect sales tax at all, is probably the only thing that makes sense. It's impractical for small sellers to file tax returns for all the states they sell to just because they sell on Amazon. (And in the vast majority of cases, non-Amazon sellers without a presence in the buyers state don't and, indeed, can't be forced to.)

[colechristensen]

Amazon is making selling easy taking almost all of the steps out of the hands of the seller, sales tax should be included in this. If they don't come up with a way of facilitating tax payments and calculations in the same way they facilitate everything else, regulators are going to come and force them.

[lostapathy]

Alternatively, tax regulations could be updated so it's not effectively impossible for the little guy to stay in compliance on his own.

Sales tax regimes were all worked out in a time when most sales were local, brick and mortar. The world has changed drastically since then - it's time for tax laws to catch up a little too.

[jimbokun]

Couldn't Amazon basically offer them a TurboTax like service and basically generate all of the filled in filing forms the seller needs? Then it would be up to the seller to review with their accountant and actually submit.

[ghaff]

>Then it would be up to the seller to review with their accountant and actually submit.

For even a small seller, you're maybe looking at thousands of dollars a year for that much paperwork. So you'd have to have hundreds of thousands a year in revenue for that to make sense.