[toomuchtodo]

Disagree. It isn’t hard at all with automated compliance.

[ghaff]

Great. So your state ought to have a record of everything that's been shipped to you.

[toomuchtodo]

Nah, you just make voluntary compliance the preferred option.

If people and Amazon paid their damn taxes, we wouldn’t even be discussing this.

[lostapathy]

There's plenty of smaller sellers that would love to be in compliance, but due to the nature of US sales tax and how FBA works (i.e., you don't know where all your product has been stored) it's practically impossible for them to be in full compliance, so they don't even try. Sometimes better to stay off another state's radar completely than get drug into a spat over partial compliance.

[toomuchtodo]

Could sellers not charge tax on all purchases for the product destination regardless of FBA sourcing?

[lostapathy]

Say you bring a new widget to market, as a small business, and you start selling via FBA. Pick your favorite kickstarter project and imagine it's you.

There are thousands of sales tax jurisdictions in the US, between states, counties, and cities. There is no way you, as a little guy, can manage all that.

[toomuchtodo]

I asked because of the YC thread today about “startup ideas” and this is a legitimate need for thousands of businesses.

[icebraining]

Right, but they don't, so what exactly are you proposing? It's frankly not clear to me.

[toomuchtodo]

I’m proposing using legislation to fix the problem.

[icebraining]

Right, and how are you proposing to enforce that legislation? Passing laws solves nothing by itself. How would you get buyers to file whatever you ask them?

[toomuchtodo]

Fines if they don’t file the required data, which they don’t have to file if they purchase from a marketplace that properly collects sales tax.