Collecting taxes for on line purchases

[Deleted member 4210]

This loophole will be closed soon, evening the playing field for bike shops playing by the rules and collecting taxes for local sales.

Amazon is loosing the battle in nearly every state, and the 3rd party merchants selling on line and reaping all the benefits of 'avoiding collecting tax' (which you know consumers are trying to avoid), will be loosing that small 'edge' they have currently. It will be far better for the e-bike industry in the long run, as these ebikes are best sold through local shops who can maintain them, service them properly, and eliminate a lot of the warranty issues that consumers are having by buying on line. It'll also eliminate 'show-rooming' which is totally unfair to the LBS.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...-tax-fight-is-heating-up-as-states-crack-down

 

[pxpaulx]

If it were just the taxes that give an edge you're talking peanuts. Sellers that are willing to ship offer extremely significant discounts over most brick and mortar shops.

Online sales are a reality that the bike industry needs to learn to work with, not against.

Agree to disagree.

 

[rich c]

If it were just the taxes that give an edge you're talking peanuts. Sellers that are willing to ship offer extremely significant discounts over most brick and mortar shops.

Online sales are a reality that the bike industry needs to learn to work with, not against.

Agree to disagree.

I agree. If the price difference was only a few hundred it wouldn't be an issue. But my LBS sells all the ebikes at mfrs list.

 

[Solom01]

Mike, not to be ugly, but the "loophole" you're referring to is North Dakota vs. Quill which is still the law of the land until either the Supreme Court overturns it or Congress changes the law, which seeing how nuts Congress is lately should be interesting. Regardless of that if sales taxes were a magic curative bike shops in Oregon, New Hampshire, Delaware and Montana should be going like gang busters since there is no sales tax in those states - but that doesn't seem to have happened. I would also expect Amazon (which collects sales taxes in every state for products that they sell directly) to be shrinking away - not exactly what's happening. Of course all of this ignores shipments from Canadian suppliers like Surface 604 which won't be subject to these laws. The reality may be more that the local bike shops I've been to have very limited selection of very high price brands and sales people that seem to exist to push what they have in stock and often times know less than the customers. I get it, it's a tough business and small mom and pop stores require high margins because of their costs - which is where mail order companies with their economies of scale have an advantage. We'll see where this all goes but if I were an independent shop I would worry more about the multiple reasons why people order bikes on-line and not think that sales taxes are going to make much of a difference one way or the other.