Looks like I owe about $300 in state taxes due to buying online out of state where the stores do not collect a CA tax. I had NO clue this was going to happen to me. Now I have to watch were I purchase Poser items, which stores, and keep better records of all transactions. This nice little Poser hobby is killin me. If you didn't know about this check your state taxes and look into it, about 20 states this year make you claim internet purchases where state tax was not done. I wonder how this is going to effect the Poser community now. I'm out $300 that was going to go to poser purchases now it's gunna go to state from last years purchases. so much for helpin the economy. ugh, very depressed.

Move here to Texas--we don't have state income tax!

Attached Link: http://www.turbotax.com/articles/FAQonSalesandUseTaxesandtheInternet.html

MachineClaw is talking about sales tax, not income tax. btw Texas does have a "use tax" What Are Use Taxes? Most people are familiar with sales tax, but have never heard of a use tax. It is a tax on consuming, storing, or using a product for which no sales tax has been paid, and generally the consumer not the vendor must send the tax to the state. The process for figuring the use tax is just like figuring the sales tax, but, most consumers have no idea how to do the calculation, and very few even know that any such tax is due. States generally impose a use tax to collect taxes from their citizens who buy items from an out-of-state vendor who is not required to collect sales tax for that state. The tax insures that the state gets its money from all purchases by its citizens, whether they buy locally (in which case they must pay the sales tax) or from out-of-state sellers (in which case the citizen often owes the use tax). The use tax has been sitting on the law books of most states for decades but until recently, they didnt make a serious attempt to track or collect it. Now with the rise of sales-tax exempt catalog, TV, and Internet sales, many states are starting to enforce the use tax. Some have even added a line to their income tax return, just for the use tax.

Live in Atlanta..never heard of it. But then again All I have is W-2.

How can states keep track of who's spending what online, and how can they possibly ask you to pay tax on virtual items, ie. Poser models? Catlin

Attached Link: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4446970/

dlk30341: according to this article, you should check your income tax package. catlin_mc: They currently dont have a way to track it, which is probably why it is so often neglected.

They can audit you and during the audit get access to your bank statments and checking account records as part of the audit. I did a bit of digging, and have more to do. looks like the use tax is for items that could have been purchased in the state but were bought out of state and state tax was not collected. Since poser items can only be purchased specifically at certain stores, or from those merchants those poser items will not incure a use tax. states are losing money to people that buy online like from The Gap, you could buy a shirt at The Gap and pay a state tax when you purchase or go online and not pay the tax, you would then be liable for that tax on the online tax amount. BTW The Gap is an example, I have no clue if they take state tax or not. I think this is only really gunna effect the software I bought that I could have bought in a store in my state, poser items may not be covered. Have a call into accountant.

MachineClaw: please share what you learn when appropriate.

So you're saying if we had to buy an item out-of-state because we couldn't buy it locally, there's no tax penalty? That's the way it is here in the S.F. "bay area" - it's usually impossible to find what you need, because the merchants' motto is "If you have to ask, the answer is no."

A lot of states have had this requirement a long time regarding any kind of purchases made out of state, be it online or during a vacation or business trip or via a traditional paper mail-order catalog. They usually have a hard time trying to collect on it. It would be hard to imagine that Amazon.com, and all the other big internet firms, feels like providing state tax records for their millions of purchases. They may have to someday, but reporting such taxes is usually the responsibility of the taxpayer. And, yes, purchasing Poser models would qualify as a taxable item, just as there is a tax in hotel rooms even though people are just not buying anything. It's a purchased good even though it has no physical form.

Ohhh, that all sounds very complicated. Over here in germany we have a 16% sales tax that is automatically added to each purchase - online or in the local store. It is already included in the final price tag that is on the products. So no one has to worry about that. But I have to pay no taxes for the stuff I buy in american online Poser stores.

Come to Oregon. We have no sales tax. Of course, we have no jobs either.

A. How much did you earn last year? ___________ B. How much do you have left? ____________ C. Send B.

LOL, Geep! It's definitely getting more complex. And outrageous -they already take too damn much in taxes. Man, to get hit as a merchant AND a buyer - not looking forward to next year's tolls... --silver

I'm an accountant & I mean NO ONE every reports there online purchases. JC I'd be !@#$ broke. I shop online to avoid paying sales tax. Then again I don't run a business, so I don't buy for re-sale. I do however, pay sales tax online if the store has a brick & mortar location within our state. IE..WalMart,Kmart,Kohls,Richs-Macys. Another example, I shop at HSN.com all the time, I pay no sales tax, however those living in FLA. do, as HSN's location is in Tampa. I also checked our tax package at work, which is CCH, the best there is..checked the Georgia forms & saw nothing like this added. Doesn't matter..NO ONE reports online purchases anyway. I know sales tax in Georgia has at least 100 counties in which most have different % rates...ranging from 4-8%...Plus, on our ST forms, if you ship out-of-state(being a merchant)no sales tax is charged to the consumer. I see no feasable means of doing this unless they come up with a standard tax rate for shopping online, with a standardized form.

Reading the California booklet and talking with my accountant friend the skinny for me at least is this. Poser models I do not have to declare because they could not be purchased in a brick and mortar store here in California. However software purchases that I have bought, music CDs, books I have to declare as they can be bought in California and I did not pay a CA tax on those items. As mentioned lots do not report this, it's new to California this year. Just because a lot of people do not do it doesn't mean that I can get away with not doing it, and should there be an audit I would have to show my bank statements and checking account records, so I'd be slammed. So what I thought was going to be around $315 I now only really owe $156. Books at poser stores which I can buy at the local B&N I have to declare as well as some of the software upgrades that I have purchased. Least all that Daz and Sixus1 stuff doesn't have to be declared whew! I did not even know about this til I did my forms and read what that Use line was, it was abig suprise to me and I had no clue about it at all. Hence thought I would pass on that others should look into it as 20 states say they are going to be inforcing this Use law now becuase they need the money bad.

Another Oregonian here, because we have no sales tax in Oregon, a lot of people come over from Washington to shop so they don't have to pay taxes. Why shouldn't it be the same elsewhere? Odd that California would try to claim taxes on items that weren't even bought in their state. Seems strange to me. Melanie

California has lost a lot of business due to the higher costs here, they have moved to places with no state taxes, easyer on businesses. internet sales have hurt brick and mortar stores and so the powers that be didn't think it's fair that a brick and mortar store should be hurt they make people pay the tax and they might as well spend the money here in the state. least that's the reasoning that I've seen around and heard about after talking with a few people today. it's all economics and politics and I just want to be a artist shrug

The USE tax isn't new here in California. It has been around for decades. Most people's out-of-state purchases have been so low, so seldom, or so trivial that it hasn't been worth publicizing or enforcing. Example... suppose you travel out of country and bring back a scarf or artbook from some museum somewhere. 9 months later when doing your taxes, you probably aren't going to remember buying that book, much less what you paid for it in whatever currency. Many states even have an allowance of a few hundred dollars to cover this incidental buying. it isn't worth their time to police the small stuff. Example 2... suppose you travel out of country and bring back a car, a horse, a multi-thousand dollar musical instrument (whatever, big ticket items or many purchases). It doesn't matter whether you could have purchased that race horse here or not. What matters is a several thousand dollar purchase and the government will want its use tax. I don't buy online to escape paying taxes. Shipping charges are often double what the tax would have been. Carolly

MachineClaw; That tax was signed into fact by our marvalous last senitor, whats-his-name. He got POed when whe voted him out of office and spent his last few weeks signing new taxes by the hundreds each day. I remember seeing the artical when he first signed it. I say the Terminator should've treminated him the day we voted him out but they let him stay and make a real mess of things for some 15 days....The Internet Tax was one of them!

I double dog dare the CA tax people to find the stuff I buy in this state. That's the whole reason I shop online - I can't GET stuff like Castlebury Brunswick Stew and Big John's Beans 'n' Fixin's in the state of California - our grocery stores don't carry those items and will not special order them for me. Soooo... I get 'em shipped from out of state. If the stores are hurting for business so much, maybe it would be a good idea for them to stock what people are actually buying? Nah, that makes too much sense. Kate (who is looking forward to her next trip to Orem so she can stock up on Orange Crush in bottles instead of cans)

I live in Montana and we don't have a sales tax either. The nearest Wal-Mart for us is in North Dakota and they ask you if you live in MT, and if you show them your drivers license, they don't charge you sales tax even though the store is in ND! The other stores and restraunts don't do it, but for some reason, Wal-Mart does. Strange, but cool.

Phew it sounds complicated. And here I was, thinking that the US was ONE country. Seems like it's almost more diverted than Europe G

Puntomaus, like Germany, Denmark has a sales tax - at 25% no less, which is included in the price you see on the goods but in some cases tourists can avoid it by signing some papers that it's for export (Like we danes do when we buy beer and soda in cans in Germany to avoid the pfand GG)

I am not sure about internet purchases here. I THINK you should ideally tell the (danish equivalent of) the IRS that you bought something. I must admit that I tend to forget that. I WAS chaged a toll for a book I bought on Amazon though, made the book almost double in price :o( (Bloodsongs book even) but so far I've never been charged for stuff I've bought on e-bay. crosses fingers

PS: To the 25% sales tax you should add that we pay around 45%-60% of our income in income taxes, before we even get our wages... But then we also do get a lot for our money, in all fairness. Free schools/colleges/universities and hospitals among others...

New York has had a use tax and a form for reporting it for years, but it wasn't related to income tax until this year. Serious budget problems, like every other locality in the country is experiencing, prompted the addition of a line item on the income tax form for reporting use tax. You have three options in NY: 1. Report $0 - no out-of-state purchases 2. Use a table to calculate a use tax based on your income. You can think of it as a surtax since it has nothing to do with purchases. 3. Calculate a tax based on actual purchase records. This essentially includes the separate use tax form in the income tax purchase. The instuctions include a warning for those who have made purchases on trips outside the country that the US Customs office provides the state with a copy of any customs declaration list you filled out on return.

Gyah, this is getting downright stupid. Taxed when we make money, taxed when we spend it, taxed to KEEP it... Why don't they just keep it all and give us exactly what we need to survive and nothing more, because that's what it's getting to. Those of us who don't MAKE much money get damaged most of all, because we need every penny we get. I know when I was working at Wal-Mart, I lost between 10% and 30% of my money due to federal tax, social security tax and then Ohio state taxes. I made $392.81 one paycheck and got to KEEP 325.57. Something's wrong, there. I needed that money, and didn't have it when my mom got sick and needed medication, and couldn't go in to her own job. sighs And now they want to charge us for buying items online that aren't even physical items. I'd move to Canada, but I think their taxes are even higher.

Yikes! I did the math and found out that MachineClaw's bought over $2000 in Poser models. NH has no sales taxes or state taxes. The state keeps rubbing it in Massachusett's face by letting builders put shopping malls right on the state borderline.

"I'm an accountant & I mean NO ONE every reports there online purchases" Actually I do :-P~~ I document all of it and I claim it as a deductible under my busines ein. I claim my purchases, software, computer repairs and upgrades, phone bill, long distance (for interviews and customer support), office supplies and a percentage on our mortgage for office space.

Lady Silver - I was referring to people who DO NOT have business(Corp or SCH. C)...just buying stuff online. I've often considered writing all this stuff off as a hobby...but the $$ amounts are so high.....I think it would send up a red flag. I vote for NO red flags when it comes to the IRS. We've had idiots try to write off postage(for bill mailing & tax return mailing/vet bills/sales tax on cars/divorce attorney fees/funeral expenses ie coffins/service. In fact we have client that has done a SCH. C...for 3 years in a row he has shown NO income & up to 5000.00 in expenses...this year we said NO more..... RED FLAG We have 1 client..that we stopped as well...SCH. C again...brewing his OWN wine & saying he was warehousing it for sale!!!! People will try anything sighs.

rreynolds errr it was not ALL poser stuff, I'm obsesive but not that obsesive. actually it was books, software upgrades, CDs etc. but they were purchases online yes.