The oddities of tax laws regarding online shopping will astound you. Here’s the basic rule, if you’re buying from an online store that has a physical presence in your state, you’re supposed to pay sales tax. The site should tack on the sales tax, since there’s no real way for you ro tknow whether the site has a store in your state.
But don’t expect that rule to always hold, because state tax laws are mind bogglingly complex, and there’s no reasonable way that online stores can possibly keep track of them all. For example, in California you pay taxes on soda, but not juice. In Washington, 100% juice drinks are exempt from state taxes. in New York, a juice drink with 70% or more juice juice is tax-exempt. Given this level of complexity, some online stores don’t even bother to collect sales tax.
A further complication is that many states impose a “use tax.” If you buy an item from an out-of-state business, and you don’t pay sales tax for that item, you’re supposed to pay the equivalent in use tax to your state. Fortunately for consumes, states seldom enforce this law, wrestle with your conscience , and let us know how it turns out.
