You keep using that word...

[BeenThereDoneThat]

Here's another state with no state sales tax...Alaska! Or, if you prefer warmer weather, you could go to Guam...not a state but a US territory and they don't have any local sales taxes either apparently.

[taxguykarl]

I love not paying sales tax in Oregon. Now if they would just get rid of the state income tax

Washington state does not have an income tax. Do like my niece, she lives in Vancouver, WA--just across the Oregon state line. Guess where she shops.

[lobo94]

When I worked at a major television shopping channel as a customer service representative, we had to charge the appropriate, applicable state tax because we were considered to have a presence in the states people saw us on TV.

One time, I had a lady questioning why she was paying tax on a piece of jewelry she had ordered when she had never paid taxes before on anything she had bought off TV. So I look at her account as far back as I can. All I see before the jewelry purchase is clothing. She was calling from a state that didnt tax clothing. So I ask, is clothing all she had ever bought before the jewelry item. She said yes. Then I advised, in her state, clothing was tax-exempt, but that jewelry wasn't.

She accepted it.

It was especially interesting when states had tax holidays-the computers had to be adjusted accordingly for the duration. The first time I ever ran into this, I commented, off the phone, that it was crazy.

My then boss commented that, "we shall have to tell the governor of New York you think he's crazy." He did have a wit about him.

[Andara Bledin]

Well, technically, you're supposed to pay tax on all items purchased, no matter what state you get them from or what state you reside, provided the state in which you reside collects taxes on the sale of the items.

Needless to say, the vast majority of individuals completely ignore that little bit of tax regulation, and there's no sane way for the states that collect taxes to possibly keep track and enforce it.

^-.-^

[simplyanother]

There's a little thingy when I do my state taxes, asking me if I want to pay any taxes I might should have definitely paid on purchases made online (at places that don't yet collect sales tax in Virginia)...

[taxguykarl]

Needless to say, the vast majority of individuals completely ignore that little bit of tax regulation, and there's no sane way for the states that collect taxes to possibly keep track and enforce it.

No has admitted that yet...except for Mrs. TGK--only because she fears that sort of thing coming back to bite our backsides, that sort of thing apparently happened to her ex.

[Ironclad Alibi]

There's a little thingy when I do my state taxes, asking me if I want to pay any taxes I might should have definitely paid on purchases made online (at places that don't yet collect sales tax in Virginia)...

Virginia has something called the Consumer Use Tax.

What is Consumer's Use Tax?

Consumer's use tax is the "other half" of the Virginia retail sales and use tax requirements. Typically, you incur the consumer's use tax if you made more than $100 in purchases during the year for which you did not pay sales tax. Common instances of these types of transactions are purchases from the Internet, mail-order catalogues and cable television shopping channels. The tax also applies to tax-free purchases you make outside of Virginia, such as buying furniture at an outlet in another state and having it shipped to Virginia. The tax is 5% of the cost of regular non-food purchases and 2.5% on purchases of food for home consumption.

[BeenThereDoneThat]

There were TV commercials and print ads for a while in Florida reminding us that we were supposed to declare all our purchases no matter where we bought the stuff or how. Haven't seen anything about that in a while...guess it wasn't a very successful ad campaign.