A lot has changed since our last popular blog post on showrooming Amazon and avoiding the Amazon tax, and most people are unhappy with the news. After years of back-and-forths with various states regarding state sales tax laws, Amazon.com’s current list of states where sales tax is collected is as follows:
- Arizona
![Anyone Still Showrooming Amazon?]()
- California
- Connecticut
- Georgia
- Indiana
- Kansas
- Kentucky
- Massachusetts
- Nevada
- New Jersey
- New York
- North Carolina
- North Dakota
- Pennsylvania
- Tennessee
- Texas
- Virginia
- Washington
- West Virginia
- Wisconsin
That’s 20 out of 50 states, compared to the mere six states that Amazon collected sales tax from in 2012. Nevada, Tennessee, and Indiana were just added to the list at the beginning of this year. Recently, Amazon has announced plans to begin buidling warehouses in Florida (which means sales tax will be collected there eventually) and to begin collecting sales tax in South Carolina beginning 2016 as well.
So Can We Still Showroom Amazon?
While many brick-and-mortar stores are scrambling for ways to keep their customers from showrooming using Amazon, many Amazon users are just trying to find ways to showroom Amazon itself. Sure, it can’t be too hard to find a television set cheaper at an online-only retail store like Amazon rather than at a traditional brick-and-mortar retailer, but can you get it even cheaper from a dealer in a state without sales tax?
The practice of showrooming Amazon is on shakier ground nowadays, since they’re engaging in sales tax disputes with many states. If you take a look at Amazon’s help page on sales tax, you’ll see that Amazon now specifies that “if an item is subject to sales tax in the state to which the order is shipped, tax is generally calculated on the total selling price of each individual item.” So as long as you live in a state where sales taxes exist, chances are anything you have shipped will include that sales tax.
That’s not to stop you from using Amazon to locate dealers in states without sales taxes, though, and buying directly (if possible) from those retailers to avoid the sales tax.
