Re: Amazon boycott

[jj <datalibrarian@gmail.com>]

Tim Rutten wrote in the L.A. Times:

"The company long has employed a couple of dodges to avoid 
[paying California sales tax], including maintaining subsidiaries 
here under other names. One of them, Lab126 in Cupertino, helped 
develop Amazon's successful Kindle. It's fair to wonder whether 
any of the engineers and scientists who worked on that project 
were educated in the California universities to whose support 
Amazon refuses to contribute. In fact, it's hard to imagine 
anything more outrageous than a company this successful 
attempting to buy its way out of the minimal obligations of 
corporate citizenship."

"Amazon's shameful California tax dodge"
[Op-Ed] By Tim Rutten, July 20, 2011
http://tinyurl.com/3w8do9x


On Aug 17, 2011, at 5:05 PM, Stephen X. Flynn wrote:

> A better argument against the tax is that Amazon has no physical
> presence in California and are not benefitting from state
> services in order to operate. In addition, invisible taxes are
> paid to ensure the delivery of Amazon's goods to Californian
> homes. When you pay for shipping you are paying for UPS to
> deliver to your door. UPS pays a variety of taxes to operate in
> California, including the state fuel tax, corporate income tax,
> and property taxes. If UPS didn't have Amazon's business, I'm
> sure they would have to layoff more drivers which would hurt the
> California economy. It's a pretty good deal considering that
> Amazon doesn't receive any benefit from California's state
> services.
>
> Amazon has some of the lowest prices you can find for millions of
> items. Every time I save a dollar here and there on a book from
> Amazon, that's an extra dollar I could spend going to a local
> restaurant which injects money directly into the local economy
> and increases tax receipts. I would bet that California's college
> students have saved hundreds of thousands of dollars from buying
> textbooks from Amazon. So this notion that purchasing from Amazon
> deprives California of much needed revenue is bogus. There is
> nothing unfair about not paying sales tax on goods that are
> purchased from a vendor with no physical presence in California.
>
> ----
> Stephen X. Flynn
> Emerging Technologies Librarian
> Andrews Library, College of Wooster
> Wooster, OH 44691
> http://www.sxflynn.net