Montana has no sales tax and if a MT resident buys something in Idaho or Washington and show a MT drivers license they are not charged sales tax.

California too.

This is interesting. I am in WY, and we used to have our own business. One time, a MT customer refused to pay the sales tax. I contacted our accountent, and he said they cannot refuse the pay WY tax. If they shop in WY they need to pay up! I do shop in MT from time to time, but only because we are there for Dr. appts. etc. and the variety is so much larger than in my small town. And of course, I do like saving the tax.

Could you be thinking of the "use tax" that we in NYS are *supposed* to pay, if, say, we buy merchandise across the border in Pennsylvania?

As a merchant in NYS, we have to charge sales tax if we're shipping to an address that's within New York State. If we don't, if we're audited we'll be fined.

The reason I posted this question is that we had a customer in NYS who ordered online, went through the whole checkout process, and then e-mailed to cancel the order, because she did not want to pay both shipping and sales tax.

I was a bit taken back, because... it's not like tax is a "surprise"; she would have seen that it was included before she got to the payment screen... plus everything she ordered was already on clearance sale, so the price would have been very competitive.

I do understand the concept of wanting to avoid having to pay tax. It's just that this was the first time it was ever conveyed to us quite so bluntly!

I shop in my town and in my state as much as possible but I'm in an area limited on selection. We only have a Wal-mart that still sells fabric and one small LQS. So I have to travel 100 miles one direction or 180 miles another direction to get to a town of any size with more shops. So I shop online a lot. Sales tax isn't a factor-selection is. But, free shipping helps a lot!

Well there aren't any online vendors in my state as far as I know, but I wouldn't NOT shop them if there were, just to avoid paying sales tax. I shop my LQS as much as I can, but they don't always have what I'm looking for. I'm lucky in that we travel quite a bit so I visit stores when we're out of town. I've got several favorites in other states. And yes, I pay their sales tax when I shop in their state. :)

I also shop locally when possible. The sales tax is not an issue to me because I feel like if I have the money to buy fabric I can afford the tax also. Now the S & H cost has pursuaded me to cancel an order! Some stores are outrageous in their fees. I don't mind the postage but the handling charge is set by the store itself. Just one more reason to shop local for me.

Rhode Island really has very few LQSs' so I often buy online. That being said, we are supposed to report our online ( no sales tax ) purchases on our personal income tax.

We are supposed to do that in NC as well. There is a formula to use based on income, or you can attempt to document it if you are paying less than what the formula says. I don't know how accurate people are with it.

Also - I'd rather pay the sales tax than shipping & handling. And, probably most importantly - I really want my LQS to stay in business, so I support them whenever possible.

Cheers, K

i think NYers are tired of being taxed for everything and its starting to catch up to you with your business.

NYers pay the highest property taxes in the country.

you can't even buy a sliced bagel in NY without being taxed. if you don't have it sliced there's no tax if you want it sliced they have to charge.

its has the cute name of being called the schmear tax.

it was just a matter of time before NYers refused to shop in there state in an effort to avoid some of the tax burdens they have.