[governance] FW: TP: city government exercising policy on Google Applications / consumer rights / Consumer Protection Act / trial period

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<93F4C2F3D19A03439EAC16D47C591DDE035FB277D3 at suex07-mbx-08.ad.syr.edu>, 
at 09:41:58 on Tue, 5 Jul 2011, Lee W McKnight <lmcknigh at syr.edu> writes
>Amazon.com is the most notorious Internet tax scofflaw, pretending that it never needs to collect local taxes - because it can;t figure out
>who/where it's customers are. And yet somehow they manage to process our transctions with them, while otherwise being mystified by the
>complexity of the net.

In Europe they raise invoices in Luxembourg, and ship from (eg) UK-UK, 
but they manage to charge UK sales tax to UK customers, which is OK for 
all parties.

There are some "offshore" organisations which do mail order to the UK 
from the Channel Islands (which are outside the EU) and import/sales tax 
is waived (by postal customs agents) for all items below a value 
equivalent to about USD25. Typical products are DVDs.

However, the UK government has recently reduced the rate to around 
USD20, and is threatening to withdraw the concession altogether if large 
retailers continue to exploit this loophole by shipping from these 
places. It's not just the money, there are fewer delays processing the 
goods at the border, and no need to have an expensive mechanism to 
collect the small amounts (per item) of tax from the customers.
-- 
Roland Perry
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t