Buyer beware ATT Nightmare

1 - If there is a store in your area and you buy it online then you will be taxed. If you buy from apple, att, home depot, or jcpenny, etc, online and you have that store in your state, you will be taxed, that is how it works and has always worked for internet purchases. Also if you do not have a store in your state or dont get taxed on the site, you are supposed to report all your online purchases for the year on your tax return and pay for the sales tax that way. (although no one claims this stuff). The notion of no sales tax on the internet is not entirely true.
2 - when I bought my iphone from the att store I was explained to throughly about the re-stocking fee and how that works. If you unpacked it and took the wrapper, etc off and tried it out you have to pay the restocking fee, otherwise you shouldn't have to.

"If there is a store in your area and you buy it online then you will be taxed. If you buy from apple, att, home depot, or jcpenny, etc, online and you have that store in your state, you will be taxed, that is how it works and has always worked for internet purchases."

Gosh, I wish I'd said that...oh, wait I did.

"Also if you do not have a store in your state or dont get taxed on the site, you are supposed to report all your online purchases for the year on your tax return and pay for the sales tax that way. (although no one claims this stuff). The notion of no sales tax on the internet is not entirely true."

Are you talking about your state income tax return or federal return? It the latter, can you provide a cite for this?

Its on the state return. I just know about it because I use turbotax online and it was one of the questions I was asked by the program....if I made any online purchases that I wasn't taxed state sales tax on. Could be just a NY thing too, I'm not sure.

Don't have state income tax here, so this probably is a state-by-state thing and no blanket statement can be made.

You're mixing state sales tax up with state income tax. In Turbotax, it asks you if you made purchases that sales tax was not charged on and it gives you the option to enter the amount of those purchases.

Cubus25 wrote:F.Y.I. ATT has one of the best customer service departments.

FYI I have to personally disagree. To date, as patient as anyone can be with any company, AT&T has always been a totally disappointing nightmare to deal with. Their CS is the pits. This is the sole reason alone why I have not purchased an iPhone. Although your experiences with AT&T may of been superb, but then again Haley's Comet only circle the Earth once every 75 yrs (if you catch my drift).

Message was edited by: E.Santos

The same can be said of Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc. It all depends on who you get in CS.

E Santos, you don't have an iPhone or a Mac, so why are you here in this support forum?

i just bought mine a couple of weeks ago and it was plainly stated that there is a restock fee on phones.its in writing, therefore you should always read the fine print before buying

No, I'm not mixing up the two. The person who first stated this said it was required when you filed your tax return to include what sales tax you would have paid on internet purchases. I asked if he was referring a state or federal tax return, as I did not know of any such requirement on the federal return, and he answered that is was a requirement on his New York state income tax return.

Since we have no state income tax in Texas, obviously I can't declare on a tax return how much sales tax I didn't pay on internet purchases so Governor Perry can try to collect more money. I doubt New York is recovering much either.

So when was your last dealing with them? I used to have AT&T Wireless prior to their purchase by Cingular and I have to agree, customer service could be awful, but my dealings with Cingular, and the now renamed Cingular, have all been positive.

You are correct that it is a state-by-state thing. If you make an out-of-state purchase and were not charged sales tax in the state of purchase most state laws say you must pay sales tax to your state (and municipality) of residence. In this case it is technically called a "use tax". If you file an income tax return most states have a separate "use tax" form to complete that comes with the income tax package. Technically it is not income tax; they just package the forms together. NY, NJ, CT and MA all do this.

Texas has Use Tax forms that you are supposed to complete and submit, even without an income tax (see: http://www.window.state.tx.us/taxinfo/taxforms/01-forms.html#Use). I see from the form that Texas is worse than other states, in that Use Tax must be paid even if Sales Tax was paid in the state of purchase.

As others have pointed out, if an Internet store has a physical presence in any state they are obligated to charge sales tax on purchases shipped to that state.

States have also been lobbying congress for years to required Internet and mail order businesses to charge the appropriate sales tax for the shipping address, but thus far congress has resisted. But it comes up every year.

Lawrence Finch wrote:
States have also been lobbying congress for years to required Internet and mail order businesses to charge the appropriate sales tax for the shipping address, but thus far congress has resisted. But it comes up every year.

This would be a nightmare for businesses to implement. Not only would they have to figure out sales tax for the 44 states that have a sales tax, they'd also have to figure out if each county/parish in each state has an additional sales tax. They would also have to figure out which goods are taxable and which things are not. Implementing something like this would put lots of small businesses out of business.

For example, FL has a base 6% sales tax and then each county can add up to an additional 1.5%. Another example, in FL, clothes are a taxable item while in MA they are not.

i understand your frustration and that you are being ran around and basically being messed with but some of the things i wouldnt just say that o its all att, a lot of companies do this crap but yes it is messed up and should not happen.

the website charging tax on you that is getting more and more common, IIRC there is a case about it either around the supreme court or the issue is being brought up in congress about tax on websites and for now some states will charge you through the website and others will not ( also when it comes to cell phones you have so many fees and taxes that the fed gov't has in place so its just a cluster-f basically

it is good that you are sharing your experience so others do know. also as far as i know its not any cheaper through att but i can see how it would be easier to se up an account if you are getting a a new one maybe.

i hope you can get this fixed with not a whole lot of effort on your part
good luck
-matt

In general, it has to do with whether or not a business is set up to do business in a specific state. If the business has brick-and-mortar stores in a state, or if their offices are located in a state the state requires them to charge sales tax on internet orders. Otherwise the orders are exempt from tax as they fall under the interstate commerce laws. These laws were originally designed to stimulate commerce between states.

The issues being brought up in congress/courts now are due to internet orders being much more common and whether the interstate tax exemptions are still valid in this new world economy.