Tuesday, October 30, 2012

The Last Great Online Xmas Shopping Xperience



Well, it has officially been announced that this year will be the final year that Christmas shoppers will be able to make purchases from Amazon.com without having to pay a sales tax.

Since its inception as an online retailer, Amazon has been a shopping site with one price and no additional tax. Sure, shipping and handling could sometimes be added -- depending on the purchase -- changing the official prices, but starting next spring, a sales tax will also be leveraged.

Details are still sketchy on how exactly the sales tax will be placed on items, there is no word on whether the sales tax will be a flat rate, or if the applicable taxes will be categorized as State or Federal taxes. All we know is that a tax is imminent.

While this news may disappoint die-hard year-round Amazon shoppers, there is some good news that comes out of it: the tax won't be added until sometime next spring. That means that we have one last Christmas shopping season to buy up Amazon products and not incur additional sales tax.

The decision to add sales tax to the items from Amazon came after the company was hit with a 53 million dollar tax lien for unpaid taxes in prior years. Amazon saw that there was no way they could avoid having to pay the taxes, no matter how they set up their tax paperwork.

This is not necessarily a sting to Amazon's finances, however. This holiday season could be one of Amazon's biggest sales seasons yet, giving it a strong end-of-year showing and upping their annual revenue. Not only will shoppers be eager to buy up tax-free Christmas gifts for one last time, but this is on top of a slowly improving economy that expects to see high fourth quarter sales in all retail sectors.

So remember, this Christmas will be your last chance to save a few cents or even dollars on each and every product you purchase. The best part is, you don't even have to wake up early, stand out in the cold, or get trampled by rival bargain-shoppers.

Happy Holidays everyone -- from BIZ.SERVZ

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