Amazon settles with Texas over sales tax
E-tailer will start collecting sales taxes in the state come July 1, Reuters reports, in exchange for job creation and investment money. Texas, meanwhile, will drop demand for back sales taxes.
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Amazon has reached another settlement over state taxes, this time with Texas.
Reuters reports that the giant e-tailer will start collecting sales tax in Texas come July 1, as part of a settlement that requires Amazon to bring 2,500 jobs and $200 million in capital investment to the state over the next four years.
In exchange for the jobs and money, Texas State Comptroller Susan Combs is dropping the state's demand for $269 million to cover sales taxes from 2005 to 2009, Reuters reports.
Amazon struck a deal with the state of Nevada earlier in the week whereby it will begin collecting sales taxes there on January 1, 2014. It also reached an agreement with California last September that gave it another year before it has to begin collecting sales taxes in that state.
Things went the other way in Illinois yesterday, when a judge there called unconstitutional a law designed to let the state collect sales tax from out-of-state, online retailers.
Amazon has traditionally opposed having to collect sales taxes, while states have bemoaned the lost revenue, and brick-and-mortar retailers have objected to what they see as an unfair advantage for Amazon.
The U.S. Congress is currently considering legislation that would let states force Amazon and other online-only retailers to collect sales taxes.