To dispel the myth of the tax-free Internet purchase, every
Mainer should familiarize themselves with the laws of our great state. They
will find that anyone purchasing taxable goods and services while in the state
of Maine must pay the appropriate sales or service tax. Most responsible
vendors operating in the state of Maine collect the tax at the time of purchase
to free their customers from the task of recording, reporting and then paying
the state its legal due. Buy a computer online from Apple to be delivered to an
address in Maine and the sales tax is included in final price.
Some Internet vendors want to play a Harry Houdini with the
sales tax. Making it disappear from their shopping cart, only to have it
reappear at your tax time. They are going against several hundred years of
common business practice to create an unfair advantage for themselves and
precarious position for every Mainer who shops at their websites.
Dangerous for the customer who has the taxman knock on their
door with an audit in hand. The sales tax that is not collected by these
irresponsible Internet vendors and then the customer forgets to pay at tax time
becomes an avalanche of penalties and late interest charges. So the Mainer who
thinks they are getting a great deal online, in truth is opening their door to
only find headache and heartache. Don’t think for a moment that the bean
counters at the Department of Administrative and Financial Services (the Maine
IRS) will not seek to justify their jobs by not collecting those overdue taxes.
If leveling the playing field closing the legal loophole
that these companies are using to cheat Maine causes them pause, then it can
only be a good thing. Because if these Internet vendors are underhandedly
operating in Maine, one has to consider what other disreputable steps are they
taking in the name of profit.
