Friday, February 11, 2011

North Carolina Settles Amazon Lawsuit

A lawsuit brought against the the state of North Carolina's tax collections department, the Department of Revenue, by Amazon.com, the ACLU, and several North Carolina residents, has been settled. According to TechJournal South, the state agreed to pay $99,000 in attorney's fees as part of the settlement, which covered private rights of Amazon customers. The state had been looking to force Amazon.com to reveal what customers were buying on the site, in order to make it easier for the state to force those customers to pay sales taxes. North Carolina is one of a large number of states which have been hoping to tax sales on Amazon.com and other e-commerce sites, but have been so far frustrated in their efforts.

North Carolina, like many other states, requires residents to voluntarily pay sales taxes on online purchases when purchasing items from Amazon.com and other out of state retailers, however, like other states, has an extremely low compliance rate with those laws. North Carolina is one of the many states Amazon has dropped its affiliates in, due to attempts to tax Amazon based on its affiliate relationships.

---