WE NO LONGER SHIP MERCHANDISE TO
WASHINGTON STATE RESIDENTS.
THANKS TO OUR WISE LEGISLATORS, On July 1, 2008, Washington retailers delivering goods to customers in Washington must start collecting sales tax based on where the customer receives the merchandise – the “destination” of the sale. (They've signed onto the national SSUTA Agreement who came up with this scheme to tax Internet and Mail Order sales!)
For example, if a Mercer Island resident purchases a lampshade from our shop in Toledo, and requests home delivery, the sales tax will be based on the rate in the city of Mercer Island - not Toledo. Mercer Island's tax rate is 8.9%; our tax rate is 7.8%.
The local sales tax revenue will now go to the city of Mercer Island; under the old rules the revenue would have gone to Lewis County.We think this is unfair!
A large percentage of this local sales tax revenue will go to already wealthy counties in the state because those counties' residents have the most money to spend! Before this change, the local sales tax revenue would have gone to Lewis County (who needs every penny of tax revenue.)
The destination sales tax is a MONUMENTAL change in accounting practices for businesses that deliver merchandise in Washington. We'd have to know the code number of every taxing jurisdiction in the State, and file our tax reports according to where the merchandise was shipped.
For every Washington State sale, we'd have to go to the Department Of Revenue website to determine what rate of sales tax we should charge. We don't have the time or the manpower for this extra burden. There is no change for over-the-counter sales where customers take home goods from our store location in Washington, and there is no change for sales to out-of-state customers.
Therefore: We no longer ship merchandise to Washington residents.
I could better understand the Legislators' concept if only they would have taxed out-of-state businesses for shipping merchandise into Washington State, but in our opinion, this change is going to cost the State of Washington more than it expects to gain in extra tax revenue from internet and mail order sales made by Washington State businesses!
About half the states in the United States have signed onto the SSUTA Agreement - so pretty soon, everybody will be paying some kind of sales tax on internet purchases! Keep tabs on what your state is doing!
We apologize for this inconvenience!
For more on this nightmarish tax problem, check these links:
http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/RetailSalesTax/DestinationBased/MoreSST.aspx
Across-The-Board Woodworks
Toledo, Washington
1-888-640-LAMP (5267)