Should E-Books Be Taxed? Not In NY
0In the past couple of years, Amazon has been fighting hard to avoid having to collect sales taxes in states that it does not have a physical presence in. The company has even advised its employees to ask for permission before entering states hostile to it in the Internet tax fight.
Credit: WSJ
Should e-books be taxed? When you buy e-books from Amazon, chances are you do not pay taxes on your purchases. Apparently, The Department of Taxation and Finance in New York believes e-books should not be taxed anyway:
Petitioner’s e-books are not tangible and do not include any prewritten computer software. Accordingly, they do not constitute tangible personal property.
Here is how TSB-M defines the characteristics of e-books:
- do not include additional goods and services
- revisions are for the limited purpose of correcting errors
- provided as a single download
- advertised or marketed as an e-book
- have software limitations
Since e-books are not physical products and most of us have already paid taxes on the software or tools that are required to read them, taxing e-books does not seem fair. While it is encouraging to see this approach being taken in NY, we are not confident it will be the case in other states.
