• The rules for The Exchange can be found here. Please read and follow them. Stop using Paypal Friends & Family and follow our best practices to prevent getting ripped off or having a bad deal.

Some big online knife dealers charge tax.... others dont?

Status
Not open for further replies.
BadComrade

BadComrade

Feedback: 10 / 0 / 0
Joined
Dec 29, 2017
Messages
276
So last May I ordered a spyderco spydiechef from Blade HQ and I ended up getting an additional $13 in Sales Tax added onto my order.

Over the weekend I ordered a Benchmade 51 from KinfeCenter and was not charged any tax.

What gives? I live in PA. Blade HQ is located in UT and Knife Center is located in VA.

Is it a state by state thing? For big purchases I'm going to steer clear of Blade HQ because of this... I find this to be a shame because I follow Blade HQ on youtube and like the company for their involvement in the knife community and would love to support them with new knife purchases
 
I don't know but the recent supreme court ruling should mean that most online retailers collect sales tax in the future.
I was just searching online and in a nytimes article read "this [ruling] won’t help municipal governments in states such as Pennsylvania and New Mexico where quirks in tax codes prevent local jurisdictions from taxing remote sellers."
 
Government finidng ways to get their tax little by little. PA figured out yet how to get money from knifecenter.

I wouldn't punish bladeHQ but unfortunatly they'll all want an even playing field and push for their competitors to also get taxed.
 
I just checked my BHQ account. They have never charged me sales tax. I'm in CA.

More taxes, what a nightmare.

EDIT- I started paying sales tax at BHQ on 6/18/2019.
 
Last edited:
Not fun for the retailer either as they need to do paperwork and mail in the collected tax payments to every state they collected them for. Usually this is done quarterly but it can depend on the volume collected for each state.
 
the overhead involved which is put upon the retailer is amazing. imagine collecting taxes for all 50 states and having to pay someone to funnel those funds to the respective state . and guess who the additional cost is passed onto? That's right you consumer!!! expect prices to go up to cover the increased overhead and a nice tax added on to everything you buy . You are an endless source of funds supplying the never fulfilled appetite of the government until death do you part and you pay your death tax :)
 
Last edited:
I see inconsistent sales tax charging even from Amazon. I bought some orthopedic insoles and got taxed. Bought some USB cables, no tax. Both were with Prime. Maybe they were from different sellers but "fulfilled" by Amazon, I don't remember. Weird though.
 
I don't see what will stop counties and cities from deciding retailers need to collect tax for them as well. So, there could be thousands of payees for even the smallest of retailers in the future. At this point, states have not developed their guidelines. We are hoping most will have a minimum gross sales into that state before sales tax is required. They are really just trying to fill the coffers with giants like Amazon, Overstock, etc. The overhead in chasing mom and pop retailers down for their $3 monthly sales tax burden would make complete enforcement impossible. Hopefully the federal lawmakers will step in and standardize at the least.

CollectorKnives does not clear enough in a year to hire a full time accountant to calculate/process these payments.
 
I don't blame BladeHQ as I believe it is required to collect sales tax for some states, mine included. However, I have ever stayed away from purchasing on BladeHQ for that reason because there are still quite q few other dealers (including DLT, KC, KW, GPK) that do not charge the sales tax for my state.
 
I've been told by my tax prep. that if the retailer has a physical site in my state they are required to collect sales tax at pos. I'm in Tennessee, so it may be different in your state.
 
@ PeteyTwoPointOne PeteyTwoPointOne Thanks, those are/were the old rules. The new rules from my understanding include what you mentioned "or" a Gross sales threshold, usually varies by state from like 100k to 2mill. Seems like most states are slowly implementing it. The biggest joke is now the Biden tax is wanting a cut of all private sales over $600 (total) for the year if you are paid with paypal or venmo or anything that can be tracked be prepaid for that tax nightmare. I mean he has to find a way to pay for all these give away dollars somehow right?
 
Altamont Outdoors and Southern Blades did NOT collect sales tax.
River's Edge Cutlery did.
 
All retail businesses are required to follow the law, regardless of whether that is a popular decision.

In fact, all businesses are required to follow the law. (As are citizens.) Whether they do or not is a separate issue.

The presumption by businesses that are not charging it up front is that you, the buyer, are declaring your online (out of state) purchases, (which have not been taxed up front by the vendor), when you prepare your taxes. (I know...hahaha.)
 
I go through the online checkout procedure and see if tax is added. If I can’t find the item elsewhere or I like this particular knife vendor, I pay up. If it’s a large purchase of anything else, I’ll check around first.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top