Amazon. com Help Tax Exemption

United States

In some states, certain AWS services are subject to sales or other transaction taxes.

AWS is currently registered to collect sales tax or other transaction taxes in:

1. Alabama*

2. Alaska

3. Arizona

4. Arkansas

5. California

6. Chicago

7. Colorado**

8. Connecticut

9. Delaware

10. District of Columbia***

11. Florida

12. Georgia

13. Hawaii

14. Idaho

15. Illinois

16. Indiana

17. Iowa

18. Kansas

19. Kentucky

20. Louisiana

21. Maine

22. Maryland

23. Massachusetts

24. Michigan

25. Minnesota

26. Mississippi

27. Missouri

28. Montana

29. Nebraska

30. Nevada

31. New Hampshire

32. New Jersey****

33. New Mexico

34. New York

35. North Carolina

36. North Dakota

37. Ohio*****

38. Oklahoma

39. Oregon

40. Pennsylvania

41. Puerto Rico******

42. Rhode Island

43. South Carolina

44. South Dakota

45. Tennessee

46. Texas

47. Utah

48. Vermont

49. Virginia

50. Washington

51. West Virginia

52. Wisconsin

53. Wyoming

*The State of Alabama created the simplified sellers use tax program (SSUT) under Statue § 40-23-192. The SSUT program allows eligible sellers to collect, report and remit a flat eight percent (8%) sellers use tax on all sales made into Alabama. Amazon Web Services, Inc. collects the simplified sellers use tax on sales to Alabama customers and remits the tax on behalf of Alabama customers to the Alabama Department of Revenue. The Alabama simplified sellers use tax program account number for Amazon Web Services, Inc. is: SSU-R009666032.

** AWS does not charge Colorado state level sales tax on most services; however, several AWS services are subject to Colorado city level sales taxes in a number of Colorado cities and/or counties.

*** AWS is a Qualified High Technology Company (QHTC) in the District of Columbia and, as such, certain sales within the District by AWS are not considered taxable sales at retail.

**** Under New Jersey law, sales of prewritten software delivered electronically and used directly and exclusively in the conduct of the purchaser’s business are exempt from sales tax. We assume all New Jersey purchasers use AWS’s services exclusively in their business.

***** Under Ohio law, AWS services may be taxable when purchased by an Ohio customer and used in business. We assume all Ohio purchasers use AWS’s services exclusively in their business. However, if services are purchased for non-business use the Ohio purchaser should submit an exemption form to AWS via the AWS tax exemption program.

****** Under Puerto Rico law, most AWS services are taxable at a 4% sales tax rate when purchased by a registered Puerto Rican merchant. We assume all Puerto Rico purchasers are merchants and use AWS’s services exclusively in their business. However, if services are purchased by an individual or non-merchant for use in Puerto Rico the purchaser is responsible for any additional sales tax due.

How Tax is Calculated:

The amount of tax collected depends on many factors, including, but not limited to, the type of service you purchase and the tax location address associated with your account.

If a service is subject to tax in your state, tax will be calculated on the final sale price of each individual service.

For regular accounts, the address associated with your payment method will be used to determine the tax location for applicable taxes. If the account does not have a payment method on record, the account’s contact address will be used as a substitute.

For consolidated billing accounts, tax will be calculated on services allocated to the payer’s linked account. Linked account tax location addresses will be used to calculate tax for the accounts’ allocated services.

Once your bill is finalized, sales tax to be collected will be displayed as a line item in your PDF invoice, email summary of charges, account activity page and, if enabled, your detailed activity report.

Sales Tax Exemptions:

With the Amazon Tax Exemption Program (ATEP), you may be eligible to use your tax exemptions for future purchases from AWS if you are able to prov >

Amazon ATEP and Sales Tax

The Amazon Tax Exemption Program (ATEP) allows Amazon buyers to more easily buy items from other Amazon sellers tax free with a resale certificate or exemption certificate.

If you sell on the Amazon platform, you may have recently received an email stating that you are now enrolled in ATEP. Here’s an example of the email:

Effective May 23, 2017, your Tax Calculation Service will be automatically enrolled in Amazon’s Tax Exemption Program (ATEP). This program reduces the need for sellers to issue tax-only refunds, and facilitates the transfer of tax exemption documents between customers and sellers.

ATEP enrollment will be automatic and provided at no extra cost. To update your tax settings, including ATEP, visit the Tax Calculation Settings page.

Confused about what this means? No worries. This article will explain what using the Amazon ATEP program means for you and your business.

What is Amazon’s ATEP Program?

In some cases, some entities – like schools, government entities or non-profits – are exempt from having to pay sales tax when making purchases. When an organization is tax exempt, they have to show an exemption certificate at the point of sale in order to avoid having to pay sales tax.

Before Amazon introduced ATEP, if a tax exempt organization needed to buy something on Amazon tax free, they would generally have to ask for a sales tax refund after making the purchase. This is a pain for the tax exempt buyer, who has to keep up with whether or not they were refunded sales tax on a purchase, and for Amazon, who had to handle these transactions and refunds. To make matters more complicated, some tax exempt organizations also bought from 3rd party sellers, which added a further monkey wrench in the works.

With the ATEP program, exempt organizations can buy tax free without having to bother about getting reimbursed sales tax.

What does ATEP mean for Amazon FBA Sellers?

If a tax exempt organization chooses to purchase your products, you may notice that they didn’t pay sales tax. As with everything Amazon, tracking this is up to you. Amazon will provide you with a copy of your customer’s exemption certificate.

Keep in mind that it’s up to you to ensure that your customer’s sales tax exemption is valid. You can use the resources in this link to verify a tax ID in every state.

Why should you verify a resale certificate? Though laws differ, many states consider the seller the responsible party for determining if a tax free sale was legal and valid. Verifying your customer’s exemption certificate will help you ensure that their organization is still tax exempt and that they legally were not required to pay sales tax to you.

Do you have questions or something to say about the ATEP program? Start the conversation in the comments!

Upload your tax exemption certificate

If you have an invoiced billing account, this information doesn’t apply to you. Instead, submit a request to upload your certificate through our Partner Program Support team in Cloud Connect.

If you qualify for a tax exemption, follow these instructions to submit your tax exemption certificate to Google for review. If you qualify for more than one type of exemption, you can submit multiple certificates.

Important: Google can’t advise you about tax matters. Please contact your tax adviser for questions specific to your situation.

Upload your certificate

You can upload your tax exemption certificate file in PDF, JPG, or PNG format.

Sign in to the Reseller console. Click the Menu >Billing. Under Settings, click Manage Settings. Click Tax exemption info. Click Add new tax exemption (optional). Enter or select:

Your state Your Tax Exemption Number The certificate start and end date, if applicable The exemption type, if applicable

Click Upload File and select your tax exemption certificate file. After the file has finished uploading, click Add. (Optional) To upload another certificate, click Add new tax exemption (optional). Click Save.

Check your tax exemption status

After you submit your certificate, Google needs to review it before confirming your tax exemption.

To check the status:

Sign in to the Reseller console. Click the Menu >Billing. Under Settings, click Manage Settings. Click Tax exemption info. Scroll to the state you selected in your submission to view the status of the exemption.

Amazon sales tax deal in California may help rivals

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Amazon. com Inc’s agreement to start collecting sales tax in California next year may help brick and mortar rivals compete on prices with the world’s largest Internet retailer.

A box from Amazon. com is pictured on the porch of a house in Golden, Colorado July 23, 2008. REUTERS/Rick Wilking

In a meeting on Wednesday of Amazon representatives, members of the state legislature and the California Retailers Association, the parties reached a “handshake” agreement on the issue, according to Mark Hedlund, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg.

Amazon will drop its effort to overturn a law passed earlier this year that required the company to collect sales tax starting in July. In return, Amazon will not have to collect sales tax in California until September 2012, Hedlund said.

If Congress passes national online sales tax legislation before July 1, 2012, that law will supersede the California agreement. The handshake agreement is being written as an amendment to the state law and the changes still have to be voted on, hopefully this week, Hedlund said.

Online retailers without a physical presence in a state do not have to collect sales tax on purchases by those residents. As e-commerce ballooned in recent years, that exemption came under pressure from several states looking to fill big budget gaps.

Brick and mortar retailers have been pushing hard behind the scenes to get Amazon to collect sales tax. The pact struck Wednesday is a victory for companies such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc, Best Buy Co Inc and Staples Inc.

“The Internet is an important channel for sales now and its growth is going to compel a solution from Congress,” said David French, senior vice president of government relations at the National Retail Federation.

The California deal puts Amazon and bricks and mortar retailers more on the same page, which will help with a national solution, he added.

“The bottom line is that a potential agreement is a positive for brick and mortar retailers as it will level the sales tax playing field in a critical state in less than 12 months time, and may become the model applied nationwide,” Gary Balter, an analyst at Credit Suisse, wrote in a note to investors on Thursday.

In the hard-line retail sector, the biggest beneficiaries will be categories that are most price sensitive and where Internet penetration is above the average of 7 percent, the analyst added.

E-commerce accounts for more than 20 percent of consumer electronics and office supply sales, according to Balter.

“However, Amazon and other Internet retailers are making serious inroads in Pet Supply, Home Improvement and other categories and this agreement may slow that down,” the analyst added.

Amazon spokeswoman Mary Osako said: “On pricing, we offer low prices whether or not we collect and remit sales tax.”

She declined to comment on the California tax deal.

Amazon shares slipped 1.2 percent to close at $217.26 on Thursday.

Higher-priced items sold online, such as big-screen TVs and diamonds, will likely be affected by the collection of sales tax, said Colin Sebastian, an analyst at RW Baird.

The shares of Blue Nile, which sells diamonds and jewelry online, declined 2.3 percent to close at $36.74 on Thursday.

Still, Sebastian said the online sales tax issue looks more like a “smoke screen” for bigger problems faced by brick and mortar retailers.

Scott Tilghman, an analyst Caris & Company, reckons most consumers shop online for convenience and selection rather than to avoid sales tax.

“There are marginal customers that do make purchases online for that reason, but my sense in talking to a broad range of people is that group is a very small minority,” he told Reuters.

There is a perception that online offerings are cheaper, but that is not always the case, Tilghman added.

In cases where products are cheaper online, the price advantage may shrink once sales tax is imposed, but it will still exist.

“Pricing transparency through apps and comparison shopping websites is more likely to pressure brick and mortar than sales tax collection is to help it,” the analyst concluded.

Reporting by Alistair Barr, Dhanya Skariachan and Jim Christie; editing by Gary Hill and Andre Grenon