In Massachusetts, the sales tax on a cellphone that comes at a deep discount when someone signs a contract isn’t based on what a customer actually pays for the phone, but on its higher wholesale price. Now, as millions of people buy pricey smartphones, an obscure tax directive created at the beginning of the wireless market is suddenly getting a lot more attention. Not only are consumers voicing their surprise - and often outrage - at the register, state lawmakers have introduced bills to change the policy.
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Comments
Go to New Hampshire to buy your phone and avoid the tax, or go to another state and pay the tax on the sale price.
Typical Massachusetts tax thievery. So you get double taxed on the contract and the what the state determines the value of the phone is. So this is just the start of this new process. The next time you get a buy 1 get 1 free meal, they'll double the meal tax. We need a big time change in state government. Put all democrats in and this is what you get.
The cost is obviously inflated. They should either bring the price closer to the production cost or the service provider giving the discount should pay sales tax on the difference.
The sheep voters in the Commonwealth keep voting these people in who think your money is rightfully there money. And this is the sort of laws we get.
Well they need this money so they can retire with 80% of their salary and free health insurance, plus hire all their family members! Go to NH to buy, don't feed the beast!
Shame on Mass for not education wireless sellers of the taxation rules. They should grant amnesty for unpaid taxes up until now. As a former wireless seller, I am certain that phone discounts are treated as subsidies or rebates off of the retail price. Therefore, the sales tax should be based on the actual retail cost of the phone. Much like automobiles, however they lose much of that value once used, or in the case of phones a new version comes out months later.
Shame on Mass for not education wireless sellers of the taxation rules. They should grant amnesty for unpaid taxes up until now. As a former wireless seller, I am certain that phone discounts are treated as subsidies or rebates off of the retail price. Therefore, the sales tax should be based on the actual retail cost of the phone. Much like automobiles, however they lose much of that value once used, or in the case of phones a new version comes out months later.
Typical slimey sneaks at the DOR setting taxpayers up for penalties by withholding information that is supposed to be strongly presented to the public, especially to those who are selling products carrying secret tax rules. The smarmy DOR policy makers/public info bureaucrats ought to be fined 35% of the amount of the highest tax on a mobile phone. Let them feel what taxpayers feel.