Are people going to be less likely to buy stuff online now that the Supreme Court told sellers to start charging state sales tax last week?
I don’t know about anyone else, but it won’t matter to me. I’ll give you some numbers to explain why.
I just realized that I’m addicted to online shopping. And while it’s nice to save (most of the time) a few bucks on the sales tax, it is a lot better to always save the time it takes me to shop in person and the money I would have spent on gas to get to stores.
Wake me up if the Supreme Court figures out a way to tax my gasoline savings and I might start shopping again.
Just in case you think I’m kidding about my addiction, consider this: Back in 2010 I had exactly two — two! — online transactions worth $6. I hadn’t become addicted yet in 2011, either, as evidenced by the two transactions I had that year worth a total of $9.
Internet shopping wasn’t exactly in its infancy back then. But apparently I was as a shopper — I was taking baby steps onto the web.
In 2017 I had 32 transactions on Amazon alone, some of which consisted of more than one purchase. I spent a total of about $1,355, mostly on things it wasn’t worth taking a trip to the store to get.
And Amazon Prime, which costs me about $100 a year, gets me free shipping plus a free movie service that I couldn’t care less about. Most of the times I didn’t need something immediately, so Amazon’s two-day delivery was fine.
In 2018, I’m already up to 32 transactions worth $854. I am on pace for my biggest internet purchasing year ever. I should top my 43 transactions in 2016 in a month or two.
Just so you know, some of the companies I bought stuff from did collect tax. I frankly don’t know if they sent that cash to New Jersey, where I live, or just stuck it in their pockets. And I could never figure out why some vendors charged tax and others didn’t.
And I couldn’t care less. Go ahead, charge me the sales tax. Just don’t make me go to the mall any more than I have to.
When I needed one of those flushy things that goes inside the toilet bowl and lifts up the flushing gizmo, I didn’t have to go to the plumbing store and embarrass myself in front of a salesperson by using technical terms like “gizmo” and “flushy things.”
For the record, I’ve made a few online purchases that didn’t go through Amazon. But they are too few to mention.
My purchases through Amazon in 2017 should have cost me $93.16 in tax. The sales tax on the ones I made this year should have been $58.92.
How much did I save in gas? How valuable was the time I saved by not going to the store? I don’t know the answer to either of those questions.
