Is this being Shady?

[Bebo77]

I work for Fedex and get a nice discount on shipping so when i recently purchased an item from Captive Oceans i asked if they could ship the item Fedex and that i would pay for shipping on my end.. Fine they said so great! I called for the pickup and got the package today..

On the invoice it shows that they charged me sales tax.. weird i have ordered lots of things online and was only charged sales tax when the company shipped me the items from California

I know that adding sales tax is an easy way for a company to make an additional 7-9% profit and that i cant say anything about it so i am asking if this is legit?

They say that they also ship out of california but when i called they did not give me the option of shipping ground locally from here in California...I dont know maybe they do ship from California.. thats what i am asking, do they???... they told me that they shipped from IL... and that ground was going to be 5 days... 5 days forget it.. i can get it her in 2 days with my fedex discount for less money than the 5 days it would have required going UPS ground..

So is this "sales tax" legit? or a way to may a "box fee" sound legit

Thanks

 

[silverarrow27]

My company charges you tax wherever you're having it shipped to. So let's say if you lived in LA and you wanted to have something shipped to your LA address then we'd charge you LA tax which is 8.25%. Sounds legit to me.

 

[Wilafur]

if they have a physical presence in CA, then yes, they can and will charge you tax. since you mentioned that they also ship out of CA, sounds like they have a presence here.

 

[tigerczr]

A friend of mine who owns his own business told me that " a business can only charge sale tax when selling within the state they have a license to sell, even if they have warehouse out of state or they do drop shipments from Manufactures, they are not suppose to charge sale tax." Not sure if he's right or wrong but it makes sense to me.

Sounds like since Captive Oceans didn't make anything off shipping, they had to make it up somewhere. JMO

 

[Bebo77]

They "say" they have a CA office but no where does it show, say or even remotly mention that they have an CA office.. fact is i know that they are the US distributers for Red Dragon and that they work out of their office in IL..

Tigerczr has the same thinking that i do.. they usually charge full price for shipping even though they get a discount and since i took that "profit" away they are trying to stick me with some Sales Tax BS..

there is nothing i can do about , other than return it, but it really PMO when companies try and leach those extra few bucks out of their customers...

 

[Kenfuzed]

Sales tax on the internet is a gray area and I've heard lots of arguments both ways. Some say a company only has to have a presense in the same state being shipped to. Regardless, unless you know if the company would not have charged tax under the other shipping circumstance its not worth speculating otherwise. Not saying that they didn't use tax to make up for shipping, but companies still have to incur the cost of "handling" which includes packing materials, labor, and overhead.

I run a small business (non hobby related) so I know first hand how shipping can be a sore spot between both seller and buyer. I don't juggle the books when it comes to tax, but I do refuse to ship on the buyers account since it still costs me handling which I've built into the stated charge. I can speak for a majority of small businesses when I say that most don't make money off shipping charges. While as customers we all want to believe that businesses are bending over backwards to please us, the fact is they are in it for the money. Can't fault them for trying to make a living.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[Konadog]

Gabriel, Garry (Ger) may still have his office here in California. He was up north in Napa. I'm not sure he's still there, but I know that he did.

 

[Bebo77]

Thanks Ken.. i was wondering about that... i just wish he would have told me he had a CA address so that maybe he could have sent it to me from there..
Less shipping charges and could have got it a day earlier..

Ken do you know them pretty well?

 

[Konadog]

I met Garry back when Zeo was first getting big here a few years ago. Madison (OUinLA) had introduced me to him and we have spoken a few times. I know him, and he would probably remember me, but I wouldn't say I know them well.

 

[NicoleC]

Just because someone has an office in a state does not mean they have a warehouse there and can ship from there. When you order from Amazon, you don't get to pick which warehouse your books ship from -- they get shipped from the warehouse that has it

A business would rapidly lose their license and incur legal action if they were charging customers a fee and calling it "sales tax" which they did not then turn around and give to the state. And whether they charge the customer or not, a business that has a presence in a state (even if it is just real property or a sales office) has to pay the state whether they collect the tax form the customer or not.

Legally, I'd like to point out that a "use tax" is owed whether the company collects "sales tax" for you or not. Coincidentally, the "use tax" rate is the same as the "sales tax" rate.
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/current/usetax.html

 

[rockindacheeks]

wouldnt it say on the shipping label where it was shipped from. i do a lot of shipping through UPS and if someone wanted to use their account we charge a box fee. but 7-9% is pretty steep if you ask me.

 

[XeniaMania]

As long as they have some sort of entity in that state, they have to charge you sales tax.

 

[EmDy]

OK, let clarify this. I work for Board of Equalization(Sale Tax). anybody sell tangile item in California is require to charge sale tax. If you buy an item from a company outside of California, you still have to pay sale tax to California.