Beginning 1 September, we will need to geoblock Mississippi IPs

There used to be the "Oregon sales tax loophole" where residents of neighboring states (Washington, California, Idaho) would make large purchases (car) just over the border in Oregon where there was no sales tax.

That loophole got closed once inter-state data sharing became possible and Oregon merchants were required to start collecting those out-of-state taxes at the point of sale.

That wasn't a loophole. It was just a bunch of people evading taxes.

> people evading taxes

Avoiding taxes. It's different. It was always perfectly legal to travel to another state to buy something expensive and bring it back home. No crimes were committed.

It was a loophole that you could buy in Oregon specifically to avoid $1,000s in sales taxes.

You are correct, virtually every state has a law that says “If you buy something in another state and pay less sales tax than we charge, you owe us the sales tax we would’ve charged you.”

It’s called a ‘use tax’. In practice, nobody pays (personal) use tax, myself included.

Washington has a use tax: https://dor.wa.gov/taxes-rates/use-tax

California has a use tax: https://cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax/

Idaho has a use tax: https://tax.idaho.gov/taxes/sales-use/use-tax/online-guide/

So, all of those people going to Oregon to shop without sales tax and not paying use tax were technically breaking the law, not using a loophole. I’m not judging them, I don’t pay use tax either :)

Do you insist on paying your home tax rate if you go somewhere else and buy food or products?

I’ve never understood people like you that say anything and everything to increase taxes.

How does it make any rational or logical sense that you should pay higher taxes for something?

So when you go to Delaware that has 0% sales taxes, you make sure to log everything and pay taxes to your home state upon return?

> It was always perfectly legal to travel to another state to buy something expensive and bring it back home.

It was legal to do that. If it was purchased out of state with the intent of bringing it back home, then (assuming the home state was California) California use taxes were always owed on it. Other states with sales taxes also tend to have similarly-structured use taxes with rates similar to the sales tax rates.

They were legally avoiding sales taxes, but also illegally evading use taxes, and, moreover, there is very little reason for the former if you aren't also doing the latter, unless you just have some moral objection to your taxes being taken at the point of sale and the paperwork and remittance to the government being done by the retailer instead of being a burden you deal with yourself.

If you do not pay sales tax on items bought in neighboring states, you typically owe your state use tax on those items. Many people simply did not report these purchases however, and this is evasion.

> So when you go to Delaware that has 0% sales taxes, you make sure to log everything and pay taxes to your home state upon return?

If you don't, you are technically violating the law. All states with sales tax also have a use tax.

For example, if you are a resident of neighboring Maryland, this is the form you'd need to fill out for purchases you make in Delaware.

https://www.marylandcomptroller.gov/content/dam/mdcomp/tax/f...

I think the point was that interstate data sharing closed the loophole on evading use-taxes. Now states report to each other about large purchases. It's no longer possible to buy a car or tractor in Oregon and never report the unpaid sales tax back to Washington or California. They will know.

I was addressing the debate that that prompted over whether the situation before that was tax evasion or mere tax avoidance, but yes, the point about interstate data sharing is what that tangent spun off from several posts upthread.

> That loophole got closed once inter-state data sharing became possible and Oregon merchants were required to start collecting those out-of-state taxes at the point of sale.

Oregon merchants are not required to collect sales tax for any other jurisdictions outside of Oregon. And they don’t, any non Oregonian can go to any merchant in Oregon right now, and you will be charged the same as any other customer who lives in Oregon.

Also, it was never a loophole to buy things in Oregon to evade sales tax. All states with sales tax require their residents to remit use tax for any items brought into the state to make up the difference for any sales tax that would have been paid had it been purchased in their home state.

chrismcb is correct.

The situation petcat described is tax evasion (illegal, since use tax is due in lieu of paying sales tax at point of purchase, assuming item is brought back to home state).

Tax avoidance is simply minimizing tax liability, completely legal.

He's just stating the law. Eat a cookie and take a nap.

It was the same for WA, so you're right, this was always (illegal) tax evasion, not mere avoidance.

AFAIK it's not that Oregon changed anything, either. It's that Washington passed additional laws that require out-of-state merchants to collect the tax when selling to customers in WA, and said out-of-state merchants complied.

How would that have ever worked for a car in OR as a CA resident? You don't need inter-state data sharing when you have to register the newly-purchased car with the CA DMV and fill out the form saying you bought it inside or outside of CA. If you said "inside" when you didn't CA could likely catch that discrepancy against purely in-state dealer/tax records; if you said "outside" then they're gonna make you pay the tax difference.

Now, buying a fancy computer or something... but a car?

> How would that have ever worked for a car in OR as a CA resident? You don't need inter-state data sharing when you have to register the newly-purchased car with the CA DMV and fill out the form saying you bought it inside or outside of CA.

I haven't seen it as much in WA, but I used to see a lot of Oregon plates on new vehicles in Northern California where I had reason to believe the driver was a resident of CA. I do know someone who was pulled over for driving like a Californian while having out of state plates, so there's some enforcement that way anyhow. (Changed several lanes from the fast lane to the exiting lane in a continuous motion)

Washington at least will refund sales tax paid for goods purchased in Washington for use exclusively outside of Washington if purchased by residents of US states and CA provinces with low sales taxes, if the forms are followed.

I understand it used to be possible to show ID in store and have sales tax not be applied, but now you need to submit receipts and etc.

Washington did not pass additional laws. It was the Supreme Court's South Dakota v Wayfair ruling:

https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/17pdf/17-494_j4el.pdf

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Dakota_v._Wayfair,_Inc.

Prior to this ruling, if you were a merchant in state A and you mailed something to someone in State B, you were not considered to have an economic nexus in state B, and hence state B had no jurisdiction over you to enforce sales tax collection.

Previous definitions of economic nexus involved having physical buildings or employees operating within a jurisdiction's boundaries.

South Dakota v Wayfair said that mailing something to a customer established economic nexus in the customer's jurisdiction, hence the merchant now has to register as a business in the customer's jurisdiction and collect applicable sales taxes and follow all the laws of that jurisdiction.

The whole ruling is weird though, because the justification came down to it's messing up the order of things, and since Congress can't be bothered to fix it with legislation, the Courts have to make up stuff to prolong the status quo.