Does price trump all?

[Daniel Browning]

Where, of course, a favorite pastime is to drive across the Columbia River to Oregon (where I live), which has no sales tax.

Yes indeed! Most people have to go online to evade sales tax illegally, but for Vancouver residents it's just a quick 10-minute drive! What makes Vancouver even more special is that we don't have any income tax, so there is no annual return to fill out where tax evaders must perjure themselves by saying they never bought anything out of state.

It is interesting that this exact scenario
is talked about very widely and quite openly locally. People will
organize groups and even short vacations to do things like Christmas
shopping. And yet... I've never heard a single mention that it might
get you in trouble.

Yes, it is interesting, isn't it?

You'd think it this was so blatantly illegal
people wouldn't litterally "work in Washington" (i.e. live in Vancover)
and "Shop in Oregon" (i.e. even their grocery shopping is done in
Portland).

You'd think so, huh? But those are the facts. I like to bring it up because I find it fascinating that so many people (99% IMHO) engage in hundreds or thousands of dollars of tax evasion every year. Most of them do it unknowingly, of course. They don't realize that it's the exact same as accepting money from your boss "under the table" without reporting or paying tax on it.

[Joel Eade]

I believe you are correct Daniel....


I live in Kentucky......several years ago my business was audited by the state and the only thing they found was that we had ordered a small quantity of office supplies from an out-of-state internet site and we failed to pay Kentucky sales tax on that transaction. It was a very small amount of money and they didn't penalize us. (but they could have)


According to the auditor they find this problem frequently and, as you said, most people don't even realize it's required to track those transactions and pay the tax. I suspect state governmentswill eventuallyfocus more attentionon this problem. You can bet they know how much money is involved.