Destination-based sales tax collection. What if you do not know the destination&#39;s address? A scenario: I am selling online software and I provide advanced features for premium members. As far as I understand I do not ship or deliver anything physically. I also do not ask customers for their address information and can accept any payment (e.g., bitcoin). What sales tax do I charge if I do not know their county and address? Can I assume that the sale happened at my &quot;store's&quot; location and charge them a standard sales tax based on that?
The answer may vary depending on your state. If you're in a state that's a member of the Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement,* there's a designated heirarchy for sourcing sales of digital goods: First, if you're making delivery to the customer at your location, source to the location where you make the sale. If not, source to the location where your customer will receive the product. Neither of those works for you, so you'd continue down the list to the first one you can apply: The purchaser’s address that you maintain in the ordinary course of the your business; The purchaser's address obtained during the consummation of the sale; The address where you first make the product available for transmission or the address from which you provided the service. By my reading, that means that in the absence of an address, you basically come back full circle and source the sale back to your own location. *Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming
Two people exchanging goods or services on a commercial basis and then pretending it was two gifts is tax evasion. It's not a gift. It's a commercial sale that you lie about by 'putting' a different 'label' on it. Sometimes two people will give mutual gifts, e.g. if you come to my wedding: I give you dinner, you give me some kitchenware. Yet there's nothing commercial about it. So that's not income for either party. However, if you're talking about two businesses making sales to each other, that is very much income, regardless of what you badge it.
You can purchase any expensive item for cash, if the seller will accept it. In the US and many other jurisdictions, a seller is not required to accept cash, but many will. In the US and many other jurisdictions banks are required to report large cash deposits to government authorities, to help combat money-laundering, drug-dealing, and tax-evasion. Such a report may trigger an investigation, and during that investigation a person who bought an expensive item for cash may well be asked about the source of the cash. Whether an answer is legally required will depend on the law in the particular place. But even if it is not legally required, refusing to answer such questions may trigger additional investigation.
No. You have to ask for specific permission to send marketing emails, and can't make it a condition of making a purchase since marketing emails are clearly not necessary for that. When accepting the terms you need a separate tick box for marketing emails, and it must be unticked by default (opt-in).
What is the name of the crime and/or tort I have committed? You are guilty of the crime of fraud, the crime of theft of the money and the item (I can't point you to the precise statute). You have breached your contract of sale. You are probably liable for fraud civilly (i.e. you could be sued for fraud). But, if one was really creative, I imagine that one could find more grounds for civil and/or criminal liability, although they would probably be unnecessary since the victims have plenty of remedies to secure all possible relief already. Who gets to keep the object? Under the Uniform Commercial Code, Article 2, in the United States, the general rule is delivery of possession by the seller (which didn't really happen here to one distinct person), but for unique goods, title passes when the unique good is identified to a contract with a buyer, so first in time to contract, first in right to the car, would probably prevail. But, I don't know what the rule would be in England and Wales. Is it handled differently if the &quot;valuable physical object&quot; is real estate? Land is harder to defraud someone with, because a reasonable person knows that in England and Wales real estate title is (usually, but not always) represented by a certificate of ownership maintained by a public official in the Land Registry, and is easily checked (about 15% of land in England and Wales show in the link is not registered so the possibility for deception is somewhat greater in that context). Also, generally, you don't pay for real property until you simultaneously receive payment in good funds, while brief extensions of credit for a non-perfectly contemporaneous sale transaction are more common in cases involving tangible personal property.
When selling a residential property in the UK, you normally fill out a form called the TA10 Fittings and Contents Form, which outlines everything in the property included in the sale. This isn't a legal requirement, but your conveyancing solicitor will normally recommend it. Anything else left in the property after the completion of the sale is still, legally, a possession of the previous owner and the new owner is obliged to inform them of these possessions in writing. So, you do have to return it (and most people in such situations do return the possessions without question). However, if the presence of those possessions means you can't be reasonably expected to move into the property, then you can claim compensation from the previous owner for alternative accommodation (i.e. a hotel) until the situation is rectified. Or if the previous owner refuses to collect the possessions, you can likewise claim compensation for the costs of disposing of it. Alternatively, if they do want the possessions back, but take their time getting it, you can charge them fair storage costs.
There may be violations of consumer protection and/or advertising statutes here by the online store, but the common law position is that: The website's owner is making an invitation to treat Based on that, you are making an offer The contract comes into place when the website's owner accepts your offer. The time of contract formation is "when the parties give objective manifestation of an intent to form the contract." You would need to read the site very carefully, in particular their terms and conditions, acknowledgement page and/or email to see if they are actually accepting your offer or if there are conditions attached. If there is no clear, unconditional acceptance then there is no contract at that time; this applies even if you have paid for the goods. If this is the case (and I strongly suspect that it would be for most online stores), then their acceptance of your offer and the formation of the contract probably does not come into effect until they "give objective manifestation of an intent to form the contract" by shipping the goods. Up until that time there is no contract and their only obligation to you is to promptly refund your money.
Since you bought these online the Consumer Contract Regulations are going to be in effect here (if the price of the goods was over £42 anyway), (legislation) Where your cutting the tags off and wearing them outside for an hour comes into play is that would probably be considered &quot;excessive handling&quot; and they might be able to make a deduction from the amount of the refund. Your business can make a deduction from the value of the goods if you consider the customer has handled the goods excessively. You can’t deduct monies from the refund simply because the goods have been removed from the packaging or because the goods have been tried on or checked. In essence, distance selling purchasers are entitled to handle goods in the same way that they would in a normal retail store. That therefore includes touching the item or trying it on. Since no retail store is going to let you cut the tags from a pair of shoes and walk outside for an hour in them I'd say that test is probably met here. How much can they deduct? As the CCR puts it (emphasis mine): (9) If (in the case of a sales contract) the value of the goods is diminished by any amount as a result of handling of the goods by the consumer beyond what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods, the trader may recover that amount from the consumer, up to the contract price. Which is likely where the &quot;saleable condition&quot; aspect is coming from - if they aren't in a condition where the retailer can sell them on they've essentially lost their full value. If the retailer makes returned goods available for sale on the site at reduced prices (like the &quot;Amazon warehouse&quot; deals) then a deduction of the difference in sale price between that and full retail is more likely.