Amazon Taxes: I discovered last weekend that, since June of 2011, every Kindle book purchase I’ve made has been charged a sales tax. As I said on Twitter, I’m not exactly upset at being taxed – I think Amazon will have to tax all purchases soon – but I am annoyed there wasn’t any warning or notification of the change. I emailed Amazon to see what was up, and they responded with something about the book being sold by a third party, the publisher, so it’s subject to sales taxes.
So, all Kindle books (with the exception of self-pubb’d maybe) are subject to sales taxes, but I can by the same paperback book through Amazon, and not have sales taxes applied. Doesn’t that make perfect sense?
Amazon also decided to issue me a $5 credit. I wasn’t writing for a refund or money or anythign, but hey, I’ll take it.
The thing that still bothers me, though, is that every single other person I’ve talked to says they don’t pay taxes on Kindle books. I’m feeling kind of singled out. So, here’s a question to other ebook owners out there: have you paid a sales tax on the ebooks you’ve purchased?
Aggie Sippy Cups: (Note: You might have to be an Aggie or familiar with Aggie jokes to get this story.) Last fall, we received two Aggie Sippy Cups from a friend of my husband’s grandparents. Since we both went to A&M, we were super excited about the sippy cups. Just the other day, I took one out of the cabinet because I wanted to try to give Monkey some water with apple juice. I put it in the sippy cup (yes, I know six months old is super early for sippy cups, but I was experimenting) then gave it to him. He liked chewing on it, but wasn’t very interested.
A friend said her son kept getting frustrated with sippy cups because they were kind of hard to sip from, so I decided to try out the Aggie sippy cup to make sure it wasn’t to difficult to get the water to flow.
You guys, I couldn’t get a drop out of it!
I told the husband when he came home. He tried it himself (he was totally thinking I was just sippy cup handicapped and that it would work fine for him!).
He couldn’t get anything out either!
Now, we’re kind of realizing these really are Aggie sippy cups.
Email: I think I’m caught up on responding to reader emails! Woohoo! I appreciate every single one of you who has read my book, and I definitely do want to respond to your emails (although, sometimes, it might take me a while), so if you’ve sent me an email or contacted me through my Contact Page or via Goodreads and you haven’t heard from me, please contact me again. Thanks!
Sippy cups – LOL! Now there’s a YouTube clip that would go viral!
You’re right. I so should record that. lol
I an also charged sales tax on my kindle books. I also thought it was strange. Re. the sippy cups, I too have tried using some and found them too difficult.
It’s just kind of aggravating, mostly because not everyone is getting charged taxes. Ah, well.
Also, glad to know I’m not the only one who’s had sippy cup problems!
Is it a TX thing, maybe? Didn’t Amazon pull one of their distribution centers from TX because of a sales tax thing? I feel like they’re being chased on the tax issue all over the country and are simply closing up their physical presence every time the govt reminds them they’ve got to pay.
I think I remember hearing rumors about Amazon threatening to pull out because Texas was threatening to charge them taxes b/c the distribution center was here. Pretty sure the distribution center is still here since we usually get our packages super fast. So, maybe Amazon blinked first and is letting Texas charge taxes? *shrugs* It’s still annoying.
Are you getting charged sales tax on agency ebooks? If so, that may be the reason. Agency ebooks are not something Amazon sells directly (but sold in some consignment kind of a way…I can’t recall the exact legal term for it right now), and you do have to collect sales tax. Try buying something from a non-agency publisher (like Harlequin) and see if you still get charged sales tax. (You can return it immediately after your test.)
Oh, maybe that’s it! I didn’t get charged tax for your book!
Interesting. I just bought a sippy cup for the Boy. It’s made by Combi, and we ordered it from Amazon Japan, and it’s just an awesome sippy cup. The Boy had no problem drinking out of it (though he was super clumsy with it and couldn’t really aim for his mouth very well lol). And no spill once you put the cap on it, which is fantastic. I also tested it to see how much it spills, and it’s really not that much.
I saw that Combi sells sippy cups on Amazon US. If they’re anything like the ones in Japan, they’re well worth buying IMHO.
I might try out that sippy cup! It looks like it could be awesome. Thanks for sharing the link! We have other sippy cups that have straws. They were on sale and I liked that we can squeeze the cup and make the water come out of the straw. Not sure if it’s the best way to start them out, tho, so I definitely want to try the more traditional sippy cup spout.
I always see the ones that you have to squeeze to drink out of, and I’m not sure how good they are for little kids who are not very coordinated anyway.
Per some of the websites, sippy cups w/ straws are good for older babies — 9 months or older — but even then I don’t know about the squeeze part. I may get the straw top for the sippy cup I already bought b/c it looked pretty good.
My husband didn’t believe me about the sales tax on ebooks thing. I had to go through my amazon account to show him. And yet, like you said, I can ship it here sans sales tax. Weird. I know Amazon has a deal going with Texas, providing so many jobs and thus going without the state taxes. But the ebooks, since they might not be considered as ‘sold from Texas,’ might not get the same treatment.
Check the little rubber valve on the inside of the sippy cup and see if you can play around with that to make it easier to drink out of. Typically, those collegiate or professional team bottles and cups aren’t as good as a baby name brand. They put all their money into buying the rights to mark it with the team name and forego making sure it’s useful.
Or maybe you’re right. Maybe someone higher up felt like it should be a true Aggie cup. Lol
We had to completely remove the valve to make it work at all, so I guess it’s more of a plug than a valve. Ha!