Trump Website Only Pays Sales Taxes in Two States Compared to Amazon’s Forty Five!

President Trump recently criticized Amazon for failing to pay the local and state sales taxes for their online shipments. But it seems this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black since sources revealed that the Trump Organization only pays sales taxes on two states where they ship their goods, while Amazon collects their state taxes in more than 45 states across the country!

The Trump Store

The Trump Tower, which hails as the company’s main headquarters, resides in Manhattan

The TrumpStore is an online retail website that sells Trump’s labeled baseball caps, glassware, luggage, spa slipper, keychains, official Trump merchandise, and limited edition items. While its business operates worldwide, it only collects sales tax to orders shipped in Florida and Louisiana, according to the Wall Street Journal report.

Suffice to say that the President’s website doesn’t even pay the local taxes of its online shipments to New York when its physical store is located in Manhattan. Furthermore, the public was appalled when President Trump called his organization a “no-tax” company, which is quite ironic considering he slammed Amazon for “paying little to no taxes on local and state governments”.

Amazon Denied the Allegations

Amazon denied Trump’s accusations and instead, released the regulatory filing documents they had for the past few years. It revealed that Amazon paid an astounding $412 million of the combined local, state, and foreign taxes last year in all states except for Alaska, Montana, Delaware, New Hampshire, and Oregon.

The reports showed they even charged consumers sales taxes in Washington D.C., even if the current 1992 Supreme Court ruling restricts states from requiring online retailers in paying sales taxes if the company doesn’t have a physical store or employees in a particular state.

What’s more surprising is that Amazon doesn’t even have to pay all those taxes due to the 1992 Supreme Court Ruling

Yet Amazon decides to fulfill its duty of paying to the government since it supports a new legislation that will require all online stores, including the TrumpStore to pay sales and local taxes that operates on a competitive level in a particular field. The public has no way of knowing which local and state taxes the private company paid since they refused to disclose any tax information.

Trump Organization’s Defense

The Trump Organization quickly stepped up to defend the President (and their business) on the said issue. A spokeswoman for the company told The Wall Street Journal that Trumpstore always adhere to collect, remit, and report sales taxes jurisdictions in states where it has an obligation to pay for them. Moreover, the company also stated in their “Terms and Conditions” section that consumers are mainly responsible for paying any customs taxes and duties applicable on their purchased merchandise.

A White House representative also clarified the President’s statement about Amazon using the United States Postal Service at their discretion that cost the government agency to lose billions of dollars.

The President claimed on a Tweet that the online retail giant used the Washington Post as the company’s lobbyist, which is a fake news outlet, and should register their business to the SEC and file their tax duties too. The representative reiterated that Trump referred to third-party Amazon sellers, not Amazon itself, for failing to file and pay local and state taxes for their business operations through the online portal.

The Future of Online Retail Store

No matter which side you’re on, we can’t know for sure whether both companies paid their tax duties responsibly. However, Trumpstore.com will surely catch up with Amazon sooner or later especially since the Trump administration filed a brief last month to the U.S. Supreme Court to amend the 1992 court ruling, where it requires all online stores to pay sales taxes even if they have no physical stores. In the end, paying our individual taxes and duties will catch up to us in no time.