D
djbaxter
Guest
Amazon's suit vs. North Carolina about preventing e-commerce witch hunt
by Larry Dignan
April 20th, 2010
Read more...
by Larry Dignan
April 20th, 2010
Amazon has filed a lawsuit against North Carolina?s Department of Revenue to prevent the state from getting the names of every resident that bought anything from the retailer since 2003. The ramifications could be huge.
As you may recall, Amazon has been dueling with a few states over taxation issues. States, which are struggling to balance bloated budgets, are mulling over taxing out-of-state Internet retailers.
The Amazon complaint could be alarming for those of us trying to think ahead a few steps. In Amazon?s complaint (download PDF), the company said:
The North Carolina Department of Revenue (the ?DOR?) is demanding that Amazon turn over the name and address of virtually every North Carolina resident who has purchased anything from Amazon since 2003, along with records of what each customer purchased and how much they paid. If Amazon is forced to comply with this demand, the disclosure will invade the privacy and violate the First Amendment rights of Amazon and its customers on a massive scale. But the DOR does not need personally identifiable information about Amazon?s customers in order to audit Amazon?s compliance with state tax laws.All it needs to know is what items Amazon sold to North Carolina customers and what they paid, and Amazon has already provided that information to the DOR.
Read more...