Missouri Sales Tax on Online Purchases

[homesteader]

I knew it was coming but for the first time today I had to pay sales tax on an online purchase of tobacco. I bought some tobacco from Pipes & Cigars and I was charged about 6.35% tax if my math is correct.

It turns a 15% discount into about a 9% discount, or the discount covers the sales tax is another way of looking at it.

I guess I shouldn't complain, just thought I'd pass this on.

 

[HawkeyeLinus]

The discount hasn't changed, it's the discount off the price, but yes, you are paying what is legally required for sales tax - online tax collection been happening for many years - P & C didn't just start collecting it out of the blue.

Is Missouri late to the online tax collection party? I think it's going on 5 years it's moved quickly and steadily for most states.

Good news, now your local source isn't getting aced out because people buy online to save tax?

EDIT: LOL, yep - Missouri was the last state, took action in 2021 and took effect in 2023. Welcome to the party!

 

[FurCoat]

If you're lucky your state will be last on the excise tax bandwagon

 

[Briar Lee]

I knew it was coming but for the first time today I had to pay sales tax on an online purchase of tobacco. I bought some tobacco from Pipes & Cigars and I was charged about 6.35% tax if my math is correct.

It turns a 15% discount into about a 9% discount, or the discount covers the sales tax is another way of looking at it.

I guess I shouldn't complain, just thought I'd pass this on.

I’ll bet that’s actually a 10% of wholesale price Missouri tobacco excise tax.

Missouri’s statewide sales tax is 4.225%, and your locality might add more.

What absolutely fries my ass is Missouri is dead last in schoolteacher pay, most rural schools are going to four day weeks, schoolteachers have to buy their kids text books, and the rotten low life cowardly members of the Missouri legislature would rather campaign on tax cuts than fund public education.

——

In 2014, the Missouri legislature voted to cut income taxes in the state for the first time in almost 100 years. Starting with tax year 2014, the top tax rate started falling from 6% to 5.4% over the course of five years. The income tax rates for the 2022 tax year (which you file in 2023) range from 0% to 5.3%.

—-

No businessman in the history of the universe has ever, thought I’ll go ahead and invest if my tax rate is only 5.4% since I don’t have to pay 6%.

The money is robbed directly from little kids in schools.

But I tells em and I tells em, and the sunsabeeches they don’t never listen to me.

 

[woodsroad]

I’ll bet that’s actually a 10% of wholesale price Missouri tobacco excise tax.

Missouri’s statewide sales tax is 4.225%, and your locality might add more.

What absolutely fries my ass is Missouri is dead last in schoolteacher pay, most rural schools are going to four day weeks, schoolteachers have to buy their kids text books, and the rotten low life cowardly members of the Missouri legislature would rather campaign on tax cuts than fund public education.

——

In 2014, the Missouri legislature voted to cut income taxes in the state for the first time in almost 100 years. Starting with tax year 2014, the top tax rate started falling from 6% to 5.4% over the course of five years. The income tax rates for the 2022 tax year (which you file in 2023) range from 0% to 5.3%.

—-

No businessman in the history of the universe has ever, thought I’ll go ahead and invest if my tax rate is only 5.4% since I don’t have to pay 6%.

The money is robbed directly from little kids in schools.

But I tells em and I tells em, and the sunsabeeches they don’t never listen to me.

Do lawyers pay sales tax in Missouri?

 

[hoosierpipeguy]

6% increase in cheap tobacco still leaves cheap tobacco. Count yourself fortunate compared to Canada, for example.

 

[Briar Lee]

Do lawyers pay sales tax in Missouri?

About ten years ago, I was in my suit and tie in a pawn shop with my shiny Chrysler 300 parked outside and a little old lady, who looked battered by the storms of life, approached me to sign a petition for a “Fair Tax” in Missouri. It would eliminate Missouri’s then 6% income tax and replace it with an increased sales tax.

I asked her, did she realize if that law passed it would mean our 4.2% sales tax would by necessity go up at least ten per cent. I asked how would that affect new car and truck sales if we tripled the sales taxes? And more personally I asked her when was the last time she’d payed any Missouri income tax after she’d retired.

She said it’s just not fair to tax young business people like you on your income. The income tax is THEFT!!!

I quit arguing and left.

If Goebells would have had access to extremist cable television the bastards might have won the war, you know?

My mother used to preach that if the public schools ever shut down, in 12 years time we’d lose our civilization as we know it, never to gain it back.

I just never thought I’d live long enough to see a serious attempt at it.

It’s a long way from Big Tussle to graduating from law school.

I never forgot where, I came from.

 

[mso489]

Iwan Ries saw it coming and instated it many years ago. They go way back into the Nineteenth Century and have seen it all, so they tend to know what to expect. I was disappointed at the time, before other online retailers followed suite. The sales taxes were left out when online was the wild west, but of course they're here now.

 

[woodsroad]

About ten years ago, I was in my suit and tie in a pawn shop with my shiny Chrysler 300 parked outside and a little old lady, who looked battered by the storms of life, approached me to sign a petition for a “Fair Tax” in Missouri. It would eliminate Missouri’s then 6% income tax and replace it with an increased sales tax.

I asked her, did she realize if that law passed it would mean our 4.2% sales tax would by necessity go up at least ten per cent. I asked how would that affect new car and truck sales if we tripled the sales taxes? And more personally I asked her when was the last time she’d payed any Missouri income tax after she’d retired.

She said it’s just not fair to tax young business people like you on your income. The income tax is THEFT!!!

I quit arguing and left.

If Goebells would have had access to extremist cable television the bastards might have won the war, you know?

My mother used to preach that if the public schools ever shut down, in 12 years time we’d lose our civilization as we know it, never to gain it back.

I just never thought I’d live long enough to see a serious attempt at it.

It’s a long way from Big Tussle to graduating from law school.

I never forgot where, I came from.

So…
Do lawyers pay sales tax in Missouri?

 

[Briar Lee]

So…
Do lawyers pay sales tax in Missouri?

If you mean on fees, no.

Only Florida I think places a sales tax on services.

Missouri has a fairly low income tax, a fairly low sales tax, and fairly low property taxes.

What’s destroying rural Missouri is corporate agriculture and corporate retail.

Fifty years the little towns in outstate Missouri were prosperous. Every store building on Main Street had a small business and all the farms had profitable farming operations.

The income, sales, and property tax rates were about the same then as now.

I can promise you high taxes didn’t make all those little towns look like Berlin after the war.

 

[woodsroad]

If you mean on fees, no.

Only Florida I think places a sales tax on services.

Missouri has a fairly low income tax, a fairly low sales tax, and fairly low property taxes.

What’s destroying rural Missouri is corporate agriculture and corporate retail.

Fifty years the little towns in outstate Missouri were prosperous. Every store building on Main Street had a small business and all the farms had profitable farming operations.

The income, sales, and property tax rates were about the same then as now.

I can promise you high taxes didn’t make all those little towns look like Berlin after the war.

People choose to shop where they shop. Blame your neighbors for not wanting to pay more for stuff they probably don’t need. 50 years ago, folks made do with less, and they paid more for it. Nowadays they want more, and they want it cheap. It is the consumer that is driving the shift away from small and local.

 

[Briar Lee]

People choose to shop where they shop. Blame your neighbors for not wanting to pay more for stuff they probably don’t need. 50 years ago, folks made do with less, and they paid more for it. Nowadays they want more, and they want it cheap. It is the consumer that is driving the shift away from small and local.

There really isn’t anyone to blame, individually.

Overall people in the United States are far more prosperous than fifty years ago, just not the people in the heartland of Missouri.

One of the many mementoes I’ve kept is a 1973 Sears catalog.

Except for a few hand tools, some jewelry and the like, there’s not one article in there marketable today.

The sellers of milk and pork discovered and perfected confined animal feeding operations and it lowered the relative price. Small hog and dairy operators are now all gone, or they live on other income.

Only cow calf operations today can turn profits, and then only if you’ve inherited the farm, or pay for it with a good job.

In the barbershop I hear the government and high taxes and regulation blamed.

The real culprits can be spotted in the barber’s mirror.

 

[woodsroad]

There really isn’t anyone to blame, individually.

Overall people in the United States are far more prosperous than fifty years ago, just not the people in the heartland of Missouri.

One of the many mementoes I’ve kept is a 1973 Sears catalog.

Except for a few hand tools, some jewelry and the like, there’s not one article in there marketable today.

The sellers of milk and pork discovered and perfected confined animal feeding operations and it lowered the relative price. Small hog and dairy operators are now all gone, or they live on other income.

Only cow calf operations today can turn profits, and then only if you’ve inherited the farm, or pay for it with a good job.

In the barbershop I hear the government and high taxes and regulation blamed.

The real culprits can be spotted in the barber’s mirror.

I live in an area once populated with 75 head dairy farms. My great-great-great grandfather ran such a farm, 20 minutes from here, on 65 acres. It was a hard life, I’m certain. Bus was it any worse? I’m not sure.

 

[kcghost]

Whether we like or not are choices are to order the tobacco and pay the taxes or not order the tobacco.

 

[mso489]

I've been alarmed at the situations of small communities in the countryside. Closing a post office may save USPS operating expenses, but it removes an important community center where people can catch up with their neighbors and feel a little in touch with the wider world on their own terms.

When stores close, it isn't long before the buildings go down, the roof caves, the store windows break.

Small hospitals close. Schools consolidate, churches share buildings and ministers, the population on signs ticks downward.

The children grow up and move to bigger places, a small city fifty miles away, a bigger city further away, across the country or overseas.

The family farm becomes an expensive hobby, soaking up time and attention with little return, or actually operating in deficit.

The local clothing store or auto repair seems like an oasis, a kind of outpost, where people still relate as a community with common interests and commerce.

People fantasize about starting a bed and breakfast, farm tourism, some new business or specialty crop.

Something good should come to these out-of-the-way places that have no lobbyists or resident corporations.

 

[warren]

The cost of smoking anything is not going to decrease in the future. That you be assured of. So, if buying blends is a near thing with regard to your purchasing power, you'll need to reduce other costs or ... horror of horrors for some, improve your value to your employer or, find a better paying job. This may mean relocating, kicking the kids out of the house, a more economic vehicle. smaller domicile with lower taxes and so forth. Life doesn't get usually get cheaper. Retirement sometime realizes savings through less travel, lack of need for suits and ties, and etc.

Wanna smoke on a limited income? Costs will only increase. No point in gnashing teeth, running in circles and peeing down one's pant leg. The only answer is to reduce other costs or ... increasing income. Social security rarely provides sufficient increase to keep up with inflation. A good retirement plan, tied to a reasonable cost of living increase might mitigate but, probably not adequately.

 

[Briar Lee]

This year the conservative Missouri legislature came closer to legalizing sports betting (bookies).

I have never in my life made a bet on a sporting event, except when I visited Churchill Downs in Kentucky.

The only valid reason (other than bribes from bookies) a legislator would have to legalize the vice of sports betting would be the taxes on the bets.

Would it help the people in their battle of life, to be able to bet on the Cardinals or Tigers or Chiefs? The odds would always be weighted against them. Gambling might not be a sin to everyone, but it’s as much a vice as fast women, booze, and tobacco.

One of my pet peeves is gas stations selling dollar bottles of Fireball. That wasn’t legal when I was a kid. The gutters of all the Humansvilles are littered with little plastic whiskey bottles.

Yesterday I saw a basket of Sour Pickle shot bottles at a gas station. I looked at the label and they were 30 proof (15% alcohol) instead of 80 proof (40%).

Just another way to cheat the public of honest products and the treasury of tax money.

But I’m getting older and grouchier, and need to worry about other things, you know?

 

[sablebrush52]

When it comes to civilizations the basics never change. The masses job is to produce for the benefit of its leadership.

 

[Briar Lee]

When it comes to civilizations the basics never change. The masses job is to produce for the benefit of its leadership.

When you look at the remains of all ancient civilizations only the public works are still standing.

When I was a kid we were taught all the warnings about how when the public discovered they had the keys to the public purse they’d vote themselves money.

In the actual event the public seems bent on voting tax breaks and special favors for the wealthiest of us.

About thirty years ago Missouri debated and passed a state lottery.

When organized crime ran the numbers racket the rake was 25%. Missouri gets 50%.

We were promised the money would go for the public schools. Indeed it literally does.

And the same amount is reduced from the wealthiest taxpayers.

And the little plastic whiskey bottles line the streets, and every child without any exceptions in the Humansville schools qualify for free breakfasts, lunch, and a buddy pack of food to take home.

I’m not against tax breaks.

But first I’m for an educated, orderly, and prosperous civilization.

 

[condorlover1]

It is a problem without solution. The average Empire lasts about 240 years. The American 'Empire' is about where Great Britain was 1947. Unless some visionary leader can unite the various warring tribes I fear for the worst. One large scale military defeat akin the Suez Crisis and the velocity of decline will accelerate. Society will fragment further, trust in institutions has collapsed whilst our youth have become the most brain washed generation ever. The long march through education has produce what we see today and the only thing holding the whole confection together for the moment is the USD reserve currency status. Come June 1st if we default you may want to revalue your cellars!