Your state and sales tax at Amazon (2024)

Your state and sales tax at Amazon

I thought it might be worthwhile to break this down by state so you can have some idea what will happen before you hit that 1-click button. 🙂

It’s worth noting that I’m going by what Amazon says on their Help pages, and that the rules could change due to legislation in your state, publishers establishing a physical presence in additional states (or leaving ones), and so on.

This change has come about due to the “agency model”, in which the publishers are actually selling you the books, and Amazon (and other former retailers) are just processing the sales for them as “sales agents”.

It’s also possible that your state doesn’t charge sales tax on e-books. Different states charge sales tax for different things. The federal government regulates interstate commerce, but that’s kind of the whole thing here. If the entity selling you something (the publisher selling you the book, in this instance) has a physical presence in your state, they can be compelled to collect the sales for something sold to your state (even if the transaction mechanism is in another state…Washington, for example).

The reason I’m listing these is that you can only buy Kindle books with 1-click. That means you won’t see an indication of the sales tax until after you have made the purchase. You could contact Kindle Customer Service and “return” the book within seven days of purchase for a refund, but by having this list, you might avoid that. It’s not hard, but it does take some time and effort.

If you ever do need to contact Kindle Customer Service, you can do that starting

here

Last I checked, neither Barnes & Noble nor Sony allow returns for e-books. I looked at Apples iBooks store information, but didn’t see an answer to that one.

One other thing: in a lot of states the tax varies, because “integral entities” (cities, counties) may have additional sales tax. I would assume they will collect those as well, but I don’t know if the cities can compel the publishers to have Amazon collect it in the same way…Amazon lists states without sales tax as not collecting it, even though some integral entities do, so maybe not.

When you go to buy the book, it will indicate on Amazon’s product page that “This price was set by the publisher” and list the publisher right there (if it is being sold under the agency model). If it doesn’t say that, then you should expect to have sales tax collected if I list Amazon for your state below.

NOTE: YOUR ACTUAL SALES TAX RATE MAY VARY DUE TO ADDITIONAL COUNTY AND/OR CITY TAXES OR OTHER LOCAL TAXES.

Alabama (4%)

Hachette, Simon & Schuster

Alaska (0%)

No state sales tax. Amazon doesn’t indicate it will be collected for anybody. Some integral entities do collect it, though.

Arizona (5.6%: technically a “transaction privilege tax”)

Hachette, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan

Arkansas (6%)

HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster

California (8.25%)

HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster

Colorado (2.9%)

Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan

Connecticut (6%)

Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan

Delaware (0%)

No sales tax.

DC (6%)

Hachette, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Macmillan

Florida (6%)

HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster