Today, upon receiving an invoice from Digikey, one of my parts venues, I was slapped with a lovely surprise: Sales Tax.  I had not ordered from them in a while, but got smacked with a nice 7 dollar sales tax on my latest parts order from them! (I am used to this when ordering from Mouser, out of Ft. Worth here in Texas, and expect it).  I’m not sure what arbitrary number they were using for their calculation, but it sure wasn’t Texas sales tax!

I called their sales office, and they stated that they have started doing that for all orders, internet and otherwise.  I didn’t go into it with the sales representative, but it would seem to me that this violates a very clear cut clause in the U.S. Constitution,  the so called “Commerce Clause”, Article I, Section 8, Clause3, which states:

“The Congress shall have power . . . To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;”

To my knowledge, Digikey has no offices or corporate entities outside of Thief River Falls, Minnesota.  Also, I don’t believe that there were any Congressional Bill’s written into Law in the last year either, and certainly no Constitutional Amendment’s reversing the above stated.

This leads to a very important question: How can Digikey justify charging me Minnesota sales tax when I am a Texas resident not even close to Minnesota when my order is placed?  How about my Canadian readers?  Do they charge sales tax for you too?  I’d like to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

Tax was the only thing keeping more of my orders going to Mouser, and if this is the case, I may have to start using them more, since the only toss-up I will have then is speed of shipping.  That being the case, I really can’t argue with getting it next-day from Ft. Worth, Texas, even at Ground rates!

2 Comments »

1. 

   Not sure about them charging their local tax since I haven’t ordered from them in awhile. Here in Canada I do pay Canadian tax when it comes across the boarder though.

   I am looking forward to my next Mouser order since they now have free shipping for orders over $200 (looks like that is in response to Digikey offering the same though).

   Comment by abbtech — February 24, 2009 @ 4:01 pm

2. 

   Yeah, it’s a bummer. On the other hand, I had to order a bunch of ds1802 digital volume control chips because I needed 4 and they forced a minimum of 18 on me. Anyone need one?

   Comment by n5ebw — February 24, 2009 @ 4:10 pm

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