I just got this letter. It looks like the free ride of Internet retailers is over: "Dear Amazon Web Services Customer, We want to let you know that starting with your January 2015 bill (sent out at the beginning of February), AWS will begin collecting Chicago’s Personal Property Lease Transaction (“PPLT”) tax on taxable transactions made using accounts with a billing address in Chicago. We are doing this in order to comply with applicable city tax ordinances, which require us to remit this tax to Chicago. You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you have a Chicago billing address associated with at least one of your accounts. Starting January 1st, 2016, applicable PPLT tax will be added to your AWS bill each month. As always, if you use AWS Consolidated Billing with multiple accounts, tax will be calculated separately for each of your individual AWS accounts. Chicago provides an exemption for “small new businesses”, which the City defines as those companies that have less than $25 million in gross receipts or sales during the most recent full calendar year and have been in business for less than 60 months (i.e., 5 years). You can find more information about this “small new business” exemption on the City of Chicago Finance Department’s Tax Exemption page, available athttp://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/fin/provdrs/tax_division/svcs/apply_for_an_exemption.html. If you are eligible for this small new business exemption in Chicago, you can submit your completed exemption certificate via your Manage Tax Exemptions page at https://portal.aws.amazon.com/gp/aws/manageYourAccount?ie=UTF8&action=ussalestaxexemptions If you have any questions please contact us at http://aws.amazon.com/contact-us/. Sincerely, Amazon Web Services Team Amazon Web Services, Inc. is a subsidiary of Amazon.com, Inc. Amazon.com is a registered trademark of Amazon.com, Inc. This message was produced and distributed by Amazon Web Services Inc., 410 Terry Ave. North, Seattle, WA 98109-5210" :eek: :eek:
Sure but why short AMZN? AWS is leading the cloud space (from what I understand). Also, the amount of boxes with AMZN "smiles" on it that I see are absurd. At the very least AMZN executes their strategies very well.
Their valuation blew my mind last I looked at them, but it's insane how much they are used. We've done almost every bit of our Christmas shopping exclusively through Amazon. Bought a couple things on Walmart.com because they were cheaper, but other than that it's almost all Amazon. If they can just figure out how to turn all that revenue into lots of profit...
From the very first time I experimented with AWS, I wondered how the tax situation was going to work out, primarily because I grew up in Virginia (so I know they love to tax everything), and one of the AWS data centers is in Virginia. My fear at the time was that if I am technically operating my online business from Amazon's server cloud in Virginia, would I eventually be subject to Virginia income tax or some other type of tax that I wouldn't normally pay as a Florida resident if I was running tge same operation from Florida? Who knows how this will all play out in the end?
Today I went to my local UPS Store where I have a box and receive packages and important snail mail. As per usual, I say hello and ask how they been, etc. but noticed they had a bit of long faces. Long story short, no extra Christmas bonuses for them, reason for this the local retail store business is dying, very little shipping was done, 600 less than previous year is what they guy said; almost everyone is doing the shopping online, specifically, through AMZN and this practice is destroying the retailers.
I live in Canada and a couple times I have ordered things from the USA that shipped via UPS and both times I ordered some items that cost around $50. UPS then charged me again when I recieved the items another $50-$60 as the receiver to pay their brokerage fees to have my items ship across the border. Even though I had already paid the shipping costs when ordering. Their solution was pay up or they send my items back. My solutions is never use UPS again so I have no tears if UPS closes shop for such bad business practices. I now refuse to buy anything online that ships via UPS and will only buy from merchants that use US Postal when buying from the US
I have been using amazon exclusively for Christmas, Birthday gifts, personal & 90% of tech items for years. Amazon Prime account = Free next day delivery on most items and drop shipping has resolved many of my "international" delivery issues, customs etc... Convenience, fair return policy's and variety make it an optimal choice. Considering what I pay for parking alone in my part of the world, using Amazon is a no-brainer. AWS-S3 & glacier are excellent, secure off-site storage, server options (cloud computing)... Clearly the market leader in data storage, as Amazon is in merchandising... As a company, Amazon is a behemoth which isn't going away any time soon... only competition I see in the next few years may be google, but Amazon's infrastructure will be difficult to replicate. imho, Amazon is "strong to the market" if one is looking for short candidates... there are better options available. Similar to Google, my favorite service provider, I wouldn't short Apple on a whim...
I wouldn't short at this point. I'd rather wait for a little longer to witness it peak and only then consider shorting.