Nikon Camera Trade-In

Pix4me

Why doesnt Nikon treat their customers fairly, by doing their Trade-Ins properly??? They should be on their invoice subtract whatever value of trade-in from their agreed price, and then only charge tax on that amount. I believe most states accept this, as the correct way of doing business. Otherwise your paying double tax on trade-in item. Same way with an automobile, you trade-in your car ,and you finance or payoff the balance. Tax should be based on final price.
They are charging their customers hundreds of dollars of tax extra, which is wrong and illegal. Most of the time this amounts to hundreds of extra dollars to the customer, which should not be that way. No wonder their sales are down, and declining, should not do business that way. Trade-in is a Trade-in , not a rebate.

mhedges

I'm assuming you are talking about the US?

If so then my guess is it is because US sales tax law is extremely complex and varied and they are taking the safest path. It could be thought that you are selling the trade in camera to them so that's why the full amount is subject to tax. Or it could be just plain laziness / mistake.

I know sales tax law doesn't make a lot of sense sometimes, almost always in favor of paying more tax. For example, if you use a manufacturer's coupon when purchasing something most states require the tax to be paid on the full amount before the coupon is applied. Never made sense to me but that's how it is.

Pix4me

Its out right laziness, most states, use the balance after trade in !! If you are buying a car, this is way it is done I am sure. I contacted Tennessee Dept of Revnue and this is way it should be done, to save customer tax . You list the total sale on invoice, and then show trade in amount and this gives balance, which is then taxed. You have already paid tax on the trade in item, you should not have to pay it twice, this is a Federal crime, to double tax someone. This is just costing the customer a lot more tax money, and I imagine it hurts their on line sales. Have you ever wondered why so many Retail stores are going out of business. This is an example of pure stupidity
Like these Retail stores, have no one in Marketing with sales experience , they do not know how to price their items for sale!!!! They do not check around and see what their items are selling for, they just put a price on it. They had rather go out of business.
Example, the other day, I went into a chain electronic store, to buy just a 6 ft HDMI cable, they had it listed for $26.00. I went into Amazon got 5 for $10.00?? Does this make sense???I would have bought at the local store even if it was 2 or 3 dollars more, but not 16.00. Most people would do the same, to save our local retail stores. Its just like this Nikon , they are not any more Camera stores left, some electronic sells some of their products, why would not you lower your prices, just to stay open and maybe break even, instead of going out of business. Retail sales have changed, no stores anymore, and they and others have caused this themselves ,instead of blaming it all on the Virus. Sorry to carry on, it just makes me mad and sad how they operate.

mhedges

Look, it's unfortunate, but as said before keeping track of all the different sales tax laws in the US is a huge job. Not sure how retailers do it. Honestly I'm a little surprised the difference comes out to hundreds of dollars. Nikon must give more money for trade ins than I figured.

As far as the cables - that's how electronic retail has always worked. They don't have much margin on the electronics themselves so they make up for it via high margins on cables. That, and extended warranty's. I seem to recall that Monster cable alone was responsible for a very significant percentage of Best Buy's profits.

WestEndFoto

I went through the process of figuring out how sales tax worked in Denver. There is city tax, county tax and state tax. We hired a firm to help us figure out how to do it and 2 months and $10k later, we had an answer. Now imagine doing that for 50 states.

In Canada, you would pay tax on the retail price of the new camera and get no benefit for the trade in item - same as you are complaining about.

Following is an example of the pitfalls regarding taxes in the US. It is a real minefield and in this case, I would argue that B&H had a reasonable filing position but it went against them.

https://www.theverge.com/2019/11/14/20964980/b-h-photo-taxes-lawsuit-new-york-state

PB_PM

WEF, That's not how any trade ins I've done here in Canada work. Every dealer I've dealt with took the value of the trade in off the retail price before putting the sale through, be car, camera, whatever.

WestEndFoto

PB_PM said:

WEF, That's not how any trade ins I've done here in Canada work. Every dealer I've dealt with took the value of the trade in off the retail price before putting the sale through, be car, camera, whatever.

You are correct PB_PM. I did not think of the Used Tangible Personal Property Rules, which I would not encounter in my job. Thank you for catching that.

Pix4me

Amen , thats the way its done period. Tennessee law states as such. Buying an item costing 1700 taxed at 10% equal 170 tax, with trade in 800 taxed at 900 at 10% equal 90.00 90vs170, big difference

Photobug

As my local camera dealer explained, the Governor wants all the money he can get on trade ins....that even applies to cars, trucks, and SUVs. It stinks.

NSXTypeR

Maybe I've been lucky, but B and H did not charge me sales tax on the trade in. Granted I was able to walk into the actual store itself and so I didn't have to worry about shipping and all, so your mileage I guess may vary.

Photobug

NSXTypeR said:

Maybe I've been lucky, but B and H did not charge me sales tax on the trade in. Granted I was able to walk into the actual store itself and so I didn't have to worry about shipping and all, so your mileage I guess may vary.

Good for you.

I bought my wife some stuff several years ago and Nikon had a $100 instant rebate, had to pay sales tax on the regular price, not the discounted price. Yup, it stinks.

tc88

Rebate is supposed to be after tax since it's after sales. Now instant rebate is a tricky question. Whether it's treated as a real rebate or price reduction. I think most stores treat it as price reduction these days. So @Photobug, I wouldn't be surprised if the store kept most of the extra tax you paid, if at the end of the day/month, it computes the sales tax it needs to pay by the gross receipts amount.

Photobug

tc88 said:

Rebate is supposed to be after tax since it's after sales. Now instant rebate is a tricky question. Whether it's treated as a real rebate or price reduction. I think most stores treat it as price reduction these days. So @Photobug, I wouldn't be surprised if the store kept most of the extra tax you paid, if at the end of the day/month, it computes the sales tax it needs to pay by the gross receipts amount.

I know the store manager really well and he and I went round and round on this topic when I bought that body and lens for the wife. Guess you know why the last 2 lens and the D780 were purchased from NYC and I paid no sales taxes. Careful, technically I did pay sales tax...B&H arrangement with Synchrony Bank is great.

Your right about rebate vs instant rebate.

MrFotoFool

Not sure about rebate, but I think most dealers are now charging sales tax for every state just to be safe (except of course for those couple states that have no sales tax). I finally let my city and state resale licenses in Arizona expire, but when I still had them end of last year we were still not required to pay sales tax on orders shipped out of state. (We just entered the "out of state sales" code in the monthly sales tax form). I am pretty sure it works the other way as well - Arizonans are not required to pay sales tax on items we order from out of state. And yet in the last couple years all of my online orders have sales tax added. I think retailers do not want to risk dealing with this on a state-by-state basis, so they charge everyone now.

MrFotoFool

I should add to my post above that I think consumers (in Arizona) are supposed to report and pay sales tax themselves for high dollar purchases (I seem to remember it being items over $2,500 but that number could be off). Of course no one really does this but it's a moot point because the online retailers now charge tax on everything, even a twenty dollar purchase.

NSXTypeR

To be fair I believe Amazon and NewEgg is also required to pay state tax in NY as well, so I think that's a recent development.