WineBid Updated Terms and Conditions Sale tax for everyone!

To our valued customers:
As many of you know, the U.S. Supreme Court has been actively involved in issues impacting our business. Specifically, the Wayfair case last year enabled states to legislate new tax collection procedures for sales completed over the internet, and the pending Tennessee versus Blair case will determine whether we, as retailers, will have the same rights to direct shipment permits as wine producers.
Due to this, we are updating our Terms and Conditions in order to protect you and ourselves from potential liability.
California sales tax will be applied to all orders with a delivery destination in the U.S., except for those states for which WineBid has a direct shipper permit (OR, NH, LA, WY, NV). For these Permit states, applicable sales or use tax will be charged based on the requirements of the destination state.
We will keep you informed of any change in the law as it pertains to your specific state. We encourage you to contact your legislators or go to Wine Freedom, if desired, to voice your opinion about your local state shipping and tax regime.
These Terms will go into effect for all existing users on March 31, 2019 at the start of the new auction at 7:10pm PT.
When you use WineBid on or after that day, your continued use of the WineBid platform from that day on will be subject to the new Terms and Conditions.
You can review the new Terms and Conditions by clicking here.
Thank you for being a valued member of our WineBid community.
Best Regards,
The WineBid Team

I just called for my last 15 purchases to be delivered and I think I will shelf WineBid altogether.

I hope they get it together and charge proper sales tax for whichever state the wine is either sold from or sent to.

I stopped buying from these guys a year ago. While I found some things I liked in past years, in my view, the hidden gems are now mostly gone (like Pignan for $110 a bottle, as an example) and I am just so stocked with still wine, I don’t really have a need for the wines they offer.

Zachy’s recently started doing a similar thing with state sales tax. That extra 8% is a killer

They still provide the best chance to hunt down aged wines that I like. Tax is secondary.

Does the tax apply to wines already purchased and being held for shipment, or only to wines purchased after 3/31? It would seem odd to retroactively charge tax for my wins that I have already paid for, but it’s not completely clear.

I find this to be a truth in my life as well. I haven’t bought anything since 3/4/18. I still search on a weekly basis for hidden gems, but when you add in the auction premium and shipping it is hard to find anything that resembles a deal by Sunday night.

Y’all complain about the 8% CA tax, but not the 19% WineBid tax?

I believe the buyer’s commission is 17%.

[quoteI believe the buyer’s commission is 17%.][/quote] Good deal for them not us. Never bought a bottle of wine from a place that charges me additional 17% on my purchase. MN is bad enough at 10% tax but at least that goes to paving roads, new bridges and education.

Good deal for them not us. Never bought a bottle of wine from a place that charges me additional 17% on my purchase. MN is bad enough at 10% tax but at least that goes to paving roads, new bridges and education.
[/quote]

Cuz Winebid’s profit only goes towards paying wages and stuff.

OR immune.

Cuz Winebid’s profit only goes towards paying wages and stuff.
[/quote]

Paying ‘wages and stuff’ is from the profits?

Isn’t there a sellers premium as well?

Currently if I set my ship address to Oklahoma they don’t charge me tax. But, if I set my ship address to my offsite in WA they charge me sales tax on the whole purchase. So all shipments come to Oklahoma.

Paying ‘wages and stuff’ is from the profits?
[/quote]
ok margin. Parse it however you want. What they earn goes towards paying people.

So people are angry that WineBid is trying to not break the law?

+1.

This is the new normal. Might be more constructive for people to be grateful for getting a break in the past versus considering themselves as being screwed in the future. The existing sales tax laws in this country never contemplated the sheer scale of interstate business that could be created with something like the internet. And now that temporary advantage is eroding.

While I certainly would prefer to not pay more for my merchandise, I am hard pressed to come up with a good reason why a customer out of state should escape sales tax in both the source and destination state while a customer in state has to pay.

Not a change for us CA residents, we’ve always paid sales tax of course. Not sure I get the objections, taxes are there to support the government you’ve voted for (he says with a sly grin but no political intent).

Most importantly, in any auction it’s easy enough to add up all the fees and taxes and decide at what point a bottle’s value to you exceeds its auction price.

While our State Income Tax is painfully high, the lack of Sales Tax can be nice!

I recently stopped buying from WineBid when they decided in December to charge me for storage until I could ship my wines in April.

I had 2 bottles, and they charged me 50 cents per bottle, so we are talking principle. The fact that the organization is
so incredibly dumb that they think shipping in December is viable (and they kept suggesting it) tells me they should not be dealing with fine wine.

As for the tax, it has been an anomaly for a long time. Sorry to see it go, but it evens the playing field for everyone.