Amazon to start charging state sales tax to Missouri customers

Missourians who shop on Amazon will be charged the 4.225 percent sales tax starting Feb. 1, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Steven Sapp, public information officer for the city of Columbia, said that charging customers for the use tax at the point of sale in Missouri should increase state revenue. He said unless counties and cities added a use tax, they won’t see the revenue.

Sapp said the revenue the state will collect from Amazon could eventually trickle down to the local level through grants. He said that at first, people in Columbia or Boone County will only see the revenue go to state departments such as MoDot.

David Overfelt, president of the Missouri Retailers Association, said Amazon charging state sales tax for customers in Missouri is the first step to get the state’s economic growth back on track. Overfelt said this is also the first step towards implementing a streamline act nationwide, which means items being defined the same across the states. For example, in one state, a television may be sold online as a television, but in a different state, that same television may be called an entertainment display.