Delcampe Is Officially Run By Morons

My quoted comment was directed at the US buyers and sellers, less so Delcampe. It clearly took or takes time for foreign entities to understand how the law does impact them "over there" outside of the USA. Now once it becomes clear to a business that they must comply, as clearly Delcampe found out, there is no further warning period justifiable unless such grace in outlined with in the law(s) of the US State and other areas of taxation.

Likewise on the uninformed face and without the benefit of the yet to written new sales taxation rules, a foreign operator is unlikely to recognize the imminent impact coming for them from the SCOTUS ruling.

The slack I will cut Delcampe is that they had to reach a point where they understood the rules did in fact apply to them and how those rules affected their business model. Once the buyer anywhere in the USA was ruled the location of the "economic nexus" for the purpose of where the sale takes place, the game changed. Physical presence of the brick and mortar type was no longer the measure, the physical location of the buyer replaced that taxation trigger.

Now the actual buyers and sellers of material who are in the USA have one of four ways to proceed:

1. Hook wagon to internet operation that collects sales taxes as required
2. Revert to or begin mail order sales without the use of the internet
3. Stop buying (or selling)
4. Join the underground, tax evasion, section of the US economy (which for philately is often the local stamp club).

Reminder: Many states require tax payers to add a self reported "use" tax to their state income tax forms for items for which they should have paid sales taxes but was not collected by the seller or its agent. Are you buyers doing that? If not you are engaged in number 4 above.

Remember that Siegel Auctions had to begin collecting sales taxes for California from even those bidding without the internet due to the fact a company principle owned a vacation home in California and at times did company work from that location. California hit the jackpot with a new company having a "physical presence" within California. This before the Wayfair SCOTUS ruling.

So while it is difficult today the legal answer to avoid payment of mail order or internet sales taxes is to locate yourself in one of the few areas which does not (yet?) tax internet sales and in which your purchase from companies have no physical presents.

I trust many others are like me when it comes to determining the highest cost for which I will pay, it is not the net price, but the gross price after all related costs are considered. If I will pay $100, I do not care how that $100 is parted out, but I understand as taxes, shipping, buyer's premiums all go up, what the prior owner of the sold property gets, grows less and less.

My last word to the wise, computers do not forget and the taxing agencies know how to subpoena computerized sales records.

Now all of this is a separate issue from the 1099-K and the onerous record keeping required to avoid paying taxes on what's not profit.

Stop thinking that things in Europe are done the same way they are in the USA or any of those states. Even the British system is not the same as the continental European system. Most arguments are by people with knowledge of or experience with American legal systems. I do not have to read posts from those people again, as they are completely irrelevant for Belgian companies. They become relevant when a Belgian company wants to do business in America. Delcampe has voted with its feet.

Whereas local US issues are of no relevance to us and the idea we must monitor news about them is preposterous, there can be consequences if you do not comply. You may not be able to travel to the USA because some overly zealous local prosecutor will want to meet you in front of a judge, may seek a court order that forbids banks operating in the state to do business with you, or seize any assets he can get his hands on.

So, whereas the proper answer would be to "stick it where the sun does not shine," life might become much easier when you either comply or decide not to do business with people living in those states. Delcampe did the latter and I do not see any reason why they should have done otherwise. That still does not mean anyone outside the USA must live under a rock not to be aware of issues in individual American states.

Also, I think OP's criticism of the way they handled it is correct. Even if they had no choice but to close all those accounts, their communication has been horrible, and they have shown themselves very little customer oriented. The news being bad does not imply you have to bring it in a bad manner.

It is possible Delcampe did not assess the implications of an advice given by lawyers. However, considering the size of their operations, I would not be surprised they apply nGAAP and only employ a fiscal specialist or pay an advisor with knowledge of Belgian tax laws.

NSK the problem is that American states are now saying that companies like Delcampe now have a presence in the USA simply by selling to a resident of a specific state or allowing a seller in a specific state to sell on a platform located outside the USA. Delcampe itself does not need to have a physical USA presence in the eyes of the US states, it simply has to have clients who reside in the USA to be considered liable to US state tax laws (at least in the eyes of the individual US states), as determined by the individual states themselves.

As I have said before I can not imagine the US Supreme court meant for the states to be able to tax international commerce in this way, but the ruling was such that the States feel they have full power to maximize their attempt to get as much tax as they wish.

To small/medium size businesses outside the USA like Delcampe it probably does not make sense to continue to do business with users in States with low thresholds to require the company to perform tax collection work for those states. They should have given users more warning that this was going to hapoen, but it may be a US state threatened legal action so forced Delcampe's hand.

In the end it's the rapacious behavior of certain US states that is the ultimate cause, and my guess is that this case will end up at the WTO as more small/medium sized non-US companies are forced to chose to either accept paying a large overhead cost to comply with the tax laws in dozens of different US jurisdictions or simply forgo business dealings with clients in at least the most rapacious US states, as Delcampe has now chosen since, for Delcampe, it makes more sense financially to forgo sales than to pay the costs to have a full -time employee(s) simply to oversee tax collection for dozens of different US jurisdictions.

Personally I always thought international commerce fell under Federal jurisdiction rather than state, so I really think the US states are reaching here trying to tax residents of their states doing business with retailers overseas, but no case has been brought to my knowledge to the supreme court to test if Wayfair was meant to include international commerce the way it was meant to tax intra-US state commerce.

In the end the ultimate loser is the American consumer who now has lost the ability to shop for the overall best deal for the goods the want in the global marketplace, factoring in all costs such as shipping and taxes, because many small/medium sides businesses outside the USA are simply not going to have the resources to hire staff to monitor the Byzantine system of sales taxes levied in the various US state and local jurisdictions.

ETA - I just looked up what the law is in Ohio and Ohio is one of the states with the 200 sales to residents of the state threshold for a business/platform outside Ohio to be liable to collect and remit Ohio sales taxes. Exceedingly low threshold for a state of almost 12 million residents, and passed by a Republican-controlled state government that loves to tout itself as 'business-friendly"

Stop thinking that Belgium is an island outside international commercial systems. The suggestion that "local US issues are of no relevance to us and the idea we must monitor news about them is preposterous," is flat wrong because Belgium is a GATT member state and therefore has conceded liability for non-protectionist US "internal taxes." There will be no WTO case arising from Wayfair because the internal tax issue is settled. The only question is whether a particular state can establish personal jurisdiction in the US courts to hear an enforcement case. Delcampe's redefinition of its legal status, in the updated terms and conditions, squarely addresses this issue by seeking to position it as not "targeting" US states for jurisdictional purposes. Now it will have to mind its marketing content.

I do feel that some of the criticism of Delcampe's communications stems from looking at it through the lens of large US internet companies. European and particularly French Marcom standards are different and terse English seems to be the standard. Their messages have all the hallmarks of being written by French Belgian folks.

Well said.

We are not talking about a random person living outside the US, we are talking about a company that does business worldwide and undoubtedly is aware ebay has been collecting taxes for US states and other countries, or are you arguing tey have turned a blind eye to the biggest competitor?

Back in 2003-4 time period, our company was required to incur significant additional costs associated with the new WEEE regulations if we want to be allowed to sell any of our devices into Europe. This meant building a relationship with certain 'approved' (that is another whole story) Euro waste disposal companies which had sprung up overnight, it meant putting all our products back through a complete compliance cycle and into the compliance labs, it meant redesigning every product label, product box, and shipping carton we had. <shrugs>

Our choice was simple, if we didn't want to deal with the additional costs of adding WEEE compliance for any of our devices then don't sell into the EU.

And like the Delcampe situation, we had plenty warning that the new Euro requirements were coming and had time to not just make our decisions but to also putting what we needed into place to prevent any disruption in our business.
Don

I added to your good statement to underscore the operative point, that is that the SCOTUS ruling allowed the "economic nexus" (the term used in the arguments and decision) to be set by the buyer/sellers location for internet sales taxation and the many states have taken that ability to heart.


That would be true if they were not doing business within the USA as defined by the "economic nexus." All the company need do to avoid the burden is not do business via internet with anyone within the all boundaries of the USA. But once a foreign (to the USA) does business within the USA it accepts the rules of doing business here. And frankly I see no difference between foreign companies doing business in the USA and having to follow the rules here and say the EU dictating what a wholly USA company such as Google or now Alphabet does with customers in Europe or the larger US companies, Apple and Microsoft, plus that smaller one called Amazon. They all dance to the EU tune, Delcampe can dance to ours or leave the room.




That is the whole point of the SCOTUS ruling. It was viewed as unfair for the instate brick and mortar companies to have to compete with and for customers who incur no travel costs to buy outside of their city and not have to pay the local sales taxes nor support their local government. There is no free lunch, those self serving consumers are just hurting the service and businesses in their area. Now the playing feild has been leveled somewhat.

No, I am saying they are a small organisation with a focus on [hilately that added a few other collecting areas. Their actions suggest that is exactly what they did.




International awareness in Belgium is far beyond that in the USA. In Belgium they are aware there is a world outside Belgium and laws outside Belgium are not Belgian laws. That still does not make local American news relevant ... unless you want to do business there. And their decission is that under these circumstances. at present, they do not.

(i) I'd suggest that the GATT/WTO issue isn't "settled" because of the protectionist effect of the US states's laws. Whether anyone makes a trade dispute issue out of that is another question, as is the possible attitude of a Belgian court to a potentially extraterritorial measure; and
(ii) Amazon, Google et al have separate companies in jurisdictions outside the US, including within the EU, so aren't really comparable to Delcampe.

As brought up earlier in this thread I am waiting for the shoe to drop for Hip Stamp. To my eye there is no discernible difference between the way Delcampe and Hip other than their style. Hip also does not have the luxury of distance by virtue of Nationality to deflect potential enforcement actions.

Not to mention that HS is physically located in North Carolina.
Don

Indeed. The large majority of Hipstamp's sellers and buyers are in the US - it would meet various state thresholds much quicker than Delcampe to be sure.

Certainly was abrupt action. Would have been preferable for Delcampe to have kept sellers located in the banned U.S. states, but only if they restricted their sales to buyers located outside the U.S. But I understand that Delcampe wanted to cut any and all liability for what was, at the end of the day, a very small segment of their seller base.

I'm in Massachusetts where I can still buy on Delcampe and do so regularly.

Something new occurred yesterday. I tried to pay for a new purchase and was told my payment could not go through until I uploaded a picture of my driver's license or passport showing a mailing address to match my Delcampe account.
I'm guessing some people were trying to get around the restriction by using a friend's address in another state then having the friend forward the stamp.

The next workaround would be to have your out of state friend set up a Delcampe account and purchase for you, then forward. (Assuming you have an out of state friend willing to go to that much trouble for you)