I know that residents of Oregon, New Hampshire, Delaware, Montana & Alaska have 0% sales tax for goods and services and can apply to have it rescinded when they're out of their states upon them visiting one that has ST (with valid ID to prove residence). But does that privilege carry over for international purchases, in this case, all goods are priced in ¥ from the seller as they're based in Japan.

For example, when buying a new video game console & physical game combined is ¥71,960 ($455) which heads to a warehouse first (owned by a forwarding agent in Japan, since the seller doesn't ship across borders) then shipping costs are calculated separately (like would it cost $40 to ship from Yokohama to Oregon). The thing is, can you still pay 0% ST since the item is not only out of state, but abroad?

The same counterpart in US (even 0% ST) is $590 MSRP via a official retailer (it's more expensive when paying ST) if you've bought the console and game (you've saved ~$135 when buying either from out of state). Shipping across borders always costs money but the item itself costs less than buying within state just because of region pricing. Although, would that alone guarantee that you're not paying any ST?

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[–] 1 point 5 hours ago*

As a foreign trade expert (not American tho, so you can take this with a grain of salt) I'd say yes. In international trade there is no sales taxes.

  • Usually when exporting you use 0% sales taxes. With the exporting prove, you than can go to your tax office and tell them I exported the goods. => the tax office won't demand taxes from you.

  • The importer on their side has to pay the importing fees (tariffs) & tax the goods on their side with their sales taxes => the tax office will be informed by the customs, the goods arrived and that they need to collect the taxes from you. That's why usually a lot of international b2c businesses won't offer pre taxed deliveries as they would have to be tax registered in every country they ship to (there are exeptions).

So in your examples: if the goods went from Japan to Oregon etc, than there would be no sales tax as their sales tax is 0% but they'd still need to pay the tariffs.

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