If you're doing any online shopping on Cyber Monday, hold on to your wallet-- sales tax on your online purchases can be kind of expensive here in Rochester.

Cyber Monday is the busiest day for online shopping, right? It's a day you can get some pretty good deals online. But your purchases just might be more than you though, thanks to some fairly high sales taxes here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes.

This year marks the second year sales taxes could be higher here in Rochester. It's all thanks to a U.S. Supreme Court decision handed down back in July of 2018 that says states now have the green light to force online retailers to pay sales tax. And, boy, have they. Minnesota's new law took effect last October.

And it means, depending upon which site you're buying something from, sales taxes your purchase can be kind of expensive-- increasing anywhere from 6.875% (that's the Minnesota state sales tax rate) to 8.125% (the sales tax rate here in Rochester.) according to this Alavara tax rate calculator.

But hold on. Since this law already took effect in time for last year's shopping season, you might not notice how much you're paying in taxes. And, according to this MPR story, if you're buying from major online retailers, like Amazon, your sales tax didn't really increase much when the law changed last year because they had already been collecting state sales tax from any state in which they have a physical facility-- which includes Minnesota.

But other popular online sites, like, say, Chewy.com (which we buy stuff from all the time for our dog and cats) which used to be exempt (because they didn't have a physical presence or facility here) are once again required to add on that pesky Minnesota sales tax, just like last year.

This Fox Business story noted that extra online sales taxes aren't just happening again here in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, either. "On Oct. 1 of 2018, online sales taxes arrived in 10 more states: Alabama, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, New Jersey, North Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin," the story said.

Listen to Curt St. John from 6 to 10 a.m. on Quick Country 96.5
and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. on 103.9 The Doc

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