Q Does Lowe’s deliver? If so, does it charge sales tax, according to delivery destination as required by state law? How much sales tax does the city of Emporia anticipate losing when people from Lebo or Cottonwood Falls, etc., have their purchases delivered to their home and pay sales taxes to their home towns and counties, instead of to Emporia?
A Lowe’s makes deliveries seven days a week, according to Derek Worth, manager of the Lowe’s store in Topeka.
“We can deliver all the items we sell,” Worth said. Customers find it a convenience for our major appliances because we hook up and haul off all the major appliances for them.”
One delivery fee is charged per load, whether the customer has purchased a washing machine or building materials for a deck.
Sales taxes are paid to the destination taxing entities, Worth said.
“The tax is paid at the rate to the location where it’s delivered, wherever the customer receives the merchandise,” he said. “So if it’s a different county or something like that, it would be appropriate to wherever that it’s delivered to.”
Computer software automatically charges the correct delivery-destination sales tax.
“It’ll do that automatically,” Worth said. “It’ll assign delivery, tax, tax number and charge as well, based on that zip code. ... A lot of products are delivered, but obviously a lot of purchases are paid for in the store. It would be the majority.”
No figures are available about the amount of sales from cities in the trade area outside Emporia.
“It’s not public information,” said Kent Heerman, Regional Development Association executive director. “It’s proprietary to each business.”
Representatives of the D.J. Christie development company have said that about $15 million in sales from Emporia have gone to home improvement companies in Topeka, Lawrence, and Wichita.
Figures were not provided specific to the other towns and taxing entities around Emporia.
“I’d say it’s extremely difficult to come up with any accuracy or reliability of what the number is,” Heerman said. “I don’t know of any way to come up with a measure to figure out if that number is 10 cents or a million dollars. I know of no accurate way to account for it.”
Heerman said that the majority of sales would occur in Emporia, if Lowe’s builds on the property under discussion at 24th Avenue and Industrial Road. The city would receive sales tax monies above the state’s 5.3 percent on all sales that were picked up in Emporia.
“The net result is more money, not less money, any way you look at it,” he said.
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