Minnesota's 50 cent "Amazon fee" on delivery orders takes effect July 1
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Minnesotans who order $100 or more of clothing, toys, household supplies, and other goods delivered to their door will pay a 50-cent fee starting July 1.
The big picture: The retail delivery fee, approved by the DFL-majority Legislature as part of a broader transportation funding law in 2023, is expected to raise about $64 million annually for roads and transit.
- The new tax, sometimes called the "Amazon fee," doesn't apply to food — including restaurant meals — nor to medicine, baby products, or curbside pickup orders.
- It will be labeled a "Road Improvement and Food Delivery Fee" on receipts.
What they're saying: DFL Rep. Erin Koegel, one of the law's authors, has called the fee a "new and innovative way" of generating more for transportation, arguing that an increased volume of deliveries leads to more wear and tear on roads.
The other side: Minnesota Retailers Association president Bruce Nustad told Axios the fee adds a "layer of complexity" for sellers and consumers, without raising a game-changing amount of money for infrastructure.
- One challenge for retailers, he said, is that the list of products that don't trigger this fee is different from those that are already exempt from state sales taxes.
Zoom in: The fee only applies to orders that contain $100 or more of non-exempt goods.
- For example, ordering a $95 table and a $5 gallon of milk from Target's Shipt wouldn't trigger a fee.
- However, shipping costs do count toward the threshold.
The intrigue: Retailers can opt to pay the fee themselves instead of passing it through to consumers.
- Some may choose to do that to start, Nustad said, as they get their systems up and running for calculating and applying the fee.
The fine print: Small businesses — a definition that covers retailers with less than $1 million in sales and online vendors with less than $100,000 — are exempt from the new requirement.
What we're watching: Whether —and how — shoppers respond to a tax that is expected to become a talking point in the November campaign for political control of the House.
- "Awareness among consumers is close to zero," Nustad said.
- " We haven't even seen the consumer push back to the Legislature on this yet."
Go deeper: Read a roundup of other new laws taking effect July 1 — including one-time funding for school literacy programs — via the House Public Information Services.