Buying new equipment across state lines: taxes!

[CKH]

I live in Portland, Oregon, which is right on the border of Washington state. My best candidate for a first laundromat to acquire is across the state line in Vancouver, Washington, which is more convenient for me than a lot of mats in my city because I live so far north. Now here’s the deal: Oregon has no state sales tax, but Washington does. When I go shopping up there (which I avoid because of tax) I can usually get out of paying sales tax if I show my ID because Oregon residents don’t have to pay sales tax. Now, I’ve got my first quote for retooling the laundromat for a Washington-based distributor and of course, the quote includes sales tax, which is quite a jaw-dropping amount for someone not used to paying sales tax! And I’m left wondering why I should be required to pay that and if there’s any way to avoid it? Now I want to qualify that with the fact that I’m not a tax evader and I want to always do the ethical thing in life and business, but I’m struggling to see how paying the sales tax in this situation is right. So I asked another distributor based on the Oregon side that question and he said they could sell us the equipment here and I would just have to sign an indemnity form that says if I get audited by Washington, I hold the distributor harmless. This makes it sound like Washington would indeed come after me if I bought my equipment here and took it across state lines to install it in my store! And that is not a risk I’m very willing to take with my business. Does anyone have any insight into this matter?

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