DOW JONES NEWSWIRES Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) agreed to collect sales tax from Texas customers beginning July 1, as well as making capital investments of $200 million and creating 2,500 jobs in the state over four years, according to reports in the Dallas Morning News, Austin American-Statesman and the Texas Tribune. Under an agreement with Comptroller Susan Combs announced Friday, the state will end its efforts to collect back taxes from the company, the reports said. In late 2010, the state said Amazon owed $269 million for uncollected sales taxes. According to the American-Statesman, Amazon said in a securities filing that the settlement includes "an immaterial payment to the state." Combs told the American-Statesman that Paul Misener, Amazon's vice president of global public policy, came to Austin for "eyeball to eyeball" negotiations," and then an agreement was "hammered out by e-mail and fax over about a four- or five-day period." Full story at http://bizbeatblog.dallasnews.com/archives/2012/04/amazoncom-starts-collecting-sa.html and http://www.texastribune.org/texas-taxes/budget/amazon-state-settle-sales-tax-fight/ and http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/theticker/entries/2012/04/27/state_amazon_settle_sales_tax.html -Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2900
