Amazon Prevails In State Sales Tax Dispute, Thus Far 171
snsh writes "A US judge has ruled for Amazon.com (PDF) against North Carolina's request to turn over the names of its customers to state tax officials. The ruling was focused on privacy grounds, so the state can still re-request less detailed sales data which does not identify items purchased."
Reader arbitraryaardvark adds a link to The Volokh Conspiracy's take on the decision.
Good for us Sellers (Score:4, Insightful)
The outcome of this case affects not just Amazon, but also its sellers.
"No taxation without representation" is the principle. Why should I be subject to taxation by a foreign government (Carolina) when I have no voice in their legislature? It makes as little sense as saying a Frenchman should have to pay income tax to the Polish government. My allegiance is to MD and US..... any other governments have zero authority over me.
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure they don't have any authority over you (unless your government says they do and extradites your ass) but they do have authority over anything you do in their territory, like transferring goods.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Informative)
No, since you put all those purchases on your state income tax return and paid use tax on them at the appropriate rate it won't affect you at all.
Re: (Score:2)
So states should be allowed to tax interstate commerce as long as they change the name?
Re: (Score:2)
Perhaps you haven't been paying attention, but the Court already took up that issue.
Yes, a state may tax an interstate sale of goods received in its territory so long as the tax is no greater than the sales tax that would apply if the sale took place entirely within the state. If the use tax were higher, it would be an illegal restraint on interstate commerce, but up to that point it is not.
Re: (Score:2)
That's irrelevant to the situation, since they do and challenges to them doing so have been rejected.
But, yes I do think they should be allowed to do that. Taxing interstate commerce at a higher rate than local commerce would be a problem. Taxing interstate commerce that doesn't involve their state would be a problem.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>they do have authority over anything you do in their territory, like transferring goods.
Hence the "use tax". The customers I sell to in North Carolina are subject to NC laws, and are required to pay a use tax (6%) on their purchased items.
I on the other hand, having never set foot in NC and having no representative in their legislature, am NOT subject to their laws. Again: No taxation w/o representation.
Re: (Score:2)
Sadly, you're 100% correct.
I say "sadly" because the vast majority of the public who shop online and aren't charged sales tax by the vendor will never give a second's thought to this. If/when local states can force the vendors to provide this information, the states will see it as a windfall of much needed funds.
If they're going to start getting such info, I hope the court does something like say that FROM THIS POINT FORWARD, any purchase (tax) information will be made available to the destination state, an
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Just to be a prick, if you are a firm retail stores in 50 states, you must keep up with 50 state laws. Internet retailers are no different. We have computers to figure out the tax, take the money from the credit card companies, and pay the internet retailers' current tax bill. I admit it will cost them some money to get the changes in their systems which will handle the state taxes. The real problem is not going to be places like Amazon which can afford the expense. The real problem will be Ma and Pop inter
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Brick and mortars already have a disadvantage of having to maintain inventory and an expensive storefront. Lack of Internet sales tax would not be an issue to them if people would pay their use tax.It's not the internet creating the problem, it is the citizens.
It is not some company in Iowa's
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Just to be a prick, if you are a firm retail stores in 50 states, you must keep up with 50 state laws. Internet retailers are no different.
If you are a company with physical retail stores in 50 states, you are a big company with big resources and at least 50 store managers that can keep track of their own local sales tax requirements.
If you are in internet retailer, you may be completely different, like a single entrepeneur selling a few hundred dollars worth of items per week. It may not be worth it to you to do that if you have to keep track of the hundreds of different sales tax rates and regulations across 50 states and hundreds of count
Re: (Score:2)
Just to be a prick, if you are a firm retail stores in 50 states, you must keep up with 50 state laws.
It's actually much more complicated than that...sales taxes are assessed at the county and city level as well as the state level. And what is and isn't taxable can vary depending on location as well.
Brick-and-mortar companies have the advantage of only needing to consider the tax codes in their own locations, not every possible location their customers may live. Customers can travel from other cities, counties and even states to make purchases without those businesses having to consider any other tax codes.
Re: (Score:2)
As do I. I don't think people understand that it is not just 50 things to keep track of. There are state, county, and in some cases even city taxes. My state has a downloadable format for vendors to update their records. It contains over 100,000 taxing districts. Keeping track of 50 state's worth of taxing districts would cripple anybody except the really huge sites. If interstate internet traffic were
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Interesting)
Absolutely.
I host an online store for a friend - she used to set up booths at conventions and such but due to health reasons, she is now completely online. (used to do mail order too as it was a niche product, but nobody does mail order anymore). She's having enough trouble just complying with PCI standards. She freaked out when she first saw the questionnaires and I had to spend quite a bit of time going through it and explaining what was meant and spent a lot of time tweaking server and application to meet the PCI standard (it asks for mostly common sense stuff, but is worded with some absolutes that mean that a technically secure compensating measure doesn't qualify you to answer YES/NO to a given question, but I digress)
The point is that she's a friend and I essentially put in quite a few billable hours pro-bono. However, PCI compliance was a walk in the park compared to what we'd have to do should she be required to deal with all those tax jurisdictions you mentioned. She would not be able to afford it with her sales and I'm at my limit (even with a friend) for how much time I'm willing/able to give away.
I custom wrote her shopping cart and checkout system, and before anyone says it, at the time I wrote it, there was NOTHING available on the market that met her needs and she could afford.
YES we could probably rebuild her site using something commercial or FOSS today, but she still can't afford what it would cost to do the conversion. In my opinion, such a complex mess of tax jurisdictions would force mom and pop type places offline or force them to pay big vendors for their carts/checkouts.
That might not seem like the end of the world, but it feels like yet another barrier to entry... over time, the more regulatory and statutory hurdles businesses and individuals have to negotiate in order to go online will destroy a lot of the freedom and openness that made the Internet so fertile a place for speech and innovation in the first place.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
...over time, the more regulatory and statutory hurdles businesses and individuals have to negotiate in order to go online will destroy a lot of the freedom and openness that made the Internet so fertile a place for speech and innovation in the first place.
If you happen to be a Progressive/Fabian Socialist as many on the Left in US politics and the current administration are, this is a desired design-target result/feature.
Strat
Sales Tax Calculation is even worse than that (Score:2)
Back in the 1980s, my wife was doing programming for a mail-order book store (which was like Internet commerce, only on paper :-) New York State wanted them to collect sales tax, and as you say, the taxes vary by county, town, township, etc., while the book store only knew customers' addresses and zip codes, and the tax rates weren't aligned by zip code. And different jurisdictions have different rules about what's taxable - for instance, in New Jersey, clothes aren't taxable, but in New York they are (s
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Informative)
like transferring goods.
Conducting business transactions and transferring goods to someone out of state is called interstate commerce. And the supreme law of the land says that the power to regulate interstate commerce belongs exclusively to the US congress, and specifically indicates that states do not have the power to lay tarrifs, duties, imposts, or otherwise tax imports.
In other words.. no... the foreign state doesn't have authority or power to regulate you transferring goods into their state; that authority has been explicitly reserved for the feds.
Re: (Score:2)
True indeed... in fact if you remember your history lessons, this is one of the big reasons the Articles of Confederation failed...
Re: (Score:2)
...except the Supreme Court, whose job it is to interpret the supreme law of the land and who serves as the higest authority on the matter, says you're wrong.
As long as the use tax on an interstate sale to someone in the state is no higher than the sales tax that would be charged for an in-state purchase, the Court does not regard it as a tarrif.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>Supreme Court, whose job it is to interpret the supreme law of the land
Not correct. "The question whether the judges are invested with exclusive authority to decide on the constitutionality of a law has been heretofore a subject of consideration with me in the exercise of official duties. Certainly there is not a word in the Constitution which has given that power to them more than to the Executive or Legislative branches." --Thomas Jefferson to W. H. Torrance, 1815. ME 14:303
.
>>
Re: (Score:2)
Pretend all you want that anyone gets to overrule the Court on what is constitutional.
Then try to make it happen.
Good luck.
Internet Commerce is just newer better Mailorder (Score:2)
The problem isn't new - snail mail interstate commerce has been around about as long as the Post Office, and companies like Sears, Montgomery Ward, and Wells Fargo's shipping service became major players in catalog-based interstate commerce. And Television let you buy Ginsu Knives and Chia Pets by mail without even needing a paper catalog.
States keep pretending it's a new threat to their revenue, but the main differences are that the web makes a much better catalog than paper, computer automation cuts the
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Interesting)
Which is a bald-faced lie. Fully automatic weapons require a Federal Firearms License, which overrides any more permissive state law regarding them.
Unless you're referring to a semi-automatic rifle that shares parts with an AK-47? If so, then why should you have to show an ID?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's a gun that shares a lot of characteristics, but it's NOT an AK-47. An AK-47 is a select-fire fully automatic rifle. Once you remove that feature you change the defining characterisitc of the rifle. Heck the A in AK stands for Avtomat - Russian for Automatic.
Once that feature is removed you simply have a semi-automatic rifle, much like the Browning BAR, Remington 74x series, and many other rifles that few would bat an eye at. Should there be an uproar becase the Saiga (and other civilian market rifl
Re: (Score:2)
I get your point. But if I put aftermarket rims on my Ford Fiesta, it is still a Ford Fiesta.
I could see your argument about rifles manufactured as semi's, but there are plenty of AK-47's floating around the US that were manufactured as automatics but modified to be semi. Those are still AK-47's.
Re: (Score:2)
[citation needed]
Note that such weapons would be unlawful to import, or to possess. BATFE takes a rather extreme, "once a machine gun, always a machine gun" view. There was a case a couple of years ago where some M1A rifles were built on former M14 receivers (which I believe were demilled, then rewelded)
Re: (Score:2)
Used unqualified, 'Automatic' means self-loading, not necessarily fully-automatic, rapid firing.
Re: (Score:2)
Except there are a number of 'semi-automatic' rifles that can be converted to full auto in about 30s with a metal file.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
I think we should tax all foreigners not living in this country.
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Funny)
I think I speak for all foreigners when I say that America is already very taxing.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
depending on the good and your EXACT address you can have
Federal
State
County
City/Town
Fellowship
All cumulative - and they can very a lot.. where i live it comes out to be ~7.5% on normal goods 2.5% on foods like fresh veggies and 8% on sodas.
Making Amazon a company not from this area have to keep track of that is stupid - instead it is my responsibly as a citizen to buggy up and pay the tax at the end of the year.
What NC is trying to do is g
Re: (Score:2)
Yup, where I am at soda in a bottle is tax-free, and soda in a cup is 6%, but a few miles down the road that soda in a cup is 7%.
Everybody and their uncle in the US has the right to levy taxes. I'm surprised homeowner associations aren't doing it. :)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm surprised homeowner associations aren't doing it. :)
Shush. We do not want to give them ideas like that.
Re: (Score:2)
<quote><p>I'm surprised homeowner associations aren't doing it.
<p>Shush. We do <b>not</b> want to give them ideas like that.</p></quote>
what do you think your homeowners dues are??
Re: (Score:2)
They are what they make do with while they work out how to charge tolls for road use, a utility surcharge, and a tax on all deliveries into the development.
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:4, Informative)
English motherfucker. Learn it.
LOL, you just called him an "English motherfucker."
Mr. pot, meet mister kettle.
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Insightful)
The outcome of this case affects not just Amazon, but also its sellers.
"No taxation without representation" is the principle. Why should I be subject to taxation by a foreign government (Carolina) when I have no voice in their legislature? It makes as little sense as saying a Frenchman should have to pay income tax to the Polish government. My allegiance is to MD and US..... any other governments have zero authority over me.
Nonsense.
The taxes are paid by the customers, not by the sellers. As the customers reside (and purchase) in the state, they must pay.
Notice also that TFS does not say anything like that... it just says that the state has no right to know if someone bought "Alice in Wonderland" or "How to make home bombs" or "Meth cooking for dummies". I think it is a good point to defend, but the issue of taxation itself has not been reviewed, as it is emphasized in the summary.
Also, I'd like to play a little with your "No taxation without representation". Are you suggesting that when a convinted felon loses his/her right to vote, s/he also loses his/her duty to pay taxes? Maybe crime pays, after all.
So... any comments other than "I do not like to pay taxes"?
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good for us Sellers (Score:5, Interesting)
Agreed. One of the more bizarre laws the US has that seems certain to incite continual negaitve feelings towards a government you can never participate in.
Utterly stupid
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Yea because this could never be abused? Removing the felons right to vote effectively removed him from the process that put him there in the first place. Wikipedia puts the numbers at 0.75% of the total population or 2.42% of the potential voters. If nearly one in 40 people has so broken that social contract that they can no longer be allowed to involve themselves in society you might want to rethink that social contact. As to willful action you have to assume that every conviction is just but we know th
Re: (Score:2)
No what he is saying is there is consequences to your choices. Going back to the origin of the process, voting was considered (and should still be) a valuable and precious thing. If you commited a crime that deserves Death or Life Imprisonment, then you lost your voting rights, property, and more in older societies. The US cut this back to voting rights, ability to get certain permits (such as firearms), serving on a jury, running for elected office.
Personally, if someone did such a horrible crime then
Re: (Score:2)
Why have second class citizenship?
Because then you can make illegal things that certain people like to do, people you don't want voting.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Only 2 states, Kentucky & Virginia, deny felons the right to vote for the rest of their lives, although Kentucky has a process to restore that right. Other states disallow voting for felons in prison, on probation, on parole, etc.--just depends on the state. Maine & Vermont allow felons to vote while in prison. Oddly, "felony disenfranchisement" laws have been found to be constitutional
See http://en. [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:2)
The laws vary by state.
Re: (Score:2)
The taxes are paid by the customers, not by the sellers. As the customers reside (and purchase) in the state, they must pay.
I don't think this part of it was ever an issue. The problem is that states now want Amazon to collect that tax, effectively making it a tax on them, rather than the customers.
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, way to red herring this right off a cliff. "No taxation without representation" was not invented by a slashdot poster, it was the idea behind the boston tea party, where taxes were being sent to England and the colonies were being ruled remotely with having much say in the way t
Re: (Score:2)
>>>The taxes are paid by the customers, not by the sellers.
Okay yes you're right, but why do I have to comply with NC Law? They are a foreign government to me, and they have ZERO authority to order me to file a tax return. Just as China or Canada has zero authority to order me.
NC might pass a law that says, "You must collect 6% tax and remit the money to us by April 15 each year," but I am not bound to obey.
Fuck them.
Re: (Score:2)
China or Canada doesn't have zero authority over you if you go to their territory and make a purchase on a shop there, regardless of you being a citizen or not of the country.
Likewise, when you make a purchase on a shop located on NC, you are "going there" (figuratively, in case of digital purchases) and buying something on a shop located in their territory.
Now, if sending TCP/IP packets to their territory is the same as physically going there is subjective, but it's not absurd to consider it true.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok, I've misunderstood the problem. Disregard my comment.
Re: (Score:2)
If I set up a brick and morter in my home state and someone from NC buys something at it, they bought it in MY state, not NC. That is fairly clear. NC may have laws applying to it's citizens that say they must declare that to them for tax purposes, but I am not one of those citizens.
If I build my store in NC, then they may apply their tax law to me.
From a practical perspective, there's a zillion little towns all with their zillion tax laws. Nobody can even keep track of them all much less deal with the pape
Re: (Score:2)
A French person pays Polish VAT if they buy something in Poland (whether online from a Polish business, or in a shop in Poland).
Re: (Score:2)
>>>A French person pays Polish VAT if they buy something in Poland
Which should not be. Let's suppose the Polish government goes slightly mad, and raises the Polish VAT to 50%. How is the French person supposed to protest that? He has no voice in the polish legislature to say, "That's ridiculously high." The french citizen is powerless to change the law/tax that he is subject to.
QED - no representation == no authority. The polish government has no (legitimate) authority over non-polish resident
motels? rental cars? (Score:2)
Tell this to all the local governments that have jumped on the bandwagon of taxing travelers to the max. It is infuriating to be hit with a 19% sales tax on a rental car and motel room when everything else is taxed at 9% or less. But they're all doing it, and all at slightly different rates.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>A French person pays Polish VAT if they buy something in Poland
Which should not be. Let's suppose the Polish government goes slightly mad, and raises the Polish VAT to 50%. How is the French person supposed to protest that?
By not buying things from Poland.
"No taxation without representation" is a different issue. Imports and exports to America were taxed, and the money taken by the UK. In the French-Poland case, exports are being taxed by Poland, and in a Polish-France case exports are being taxed by France.
Are you aware that if you shop in Poland you can reclaim the VAT you've paid once you leave the EU and return to the USA? Just keep hold of the receipts and show the goods (to prove you're exporting them) at the airport.
If
Re: (Score:2)
>>>By not buying things from Poland
That sounds reasonable, unless it's a product only Poland makes. IMHO I should not have to pay Poland's tax unless my body enters their jurisdiction.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
How exactly does whether Amazon has to send details of NC customers to the NC government affect sellers? And how does it have anything to do with you being subject to taxation?
Sure NC is trying to do that, but this particular ruling has nothing to do with it at all.
Re: (Score:2)
>>>How exactly does whether Amazon has to send details of NC customers to the NC government affect sellers?
Knowing how amazon operates, they'll probably make US do the paperwork ("remember to file your NC list of your customers by April 15"), and I don't feel like it.
Re: (Score:2)
No they won't, since that isn't what the case is about.
But feel free to make up ever more outlandish things this might end up making you have to do.
What on earth are you babbling about? (Score:2)
From the friggin judgment:
As part of an audit of Amazon, the DOR, whose secretary is Defendant Lay, sent a request on December 1, 2009 to Amazon seeking “‘all information for all sales to customers with a North Carolina shipping address by month in an electronic format for all dates between August 1, 2003, and February 28, 2010.”
So I honestly ask: what on earth are you babbling about? Or do you just like citing 'Merican phrases at random regardless if they're appropriate to the circumstances in question?
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>what on earth are you babbling about?
Assuming the court allowed states to collect this info, I would be required to keep a list of all my customers in 2011, separate them, and mail-out 51 letters to the 50 states plus DC. That would require several days worth of labor on my part, and that is "taxing". I should not be taxed by governments where I have no representation in their legislature.
Re: (Score:2)
It makes as little sense as saying a Frenchman should have to pay income tax to the Polish government.
Via the magic of the EU, that's exactly what happens, isn't it. The Frenchman pays his taxes to the French government, who then give it away to the EU, who then donate it to the poorer governments, such as Poland.
So.... (Score:2)
no taxation without representation eh?
will you exempt minors from paying sales tax?
will you exempt h1-b visa holders from paying income tax?
will you exempt corporations from all taxes?
will you exempt people who order things from the US from any export duty?
your argument while grandiose and part of all Americans common heritage, is not workable.
it is too simple.
Yes, you can argue that corporations have representation via Lobbying (and I think they do as well)
Same as the British argued that the members of the
Could be good, could be bad (Score:2)
The case is not about you paying sales tax to a foreign government (Carolina). It is about you paying sales or use tax to your own state. This applies to all mail order only companies. If a business has a presence in the state you are buying, you pay sales tax to your local state. If they don't, you pay use tax to your state. However, states have no way of what you are buying from out of state vendors, which is why they are wanting the information. For sales tax, the vendor collects it and remits it on
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>No, this principle is that one state may not tax the residents & businesses of another state, or force the residents & businesses of another state to comply with its laws.
No?
Isn't that what "no taxation without representation" means?
Residents of other states have no voice in NC's legislature.
Therefore NC has no authority over them.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
No?
Isn't that what "no taxation without representation" means?
Residents of other states have no voice in NC's legislature.
Therefore NC has no authority over them.
That isn't the point. If Amazon actually charged the NC sales tax, Amazon would have to remit the sales tax revenue to the government of NC. Amazon would not keep the tax. Amazon would not pay the tax, it is the customers in NC that would pay the tax. Amazon would simply be the tax collector.
The point is the government of NC does not have the legal
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That is correct, and I encourage them to do so, but they can't ask me to collect that tax for them because I am not subject to their laws. Now, if they were to allow me to keep part of that sales tax to compensate for my effort in keeping track of their laws, then that would be a matter. Something on the order of 500% would be appropriate, to deal with all of the taxing districts
Re: (Score:2)
It has historically been considered an undue burden, but technology has passed the point where that reasoning could be deemed obsolete.
The question to me is at what point it becomes regulation of interstate commerce. The Courts have held that the tax itself is not such a regulation (within certain criteria), but saying "to sell here you must act as our tax agent" might cross a line even if the burden is made minimal by technology.
Huh.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I must be mis-reading this..
As far as I can tell, all that has been ruled is that the state should not receive a lit of -what- books you have purchased.
Nothing to prevent them knowing the value of the books you have purchased, with the titles redacted, so you can pay your fair share of taxes like the rest of us.
Yet people here seem to be discussing things off at a tangent to this (like whether books should be taxed at all, a totally different subject really), who would have imagined Slashdotters doing that ;-)
Re: (Score:2)
NC Legislature (or Canadian Parliament) (Or Chinese government): "You must compile a list of all your customers and provide them to us."
ME: "No."
The end. These governments have no authority to make me obey their law, because I am not a resident. Neither do I have a voice in their legislature to protest the law. The law I quoted is a nullity. It has zero power over me.
A Little More Complicated Than That... (Score:4, Interesting)
You are correct that things have gotten off topic, and a lot of people are missing what's actually going on here; however, it's not as simple as giving purchases with titles redacted...
Amazon is being sued to pay the taxes for purchases in North Carolina, not for everyone in America. They furnished NC's Department of Revenue (DOR) a list of all sales with ASINs (Amazon's Unique Identifier for products) from 2003 - 2010. NC needs the details because different kinds of products have different sales taxes. NC's DOR demanded that Amazon also provide the Bill-To and Ship-To information, which Amazon refused to do as this would violate the First Amendment by identifying the details of what NC residents were reading, watching, and listening to.
This is where it gets hazy... The DOR offered to give the original data back in exchange for data that identified people, but not the details of what they purchased, but the original data would be kept on the DOR Secretary's computer, because they needed some of that for... I dunno, it's hazy legalese. Amazon stated that the only way they have to identify what was purchased was ASINs, which would identify the products, so no deal.
The DOR admitted that this customer-identifying data would add nothing to establishing Amazon's tax-liability, but they still wanted it. Amazon got backing by the ACLU and the Judge ruled against the DOR.
This should be case-closed, but, as a resident of North Carolina, I'll be keeping an eye on it, and will be writing an irate letter to the editor of my local paper for not covering this story. Thanks Slashdot!
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Basically, they need the category data - book / clothing / housewares / etc. That allows them to figure out what is taxable and what isn't. For instance, in NJ, groceries and clothing are not taxed, but household items, books, etc. are. So you go to the grocery store, and the 5 cases of Coke aren't taxed, but toilet paper and shampoo are. Alcohol is taxed twice - there's an alcohol tax built into the price, and a sales tax on the total (that changed about 10-12 years ago, it used to just be the alcohol tax,
Over-Reliance on the Sales Tax (Score:2)
North Carolina's problem, like many states, is an over-reliance on state sales taxes. If they would reduce their sales tax to zero and increase other taxes to compensate, they would make their own businesses more competitive with Internet retailers like Amazon.com and eliminate the need to try to tax them. At the same time, this would encourage commerce and eliminate a regressive tax.
Re: (Score:2)
How do you suggest they collect taxes then? Around here anyway, there are sales taxes, income taxes and property taxes. Beyond that, it's frivilous. If I'm a renter making minimum wage at McDonald's, sales tax is all I pay.
Sales tax may be all you pay directly, but you can be sure a portion of the rent you pay is going to pay the property tax on the property you rent, as well as income tax for the individual or business that you are renting from. Just because you aren't directly paying into the tax pool doesn't mean you aren't contributing. Never mind that even if you make minimum wage, I'm pretty sure you are still in some minimal tax bracket for the feds and most states.
Re:Wait! Don't tech companies love Big Brother? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Use taxes don't violate the Interstate Commerce clause. Not even Amazon claims that. Here is a pretty good explanation of how state taxes interact with the Interstate Commerce clause [state.mn.us]. Note that a tax is illegal only if it discriminates against Interstate Commerce, and particularly note the heading Discriminatory Taxes May Be Valid as Complementary Taxes.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You claim it violates the intent or wording of the Constitution, but can you provide a citation? Or is that just your opinion?
I only ask because a lot of people (myself among them) think you're wrong, so you might want to provide some factual basis for your claim. Note that I have provided a citation for my position, that being a long history of decisions by the courts who are, in fact, an authority on the matter considerably higher than "slashdot user Chaos Incarnate". For a start, they've actually stud
Re: (Score:2)
How about we dismantle the welfare state like Europe is being forced to do?
Because most of Medicare and Social Security -- the only entitlements large enough to put a dent in the budget -- are collected disproportionately by retired people, who in turn are A) a growing demographic and B) vote very reliably, relative to just about any other demographic.
Re: (Score:2)
We don't have to "kill" Medicare or SS.
We simply need to sell it properly. "In order to save social security and make sure YOU will always be assisted in paying your bills, I propose we eliminate payments to the Rich! The rich don't need help - you do. Time to cut them off from receiving benefits." (crowd cheers) And then install a $5 million cap on lifetime income. If you earned more than that, you are ineligible to receive SS or Medicare checks.
That would help save the system from bankruptcy.
Then
Re: (Score:2)
Social Security and medicare damned well better NOT be dismantled. I've been paying into it for forty years for the express purpose of collecting if I manage to survive long enough to collect. FICA is for my social security, and there's a mdeicare tax listed on my pay stub, too.
How about we just take your 401k away when you retire? It's the same damned thing.
Re: (Score:2)
And, of course, retired people have spent decades, most of them all their working life, paying into Medicare and Social Security. Doubtless many of them would be reasonable about ending such entitlements if they got a refund of all the money that went into the system under their name, with inflation adjustments and a reasonable interest rate.
Not only do they have a very high voting rate, and financial incentive to keep these entitlements going, they're owed a lot of money in some way.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
>>>Because see, the way we actually track public opinion in this country is by having elections.
Not true. We also track public opinion via Citizens' calls to the Congressional representatives. In October 2008 the phones were overloaded with citizens saying, "Vote No on the bailout bill," and it passed anyway. Then the same thing happened again in the week prior to the Healthcare Reform Bill ("vote no") and it passed anyway. The calls were approximately 75% and 70% against these bills.
So the pr
Re: (Score:2)
Not true. We also track public opinion via Citizens' calls to the Congressional representatives.
We could track things that way, but since people will always be more fired up and likely to call against rather than for something, that would be a stupid way of doing it.
Elections have worked for America (for some value of worked) for over 200 years. It's good enough for anyone who doesn't hate the Constitution.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I so wish the "Democrat Super-majority Congress" was ignoring the minority, but see, the truth is that the Dems don't vote as a solid block like the Repubs do. If the Democrats in general and Obama in specific had take a "screw you guys, we've got the numbers and we're going do do what we want" then we wouldn't have ended up with such a massively messed up health care bill - we would have had the strong public option instead of this giveaway to the big Insurance companies.
What I've seen is Obama trying
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Amend the Constitution? Inter-state federally administered taxes?! Good luck getting that through in the current political climate.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Why not? We've passed many amendments, including stupid ones. Like the banning of alcohol. How in the world that ever managed to get 75% support is a mystery.
Besides amending the Constitution IS the proper method of extending the US Congresses' authority. Otherwise laws will be nullified by the 10th amendment. (Powers not given to the US are reserved to the States or the People.)
Re: (Score:2)
Pork for the "red states". (Score:2)
Your state gets about $0.60 spent on it by the Federal government for every $1.00 contributed in Federal income tax.
I bet if that money was spent in NJ, the budget problem would be easily solved. Same with CA, CT, NY and MA.
But it is being redistributed to states like NM, AZ, MI, MO, NV, etc...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
My apologies to Nevada. (Score:2)
My apologies to Nevada.
Re: (Score:2)
My favorite chart : http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html [taxfoundation.org]
Re: (Score:2)