Impending CA Sales Tax Sparks Amazon Buying Frenzy 259
New submitter payola writes "On September 15, Amazon will begin adding in sales tax for purchases made in California. This is sparking a buying frenzy among California residents who are rushing to buy consumer electronics and other expensive items on the site before the deadline. Of course, consumers are supposed to pay sales taxes on their online purchases anyway, but few actually do. 'Amazon is not the only Internet merchant affected by the new law. But as the nation's largest online retailer, it has been the main target. More than 200 other out-of-state companies with major business in California may also be on the hook to collect sales taxes on items shipped to the state. The tax revenue from these online sales is being lauded as a win for the debt-ridden state, which estimates it will see an additional $317 million annually as a result; more than $83 million of that is expected to come from Amazon alone.'"
Jerks (Score:4, Insightful)
Great (Score:4, Insightful)
which estimates it will see an additional $317 million annually as a result
And will be instantly pissed away on corruption and bullshit and the bond payments for the initial funding for that idiotic "high speed" train which is really just a welfare project for high paid political cronies to sit around on boards and committees.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent. But its been a long time since I felt that way.
Near my small California town, I can count about 20 million spent on the 32nd park in my small town, a roadside beautification project that is far from beautiful, new road signs made by the company that does them for Rodeo Drive (the old road signs were fine), a pedestrian overpass that absolutely nobody uses because its 10x longer than just running across the street, etc.
Don't even get me started on the Federal governments waste of my tax dollars.
I can spend my money in way more useful ways than they can, and I'm sure I've created more jobs than the entirety of the government, on every level. Hell, I have at least 4 different delivery people come to my house almost every day.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
Biggest problem I have with government is it spends whatever it likes, regardless how much I pay in taxes. Watching it go from $1 trillion debt in 1980 to $16 trillion these days, tells me the act of collecting taxes is largely done to pay interest on the debt, nothing more.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
The's another dynamic here. Imagine if you're a brick and mortar store trying to compete with amazon. Not only do they have low overhead, high volumes, etc, but they have a 10% price break from no sales taxes. How can you compete with that? this levels the playing field a little bit. Inb4 brick and mortar is a fail: remember that they provide al people jobs in California, so if we can make brick and mortar more competitive with online (at least by removing artificial barriers) then it is good for the state.
B&M stores can't compete anyhow. If I want something, chances are I'd have to go to five stores to find it, and it'd be 20% more than I could buy the item for online. After I spent $5 worth of gas looking for it. Once again, no thanks.
Why level the playing field? Amazon has a very good business going that employs a lot of people. B&M stores that only stock a slice of what I want are yesterdays old moldy news.
You have seen the story about how amazon intends to deliver about 50-70% of their items the same day as ordered? They're already working with a van service here in the southwest and I've been happy with their deliveries so far.
Oh, and all of the grocery stores near me will pull and deliver an order for free. One did it so the rest had to follow suit.
Seems like the wave is moving away from lots of stores that don't have what I want to a bunch of giant warehouses and guys that bring the stuff to my house. But lets fark that up by 'leveling the playing field', which in my experience means cutting the legs out of someone doing a good job and handing them to someone that wants to screw those legs to the top of their head.
Re:Jerks (Score:2, Insightful)
It's legal because they change the laws to make it that way. Mitt Romney made his money 'legally' too, but is too ashamed to release his tax returns so we know how. That should tell you something. If every worker in the US insisted they are paid through their Cayman's registered company which employs them on "minimum wage" then Treasury would spit their coffee.
> The tax revenue from these online sales is being lauded as a win for the debt-ridden state, which estimates
Have they factored in that the new tax will cause people to buy less?
>I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent. But its been a long time since I felt that way.
Yes, government wastes a lot of money, but they don't waste all of it. e.g. The platoon taking fire for you somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan. (A cheap shot, but I make my point.) The CDC doesn't suck either.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
Biggest problem I have with government is it spends whatever it likes, regardless how much I pay in taxes.
This. Why should we feel morally compelled to offer up MORE of our hard earned money to a group of people who are completely unable to responsibly handle what we already give them? Even if we turned over our entire yearly incomes and lived off the land, they'd still find a way to utterly piss it all away and we'd be in the same boat. Blaming *us* for the state's financial woes is blaming the victim. The state needs to get its own shit straight before they go pointing the finger at anybody else.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't avoid taxes when I feel that my money is well spent.
Sorry but this is a bit of a cop-out.
We all want the money to be spent well. We all want to have say in how it's used. But the reality is that sometimes the money is going to be spent on things we don't like (e.g. Iraq or TSA). And people who do like these things don't want money going to, say, ACORN or Planned Parenthood (I'm making some generalizations here). And someone who lives in Northern California might not like that $200 of his taxes are going towards widening a freeway in San Diego. But this is how government (even an efficient and trim one, which CA is not) works.
If you want to fix government and how it spends your money, get involved. Hold your representatives accountable for how they vote (not what they say in speeches). Don't use the fact that government does many things (some you like, some you don't) as an excuse to skip taxes. Despite what some politicians are saying, tax evasion is NOT patriotic.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
And then there's the MTC [ca.gov] in the San Francisco Bay Area (funded through sales tax and bridge tolls among other sources) that purchased an entire building in downtown San Francisco and is renovating it to become offices for $170M. It's not clear why they couldn't stay in Oakland where office space is much cheaper than downtown San Francisco. Well, it is clear -- they have unlimited funding since residents are forced to fund them, if they need more money they can just raise tolls and/or taxes.
http://www.mercurynews.com/breaking-news/ci_21418357/mtcs-san-francisco-office-building-purchase-bridge-tolls [mercurynews.com]
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matier-ross/article/MTC-project-may-cost-Bay-Area-drivers-more-3822760.php [sfgate.com]
When confronted with the fact that their purchase may not have been cost effective, the MTC rep said:
a San Mateo County supervisor who chairs the commission, insisted that the agency's goal was never to make money - or even necessarily to break even.
"We're not looking at it as investment per se," Tissier said. "We look at it as moving into your own home."
That's the problem with government agencies - what incentive do they have to spend money wisely?
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't even care that much, so long as I get a say in how it's spent.
It'd be easy to do. Put a list of projects and costs on the internet and let people vote for them. Top votes win and we keep going down the list until we're out of money. Anyone or any entity that wants to private fund a project can whip out their checkbook.
Once you fix the unique online identify situation, you've also got all voting online capable.
Of course, none of this will ever happen. Not because of technology issues, but because polticians take the job for power and the ability to spend other peoples money with impunity. They sure as shoot don't want us voting online, because then everyone would do it and they'd have lots of available information to make their decisions. Politicians like people who do what they're told, when they're told.
Hell, we aren't even allowed to vote for candidates in the primaries unless we state a party affiliation and then we're only allowed to vote for candidates from that party. The republicans wont even send you a ballot if you ask for it, unless you register republican. They're uncomfortable with non-sheeple independent voters who might upset their preprogrammed apple cart.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't even care that much, so long as I get a say in how it's spent.
It'd be easy to do. Put a list of projects and costs on the internet and let people vote for them. Top votes win and we keep going down the list until we're out of money.
That is a TERRIBLE idea. We'd have massive statues of dicks and giant pudding-filled swimming pools. You can't trust this shit to the internet and you sure as hell can't trust the wisdom of mob-rule.
Re:Jerks (Score:0, Insightful)
Right, just roll over and pay the tax. What a wise post, not.
I am not the fool, this government works for us, wake up.
I have little faith in Romney, but he is the better choice. This will not change overnight, you have to fight this war one battle at a time. Take what ground you can. A vote for Obama is a sure path to more taxes, less idividual liberty and more statism.
You think 'never change look at all of are history', I don't think you know much about history.
What is your choice citizen? Statism or representative government?
Vote Romney for president and vote conservative in all other offices where you have the choice. And follow through.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
The government doesn't need my money. We are sixteen trillion dollars in debt. Actually, far worse than that. But if you just go off the typical "national debt clock" numbers, it's only sixteen trillion. That's $16,000,000,000,000.00. That's up six trillion from four years ago and up eleven trillion from twelve years ago. Taking a thousand dollars out of my pocket has a real meaningful impact on my life and the life of people I care about. It means very little to my government, who has absolutely no concern for the value of money. They don't need my thousand dollars (or tens of thousands of dollars per year, actually). How do I know they don't need it? Because no matter how much we give them, they spend trillions more that don't actually exist. I don't have the luxury of spending money I don't have, so the money actually means something to me when they take it away. If they don't take it away, they would have no problem just magically inventing that money and throwing it onto the spent pile of "money we'll owe forever".
The system is broken and "getting involved" will accomplish nothing. It's fixed and its broken and the concept of "participation" is there not so that you can accomplish anything, but for the same bullshit reason we tell people it's important to "get out and vote". Because it placates you. It has ZERO real impact. It just makes you feel like you're a better (if meaningless) person.
Re:Jerks (Score:4, Insightful)
The platoon taking fire for you somewhere in the mountains of Afghanistan.
Wait, are you trying to say that's not wasted money, and lives?
Re:US Constitution, Section 9, Paragraph 5 (Score:5, Insightful)
The flaw in your logic is thinking that sales tax is a tax on goods. It is not. It is a tax on transactions. You don't owe tax because you bought a book, you owe tax because you spent $15.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jerks (Score:2, Insightful)
If you think Romney and Obama are equally statist then you haven't been paying attention. Not my fault.
The fact is you have two choices, one is better than the other in terms of individual liberties and economics. The OP made the poorly stated point "they are all not worth a dam just the rich standing on the backs for the working man". Do you understand what it is that will stand for the working man? Centralized government will only work against this. The conservative stands for local government power, states rights, limitations on federal power, the constitution. If you truly want to help your neighbor and yourself you would support the conservative. But like as not you don't even understand this.
Romney is no savior, he is no conservative, but he is better than the other choice. And you will note that I advise not to stop with Romney but to vote conservative in all other offices where you have the choice. And follow through. Do you have the wisdom to understand this and do the right thing? Or will you just keep drinking the kool aid and doing as you are told by John Stewart?
Have a good day.
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only do they have low overhead, high volumes, etc, but they have a 10% price break from no sales taxes. How can you compete with that? this levels the playing field a little bit.
Sure, lets artificially make less efficient businesses more competitive.
This is why I inserted time-wasting OS calls into my qsort() function. I want bubble sort to be able to compete with more efficient sorting algorithms, so I make sure that bubble is artificially more competitive.
I also installed the battery from the old dumb phone into my new smart phone, because it just was not right that the new phone lasted longer on a charge than the old one did.
Are you picking up what I am putting down? Maybe you should have someone else help you pick that up, even though you are perfectly capable of doing it on your own. We wouldn't want people incapable of picking it up by themselves to feel less competitive.
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
i can top that.
like many cities san jose was and is struggling its budget and has laid off workers, cut worker wages, cut pensions and benefits, and cut city services. that didn't stop them from building a new $400M city hall right at the peak of the economic downturn.
the old offices were *fine* (i live across the street from them), and if they needed more space there were (and still are) literally hundreds of large vacant office buildings in san jose that could have been had for cheap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Jose_City_Hall [wikipedia.org]
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/04/29/story2.html?page=all [bizjournals.com]
Re:Jerks (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Great (Score:3, Insightful)
You really lose all credibility when you rant about some point and then try to justify the rant with bad math.
And then you accuse people who do disagree with as having poor math skills.
Well 1 in 7 people DON'T work for the government. It's 7% of people who work for the government. I hope you understand the difference.
And guess what - it was the SAME percentage as it was in the 1970's. Government employment hasn't grown. Yes there have been minor fluctuations. But it's flat flat flat since the 1970's.
So what has happened to drive the debt up?
Try TAX CUTS. Starting with Reagan. Spending in the US has not increased significantly as a percentage of GDP. What has happened is tax collection has gone done as a percentage of GDP. Right now it's less than any time since Truman was in office. In theory it was supposed to lead to increased revenues for government. Well guess what - GHW Bush called it voodoo economics. He was right. There is NO evidence that this idea has led to increased revenues. Revenues did go up, but at the same rate you would expect from economic and population growth. A math literate would realize this, but apparently conservative economists are more tied to their world views than they are to using math to validate their ideas.
Ronald Reagan ALSO made a large increase to the payroll withholding tax in order to finance benefits for the boomer generation. Something I happen to have been paying for 30 years.
Unfortunately Ronnie and Congress turned around and spent that on defense and tax cuts. And left IOUs in our stockings. Which are now coming due. So see your idea of immediate funding doesn't work. Governments screw that up so easily it's pathetic.
Personally since I have some investing acumen I'd have been better off without SS. The extra invested money would be worth a lot more than my current expected SS benefit. But I realize not everybody is in that position.
Now it's kind of instructive to see who the primary beneficiaries of the tax cuts and defense spending were. I think a lot of people can guess. It certainly wasn't the boomer middle class which is starting to retire right now. Guess also who is screaming for even more tax cuts now.
FACT: Boomers paid all sorts of debts, including the financing of their parent's retirements, the Marshal Plan and the Cold War, which was a big pill to swallow. What the hell kind of privileged class do you think you are that you feel you can escape your responsibilities to the society you live in?