Bipartisan Internet Sales Tax Bill Introduced 548
jfruhlinger writes "Four senators, including both Democrats and Republicans, have introduced a bill that would allow (but not require) states to collect sales tax on items purchased by residents online, even the seller has no physical presence in that state. Sellers would be able to pay through either the existing Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement or a new alternative tax simplification plan. Battle lines are being drawn predictably: brick-and-mortar retailers love the idea, Internet-only sellers hate it."
Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
Everything you just listed above is paid for in my property taxes, my fuel taxes (both that I pay and UPS/Fedex when delivering my Amazon packages), and my water bill. Why you need sales tax from me if I'm not using a brick and mortar store to buy something?
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Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
You are talking about Federal taxes, not state and local taxes which is the subject of this post. In general state and local governments are required to balance their budgets.
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But the feds transfer a lot of money to the states. Would their budgets still be balanced without it?
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
Or you have absolutely no clue how expensive things are. Services have been cut back pretty substantially over the last 3 decades or so to the point where infrastructure is beginning to literally fall down. It's not the spending that's the issue it's the refusal to collect the taxes necessary to maintain what we have.
Around here the infrastructure has been crumbling since at least the late 70s and it's gotten to the point where the city is just working on the worst streets first and has a tremendous backlog. And this is a city in which the voters generally understand that we need to pay taxes to maintain and invest in the infrastructure.
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
"ervices have been cut back pretty substantially over the last 3 decades or so to the point where infrastructure is beginning to literally fall down. "
Yes, and meanwhile there has been an explosion of six figure salaries in "administration."
Bipartisan fuckery (Score:5, Insightful)
This. And also, six and seven and eight figure salaries in corporations, yes, those same corporations who won't hire anyone, but are delighted to offshore production while at the same time offshoring income so they don't pay the amount of tax they were intended to, thus putting more of it (taxes) on the backs of the middle class.
But, hey, keep electing rich fucks to political positions, and keep wondering why the tax laws/loopholes favor the rich, while your household budget shrinks every year. It's a frigging mystery, isn't it?
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Are you talking at a federal level or a state level, because as of 2010 just over 60% of the federal budget is comprised of Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid, Unemployment/Welfare and interest on the debt. The rest covers defense and all the other shit most people think of when they think of federal programs (education, transportation, EPA, etc).
Government services have become a lot more expensive, SPECIFICALLY the welfare services which interestingly enough are usually required by those who have lesser i
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Hey, look everybody, it's the "no taxes exist except income taxes, therefore poor people don't pay any tax" lie/meme! How ya doin' NTEEITTPPDPAT? Still discredited but being used by people trying to justify their hatred of anyone with less money than themselves? Great, I'm fine too. Be seei
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
All of those things cost money - and the people who write and pass the laws that create them have for decades done so without any consideration for how much they cost. Every year, the government just borrows more money to cover the additional spending. This is not a Republican problem or a Democrat problem - both major parties are equally guilty - they just want to spend the money on different things.
I'm very conservative. Despite that, I'll agree taxes probably need to go up at this point - BUT... with a couple of caveats:
1) Since the federal government has proved that it is incapable of reining in its spending, increased taxes by itself is not a solution - without some sort of enforced fiscal responsibility, they would just treat increased revenue as a license to increase spending. To that end, a balanced budget amendment is an immediate requirement. If necessary, peg spending to income, and pro-rate all budget items - but it has to be done.
2) The income tax needs to be replaced with a flat, federal sales tax that exempts food and clothing below a set dollar amount that is indexed to inflation. This accomplishes several things. First, it closes all the tax loopholes that the ultra-rich use to pay lower tax rates than the middle class. Money does them no good unless they spend it, and when they spend it, they pay taxes. Second, it abolishes corporate income taxes (which are just taxes on the customers of those corporations by proxy, since the corporations simply pass the costs of those taxes on to the consumer). Third, it gives private citizens at all income levels a stake in paying for the services and monies provided by the federal government. Currently almost half the population pays no federal income tax. As a result, they often have no concern for the costs of benefit programs. This change would mean that the "poor" while not taxed on basic necessities, would be paying some tax - and that tax would increase as federal spending increases. "Want national healthcare? No problem. Your taxes will go up X amount next year to pay for it."
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm very conservative. Despite that, I'll agree taxes probably need to go up at this point - BUT... with a couple of caveats:
I don't agree, raising taxes will just exacerbate the problem. Not because it wouldn't balance the budget, but because it just 'enables' more of the same behavior. Federal spending is out of control because the federal government is out of control. The federal government has taken on far more than was ever intended when the country was established.
The federal government as essentially usurped power that should have been reserved to the states. Our financial problems are fundamentally due to size of government (spending) and not insufficient revenue (taxation). As a conservative I understand the need for taxation but it is the size and number of services that I take issue with and therefore don't want to pay the additional taxes required to support those programs.
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Third, it gives private citizens at all income levels a stake in paying for the services and monies provided by the federal government. Currently almost half the population pays no federal income tax. As a result, they often have no concern for the costs of benefit programs. This change would mean that the "poor" while not taxed on basic necessities, would be paying some tax - and that tax would increase as federal spending increases. "Want national healthcare? No problem. Your taxes will go up X amount next year to pay for it."
You're not identifying the right argument for this. Unless the actual amount of tax paid by poor people is the same as what rich people pay, they're always going to want more spending. Getting $10,000/year worth of medical coverage by paying an extra $800/year in taxes (and having other taxpayers pay the rest) is an obvious win for a poor person.
The real problem with having "taxpayers" who pay no taxes is the perverse incentive it gives to Congress. The single best and most agreeable way to increase tax rev
Re:you have no clue at the depth of fraud (Score:5, Informative)
You are insane if you think teachers are making $100k/year in retirement. My wife used to teach elementary school and was making ~$40k/year with a masters degree in education. If you take a look at the national teacher averages that's right in line:
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/All_K-12_Teachers/Salary [payscale.com]
Ok,l lets look at police:
http://www.payscale.com/research/US/Industry=Law_Enforcement/Salary [payscale.com]
Wow. Lots of $100k salaries there.
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Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly how much tax is collected is a perfectly valid topic to discuss. But a successful nation needs to collect some kind of tax, and the tax being collected needs to be fair.
Making a local business charge tax while their competitors on the other side of the country (or planet) don't charge tax is damaging to the local economy.
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Why should some online retailer have an advantage over your local retailer because they don't have to collect the sales tax? When the internet first got going the feds made a rule that you couldn't charge state sales taxes over the internet. That was probably a good thing at the time to encourage the growth of the internet. But it's here to stay now so we can move beyond the startup phase.. Why should you be allowed to avoid your local sales tax/use tax by buying online. Morally you don't have a leg to
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Why should you be allowed to avoid your local sales tax/use tax by buying online.
For the same the reason you can avoid them by driving out of town/state, because the other state (where the sale is actually made) doesn't impose them. This has to do with competition between states and if you want your state to be more competitive, eliminate or reduce the sales tax.
Not to mention, that all states (I believe) already have a "Use Tax" which is imposed on purchases made out of state/town/country that the state would have charged sales tax on. So the mechanism for collecting these taxes is a
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If your state is losing business to another state because of differences in Sales Tax, then it is up to you to adjust your taxes to encourage business in your state. Another issue is, both states think they are entitled to the Sales Tax, both the
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They do something really amazing for me: I can purchase an item and use it the same day.
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
I have no objection to you buying from online retailers. I just don't think they deserve an advantage over other retailers by not having to collect the sales tax. I buy some things online but other things at brick and mortar stores. For some things I want to be able to touch and feel them before I buy and having a local place to go back to if you have problems, someone who has to look you the eye, is good for resolving them. In the end it doesn't really matter much to me because I live in Oregon. We don't have a sales tax.
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Good ol' Prop 13...yeah, I'm sure THAT hasn't caused any negative consequences in CA, no sirree...
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Good ol' Prop 13...yeah, I'm sure THAT hasn't caused any negative consequences in CA, no sirree...
Hard for me to believe, but people who live in a $700,000 house are paying the same amount in property taxes as a homeowner in the midwest, living in a $80,000 house.
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Yeah, because the alternative is people living in a house for 30 years and being forced to sell it to pay for increasing property taxes they cannot afford on a retired fixed income is so much better for everyone.
Yes, that is the reason for Prop 13 as much as anything else. But liberals want your money so they don't care about old people eating dog food and living on the streets.
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Someone recently ran the numbers on that, and... Prop 13 isn't the problem, it's massive spending increases EVERY FUCKING YEAR that are the problem. If California would just back off state spending to the same level it was just two years ago, that would be sufficent to balance the state budget.
As to whether Californians could survive without Prop 13... My property tax, based on what I paid for my place, is about $2200/year. During the real estate spike, my property's nominal value went up tenfold. If proper
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FTFY
Increasing property taxes on an existing owner makes ZERO sense. They're not making any more money living there. They're not earning more from their boss because some wank appraiser likes their flower garden, or because they added a porch. All you're doing is slowly making it more and more expensive for them to live the same way they always have, until you drive them out. You want to i
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
TASERS! (Score:5, Funny)
I would pay for this. Is it like some sort of new reality tv show? "Chubby d00dz taser random people", tonight on Fox.
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want better cops, you need to pay better salaries to attract more qualified people and pay for more training.
If you want better roads, you need to pay more maintenance, and for a higher grade of construction.
If you want better schools, you need to pay to repair the buildings, and pay for more and better qualified teachers.
All the problems you cite are evidence that taxes are too low to support necessary services. The idea that "underfunded public services suck, so we won't tax the wealthy to pay for public services" meme is the most irrational idea floating around in politics today.
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If only they spent money of those things instead of pouring it down the bottomless holes of bailouts and subsidies.
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, how dare the people working in the government expect retirement plans and healthcare? Clearly they should all be doing their public service as volunteer work.
More money not always the solution (Score:5, Insightful)
And citizens want police & fire departments, better schools, better public transportation, better water supplies, better sewers, better roads, better bridges, etc. What they dont want is to have to pay for any of it.
Wrong. What they don't want is a vast gulf between the amount of taxes collected and the quality of the services and infrastructure provided. For example spending more money per student and getting some of the lowest test scores. Its not that people are unwilling to fund education, its that money is obviously not the problem with education. Something else is broken and perhaps we should fix that first before evaluating what an appropriate level of spending would be.
:-)
Or if you prefer, a car analogy: They don't want to pay Cadillac prices and have a Chevy Aveo delivered.
Fiscal efficiency (Score:3)
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No grade school should be teaching about evolution or creation, probably not even the high schools. They should instead give the students some fundamentals, reading, writing, speaking, mathematics, general sciences, history and critical thinking so that they can study things like evolution or creation later in college when they can make an educated choice to do so.
Too many school are pumping out total nitwits that know nothing but evolution and sex education. They leave schools not knowing basic math, hal
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If you are taking that position, should grade school teach students that the earth is round? That there are other planets?
Why not just give them the fundementals so they can can go and studing things like that later when they can make an educated choice to do so?
Evolution is one of the basic things you have to learn once you start learning biology, so learning any 'general sciences' without it is going to be a problem.
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This is a standard strawman. People don't mind paying for the practical things like you listed. The problem is we're bombarded every day with news of idiotic waste, public employees endlessly gaming the system, sometimes millions of dollars just gone into vapor with government officials shrugging and pointing fingers all over the place, and other varied brands of bullshit. The list is endless, and nothing ever happens to anyone beyond the occasional resignation (right into some cushy lobbying or "consulting
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And citizens want police & fire departments, better schools, better public transportation, better water supplies, better sewers, better roads, better bridges, etc.
And if that was all that states paid for, then we wouldn't have a budget problem or this huge movement to cut taxes. State funds pay for a lot more than just that..
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Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, how do you pay for police & fire & sewers without taxes?
Or maybe you believe crime victims or people whose houses are on fire should have to swipe their credit card before any help is sent.
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:4, Insightful)
Its the only legal way I'm aware of. Taxes are how the government raises money to pay for things. The only other option is a loan or bond, which still needs to be repaid with taxes.
Alas, the government has got away from responsible borrowing and gone credit-card-crazy.
First thing is pass federal law, which requires 66% in House and Senate to exceed revenues from prior year, further tying the overage to a repayment plan, which cannot be rotating (borrow again to pay the prior loan.)
Second, pay down the debt - all of it. After that, taxes could be lowered greatly. Probably never see it in my lifetime, though.
Re:Bipartisan support (Score:5, Insightful)
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Doesn't seem like it. The illegals here by and large pay their state taxes (payroll and sales) and our social programs are very good overall with little wastage. Hell, I was on food stamps etc growing up and I have long since put more money into the system as a result then I ever took out (six figure earner and just purchased my house last year, would be dead in a ditch without welfare etc).
What most people outside (and a lot inside) California don't get, is the property taxes aren't where they should have been. After Prop 13 passed the state, which had a booming economy, excellent public education and healthy state budget went into slow decline. Even during the dotcom bubble years the state wasn't as well funded as it should have been. California is now in the bottom third of the nation in Education spending. Probably tops in prison spending, though.
Property taxes in California (Score:5, Interesting)
Property tax increases have their growth rate capped by prop 13, they are not themselves capped.
When a property is sold, the value is assessed, and the tax rate set, so change in property ownership tends to raise the taxes on the property being sold, well in excess of the normal growth rate cap.
The failure in this scenario is that, as a corporate owner, like the Kaiser family, at the time prop 13 passed, they took all of their properties and incorporated a separate holding company for each one of them. When they want to sell the property, they instead sell the holding company, and the ownership on the property remains the same (the same holding company owns it), and therefore falls under the growth rate cap.
Thus individual property taxes go up, and commercial property taxes do not.
If you are buying a house in California, it's probably worth checking out zoning and corporate ownership over a period of several years compared to increases in the non-capped property assessment over the same period of time, and decide whether you will make more money off selling a property without a drastically increased property tax from a change of ownership, but with mortgage deductions, vs. selling a company which owns a property with a relatively low tax rate which will stay relatively low for the new owner of the corporation. You might be better off creating your own holding company, like the big players do.
My personal take on this would be to have prop 13 not apply to commercial properties, which was a very late amendment to the proposition in order to enable exactly this kind of corporate ownership loophole for commercial properties.
-- Terry
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How can more money for teachers be bad? How can more money for fire departments be bad? Its simply not possible to over-fund something. Everyone should be taxed at the flat rate of 100% on all transactions.. that way everything can get maximum funding!
more spending = better
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Because the one thing all politicians can agree on is that they want more of your money.
Maybe you missed the existence of the Republican party? The party at the national level is very clear on not being willing to raise federal taxes. This bill does not constitute an exception to that. It will result in increased taxes collected by the states. "They" (the federal-government politicians who wrote this bill) are not getting any more of your money.
BTW, I typically vote Libertarian, never Republican -- but let's be accurate rather than glib.
This has been floating around for some time (Score:3)
With the battles between California and Amazon as a foreshadowing, it may be that there will be some sort of phased in deal first.
That's lovely (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how long until all of the big retailers are no longer in the US.
Re:That's lovely (Score:5, Funny)
I wonder how long until all of the big retailers are no longer in the US.
That would make taxation even simpler. Your package sits in customs until the use tax is paid.
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All my "purchases" are actually made by overseas family members who give me gifts on a regular basis. Tax circumvented under current procedures.
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All my "purchases" are actually made by overseas family members who give me gifts on a regular basis. Tax circumvented under current procedures.
Surely you pay duty on everything.
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Sounds like that'll make it easy to tax my online books/music/software purchases *rolls eyes*
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Sounds like that'll make it easy to tax my online books/music/software purchases *rolls eyes*
Internet sellers include those who are selling packaged goods, not digital goods, packaged goods that are the same things that the mentioned brick and mortar stores are also offering?
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AFAIK Customs belongs to the feds, not the individual states.
No problem. The item sits in customs until the state OK's its release.
I feel a disturbance in the force.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I feel a disturbance in the force.... (Score:5, Informative)
Most people already owe these taxes, they just aren't paying them. Some don't know it, some do, but the fact of the matter is that most states already have a "use tax" that matches their sales tax, and is applied only to out-of-state purchases. This is just a way making the online retailers collect the current taxes, instead of the current "Yeah, pay your taxes after the goods ship. Wink, wink." system we have right now. And since it is being done on the federal level, it is entirely legal and constitutional.
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It's more than that, even if I did want to pay the tax I'm not even sure where or how to do it. I don't even know where I would get the form to fill out as my state has no income tax and as such doesn't generally expect to get tax forms from citizens that aren't engaged in commercial activity.
should pay half, but to both states (Score:4, Insightful)
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Any time you do a sales transaction over a border, even by phone or snail mail, both places should get paid but each at half their normal rate.
Example: You're in a state that wants 7%, and the seller is in a state that wants 4%. OK, your state gets 3.5% and the seller's state gets 2%.
You're far to clever for government. ;)
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Sellers who do business in multiple states pay each state the rate for that state, not their local rate. The bill says the state that collect will be the buyer's state. What I wonder is if the rate will be based on the billing address or the shipping address? I might want to get a credit card issued to a NH address -- no sales tax, instead of Massachusetts at 6.25%. The exorbitant state sales tax has already driven me out of local stores and buying everything I can on the net.
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The income tax (your state) and property taxes (seller's state) already get their share of the transaction.
So let's do away with sales taxes entirely. They're regressive and discourage commerce more directly than other taxes.
Oregon (Score:4, Insightful)
Ten Senators (Score:5, Informative)
'Allowed' to collect taxes (Score:2)
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I find it very amusing that it will 'allow' states to collect sales tax on online purchases. As if any state would pass up an opportunity to collect taxes on something.
California rolled back the online tax plan, at least for now, after Amazon threatened to excommunicate all in-state partners.
That really wasn't that long ago, did you forget already?
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When every state is in on it, they won't have much choice. Is Amazon going to pull out of the USA?
There are states without _any_ sales tax (Score:2)
There are states without _any_ sales tax. I would be surprised if they implemented this.
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As has been said here before, if I, an Ohioan, buy something from Newegg.com in CA, my state of residence has no idea about it. They can't compel Newegg to collect tax on my behalf like they can Best Buy.
Ohio is not allowed to tax purchases I make across state lines per Article I, Section 10. They get around that by taxing the use of the item rather than the sale. So on my Ohio taxes, there's a line where I declare any purchases I made that were not subject to sales tax. They then tax me on the use of t
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Amendment 10: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
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Article I, Section 8: "The Congress shall have power To [...] regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes"
While I don't think it really applies to most of the ways this clause is used, in this case it seems appropriate since the bill would only ensure that existing taxes are enforced.
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"Section 1.0: We
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I see your Amendment 10 and raise you Article 1, Section 8:
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
~
To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes.
Buying something from OH and shipping it to CA looks like interstate commerce to me.
Trolling tax ... (Score:3, Insightful)
They could balance the budget in less than a year.
The USPS needs a job. (Score:5, Interesting)
Make the USPS the handler of the sales tax system. They are already in position to id your house, down to the City, County, State and whether it is actually city, county, state, federal or other jurisdiction.
Since we already have laws that make the drive of the truck responsible for the items. Then make the carriers which include FedEx and UPS, be the collector, since they are persons handing the package to customer.
This way the calculation of tax, is part of address validation that all these systems use along with freight charges.
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Not all sales involve a product which needs to be shipped to your door.
The way it works here in Australia is any time a business sells anything to to a customer, they are required to provide an invoice stating how much tax was collected. If they do not provide an invoice, or if they collect the wrong amount of tax, or if they try to pretend they are not a business when they really are, they will be sent off to prison.
It's simple, it works, and it's fair.
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Re:Too bad the law is unconstitutional (Score:5, Informative)
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Congress didn't pass the law struck down in that case, that was an Illinois state law.
Soooooo .... (Score:2)
This is a bill that would actually allow the sales tax to be collected and hence close the loophole of people not self reporting their "use" tax??? Thus the gubermint will be able to actually collect on the money it already has claims on???
About time (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not sure if this bill is the answer, but it's about time you guys fixed this issue over on your side of the pond. It's just plain stupid that some businesses collect sales tax, while other businesses don't.
All businesses should be paying the exact same tax, under the same laws. Anything else is extremely unfair.
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Yeah, too bad sales taxes differ even on brick-and-mortar establishments here. Oregon has no sales tax. In California the amount of sales tax varies by county. This is going to be fun!
Re:About time (Score:4, Insightful)
Not just by county, but they can vary by school districts, or even by city!
Indeed. My wife shops at the grocery store near my home rather than one a few miles down the road because even though the other store has a better selection and lower shelf prices, the other one is on the other side of a city line, and sales tax there is 9% while the nearby store's sales tax is 4%. After you factor in taxes, checkout prices at the nearby store are lower.
However, all this tax variation isn't a problem for on-line retailers. Or, rather, it's a solved problem. There are plenty of on-line retailers who have broad physical presence and so have to collect tax in all states, and to do it correctly by locality, so there are services which will give you the accurate tax rate based on the buyer's address and also help you do the accounting to ensure that you pay all of the taxes to the right entities. For that matter, I think many brick-and-mortar chains use these same services because it's easier to let someone else keep track of the changes in the tax rates all over the country.
Honestly, although I've appreciated the lack of sales taxes on-line and the fact that it has allowed on-line businesses to grow when otherwise the combination of fear of buying online plus shipping costs might have buried them, we're past that point. Having to collect sales tax won't make it impossible for on-line retailers to compete with brick and mortar stores, because of all the other advantages on-line sellers have, and it may well prevent the imminent demise of many brick and mortar industries.
I like not paying sales tax for stuff, but the on-line/brick-and-mortar distinction is unfair. If you really don't want to pay sales tax, move to a state that doesn't have sales tax.
Re:About time (Score:4, Informative)
Sales tax is applied to the consumer, not to the business. The business is unaffected, except in how many orders they receive as a result of having lower taxes than buying in-state.
Streamlined Sales and Use Tax (Score:2)
Although I'm only vaguely familiar with the so-called Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement, I've read enough about it to know that calling it "streamlined" is a major misnomer. The rules behind SSUTA are sufficiently complex as to require computer software to calculate taxes due on particular kinds of items purchased by residents of particular states. While I'm sure this wouldn't be a problem for major online retailers, smaller retailers would almost certainly need to outsource tax calculations to third
email (Score:2)
wasn't there an email about this a year or ten ago?
Job killing sales tax. (Score:2)
Everyone knows that if you want less of something you tax it. Sales tax disincentivises purchases and costs our economy jobs.
If that argument works for capitol gains taxes it should work for sales taxes too right?
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Right, unless it replaces an existing tax. I don't presently pay sales tax, but would trade income tax for sales tax, if there was no constitutional possibility of ending up with both.
But I see what you're saying. Taxing sales rather than income tends to promote savings, (which I think is a good thing) but fewer sales means less consumption, which leads to job loss.
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Sales taxes disincentivises consumption, something that our nation is has no shortage of. Capital gains taxes disincentivises savings and investment, something that should be encouraged.
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Sales taxes disincentivises consumption, something that our nation is has no shortage of. Capital gains taxes disincentivises savings and investment, something that should be encouraged.
If your only goal is to improve your financial position, yes. However, keep in mind that the sole purpose of saving and investment is to enable future consumption of a net present value greater than the opportunity cost. There is a natural balance between present consumption and deferred consumption (saving), and targeting either with a tax to encourage the other results in misallocation of resources and consequently a loss of wealth.
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Re:Conservatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Conservatives love a good sales tax because it is nice and regressive.
What part of "Bipartisan Internet Sales Tax Bill Introduced" and "Four senators, including both Democrats and Republicans" makes you want to point at just conservatives, besides demagoguing a single party? Almost all politicians love a good tax on whatever. Like the Christmas tree tax that just got added into all the other ridiculous Agri-taxes the fed has imposed over the years to prop up industries the free-market would otherwise have let work out on its own, this is just another federal manipulation of market desires for the wrong reasons. I'm for regulation, but taxes are an area that need 100% overhaul. Not incremental change. Sweeping reform. For the most part we never see taxes being removed. And that is a bipartisan ailment. Regressive taxes favor all the good-ole-boy club members, and their unfairness or however you view it is perpetrated by both parties.
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"Partisan Hack" is the part that makes him want to point.
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What part of "Bipartisan Internet Sales Tax Bill Introduced" and "Four senators, including both Democrats and Republicans" makes you want to point at just conservatives
Because the D's are pro any-tax? I think GP was explaining the reason why it was bipartisan (whether correct or not is another matter).
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I'm still undecided.
Amazon strongly endorses this bill according to a statement I read on Ars today.
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The need "to know and apply all the sales tax rules in every jurisdiction" is a much more significant burden to online retailers than it is to local ones. Local retailers, regardless of who owns them, are run by people local to the state, meaning each