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)
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.
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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.
Agreed, this is a common issue with most countries. I don't mind paying taxes, but I for damn sure want value for my money.
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.
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I think the idea was to put a list of pre-approved projects up for vote or to let people submit ideas for approval by a board of some sort. I would hope a city, county, state, etc wouldn't actually let people vote on erecting statues of giant penises. San Francisco is obviously excluded. I was disappointed not seeing any when I visited for the first time.
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Pudding filled swimming pools? (Score:2, Funny)
giant pudding-filled swimming pools
That sounds really cool. I would definately vote for that!
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Remind me, how is this a bad thing? :)
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Interesting)
No, they'll Prop 123 to demand X (which passes), and in the same election Prop 124 for the tax increase to pay for X (which gets voted down). Which is one of the major reasons why they're budget is in a serious mess.
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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.
right, and when people vote to spend your tax dollars on free donuts and coffee for your city and personal massages for all residents, what will you do then?
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That isn't enough information. We also need to know the expected net social benefits, in the same currency as the costs. For example, a project that costs $2 million and gives $4 million in benefits is a better investment than a project that costs half as much ($1 million) but gives only $1 million in benefits.
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I'd get a kick out of starting projects that way on the internet.
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Although I don't disagree in general that politicians don't really care too much what people want, that's a far too cynical attitude to think they like people who do what they're told. A much simpler explanation for their behaviour is that they are bought/paid-for since the easiest way to get re-elected is to spend lots of money (advertising for elections and bringing back pork for the local folks, etc). If they thought it would be easier to get re-elected by just figuring out what most of the people want
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: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, Interesting)
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.
It's hard to have sympathy for the state's plight. When the state announced they were going to close 70 state parks private individuals donated money in an attempt to keep some of those parks open.
Then it turned out that up to $54 million was squirrelled away, for still murky reasons, that should of gone to funding the parks.
If CA finances are this much of a mess how can Californians in good conscious be asked to pay yet more in tax hikes?
http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/politics&id=8750455
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And do you know why this happens?
Hint:
Stupid, ignorant, apathetic voters.
People get the government they deserve. Always.
- Joseph de Maistre
Well maybe next time people will be smarter.
Nah.
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Greetings and salutation;
So...you, the AC, are willing to trust your government to a man who has made his millions by making sure that the businesses he has had a hand in have made a huge profit, no matter WHAT the human cost, as opposed to a community organizer who has worked to help the disadvantaged in America? You do realize, do you not, that Mr. Romney will throw you under the bus with no more thought or concern than he would with an empty milk carton, if it
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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,
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.
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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.
You apparently read "avoid" as "evade". Easy to do.
Wish these guys spent even a fraction of my money on important stuff, although the things you listed are federal, not state obligations.
Our politicians waste 80% of my money on things nobody would support, except maybe the people cashing the checks.
Get involved? Hmm, unless I'm ready to line up under a billion dollar entity that'll tell me how I'll be voting, I wouldn't have a chance in hell of running or changing anything. Unless I can swing that kind o
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You apparently read "avoid" as "evade". Easy to do.
The only difference between the two is 15 years of prison time. (old CPA joke)
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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.
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The actions of the person I replied to or the actions of others with offshore accounts are secretive and do not lead to societal or government improvements.
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is slightly less powerful than a single queef
Clearly, you have never been exposed to the Road Warrior Queef. [vimeo.com]
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 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]
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Santa Clara's even worse: they're spending taxpayer money on a goddamn football stadium [wikipedia.org].
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Right, and how many countries have you invaded?
Seriously though, governments do do stuff that you need. Yes, they waste a lot, but that doesn't justify this lame All Government is a Waste meme. It's the stupidest legacy of old Ronald Reagan — who actually didn't do much about government waste. Beyond, that is, telling stupid stories about it. He did cut taxes a lot, so of course he was a great leader! Hey, never mind the resulting deficit.
Yeah, government is fucked up. Stop whining about it as if it h
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California has a spending problem. This is a well known problem, and it has been around for a number of years. We have a balanced budget amendment here in California, but our legislature flagrantly ignores it by "projecting" tax revenues to balance whatever sort of batshit-crazy spending program they want to fund. It's so bad, that the *Democrat* State Controller called the Democrat-run legislature on their bullshit.
The reason spending is out of control in the state is because several powerful interest grou
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Hit yourself in the head law (Score:2)
When the government passes a law that says, "you must hit yourself in the head until you get a good headache", and the people don't obey, don't blame the people.
I'm not a radical libertarian who believes the government should just curl up and die; but there's smart government and there's stupid government. Requiring customers to tax themselves after the point of sale, and expecting anything other than massive non-compliance is stupid government par excellance.
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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, w
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?
Legal corruption (Score:2)
Re:Jerks (Score:5, Interesting)
And for those against taxes, how do you think the roads get built and repaired, bridges built, libraries funded, oversight to make sure our water, food, and medical care are safe, even trains and other public transportation (when you need it you appreciate it), fire departments, emergency response, kids educated, streets and roadways cleaned, etc. etc. etc. No taxes - and we will just end up with new fees from other sources.
I wish they'd spend money on those things. We've had our school budgets cut so far I had to spend $250 on school supplies for my kids room. Real exotic stuff like staplers and marker pens for the white board. I also have to routinely fix school computers as it appears they cut everyone who can fix anything. My wife and I spend time daily in the classroom, because there are too many students and the teachers can't even perform class management, let alone teach them.
We spend more on education and health care, yet get among the worst results.
All of the county fire departments and state resources are all isolated now and won't help each other without being paid for the pleasure. Can't wait until the next time we have a huge fire near a county line and everyone on the other side is sitting on their hands, waiting to get paid.
I live in a wealthy town, yet my roads suck. Most of the roads around here do. 15 miles from the state capital, so it aint like Jerry doesn't see it.
We cut our library staffs so much, many of them closed or are only open limited hours.
We're currently spending billions on a high speed rail that starts in the middle of nowhere and ends in the middle of nowhere, which nobody will ride.
But we spent $400k to put up new rodeo drive quality signs in my town.
My friend Jerry says he's asking for a tax increase, and if we don't give into it, he'll cut the schools, healthcare and state welfare budgets. I seem to have missed how they're going to cut back on unnecessary spending, like any sane person would do when they're spending more than they're taking in.
Sounds a lot like extortion to me.
I'd be Buffet-like and write a check for extra, if they actually put the money to good use. But they don't. If they spent most of it in the areas you mentioned, I'd be all for it. But that stuff is in last place when it comes time to write a check. The politicians know most of us are too stupid to think it through and will just buckle and pay more.
But if they raise taxes, I'm packed and ready to leave. We already pay high income, sales and property taxes. I'm not getting my moneys worth. Nevada or New Mexico or Oregon are alllll calling...
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I always say California has first world taxes and third world roads.
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If you already spend your own time and money educating your kids, why not take the next step and home school them? Home schooled kids learn a lot more, and everything happens on your schedule, not the school's.
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FWIW when you purchase stuff out of state in California you use the "use tax" line on the state form to add up your taxes and pay those unpaid ones at the end of the year.
We have a similar use tax here in Maine and when I lived in Washington State we had use tax there. In both cases, tax due can be calculated based on the actual amount of out of state purchase or the tax payer can elect to pay a calculated amount based on income -- essentially an amnesty payment. I've always opted for the amnesty option because it's very difficult to get an accurate total of out of state purchases. As states move toward collecting sales tax on out of state purchases, those of us who also
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Actually, I do. I started my own one-man consulting business and took a quick accounting class. This topic came up (Use Tax). I wasn't aware of this prior to this time, and mostly because I wanted to track everything accurately (as I was claiming business expenses, etc.), I tracked all purchases. This included tracking all purchases which didn't have sales tax so that I could pay use taxes.
Anyway, long story shortened, I was offered a full-time position at one of my clients, and shut down my business.
I
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.
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Oh, well, there's a few good schools. No need to try and fight the corruption and waste and bullshit elsewhere, then! I have seen the light!
Seriously, your response was almost a complete non sequitur.
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Insufficient funding for public education would be fixed if CA could manage it's budget, and stop pissing away my taxes on ridiculous expenses. As would the awful roads, poor public transportation, and any other number of things.
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If you show me where I can sign to reduce the ridiculous prison spending, I'll sign ASAP.
We could start by repealing the absurd drug criminalization, and the 3-strikes law.
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Well, some are. The CSU system is a public system in contrast to the mostly private UC system. Go Trojans! ... Yeah, I actually have no school spirit. ;-) I consider my degrees to be pure business transactions. I paid money and they gave me head stuff and a valuable parchment.
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That's all part of the problem, but, damn, you try and argue this stuff with, say, a hard core Progressive, and, oh my, I want to starve the elderly and abolish fire departments and feed children to the coyotes and, holy moly the hyperbole out of those folks! It's like talking church/state separation with evangelical neocons.
Ideology is a mind cancer that is going to kill civilization.
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Now, even if we barred public sector unions and States from negotiating over the destination of distant-future tax revenue, the problem we have still stands. There are a hell of a lot of people that EXPECT those pensions because they worked for several decades under a contract that stated that those pensions would be there.
The other problem is of course that there really ARE a hell of a lot of these people. Even thoug
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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
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>>So what has happened to drive the debt up?
>>Try TAX CUTS
No.
Spending has skyrocketed, whereas revenue has stayed mostly stable (though it took a hit during the last couple years by a couple points).
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=205 [taxpolicycenter.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Us_gov_spending_history_1902_2010.png [wikipedia.org]
It's a spending problem, stupid.
States with no sales tax (Score:2)
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The sales tax in Alaska is regional rather than statewide, so depends on where you live. Of the two biggest cities, Juneau charges a 5% sales tax, while Anchorage has no sales tax.
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So what would happen if someone in Alaska would purchase an item and than give that item to someone in a state that did have a sales tax? With automobiles it is easy since that automobile must be registered in the state of residency the sales tax is collected when registering that automobile.
There are efforts to monitor state border of New Hampshire (no sales tax) for anyone trying to buy anything major (cars, electronics, etc.) and take it across the border -- not sure how exactly.
Most stores at the border have limits to how many packs of cigarets you can buy in one go.
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There are efforts to monitor state border of New Hampshire (no sales tax) for anyone trying to buy anything major (cars, electronics, etc.) and take it across the border
Regarding vehicles, in the states I've lived in, if you bring in a car from out of state you have to prove you have owned it for a relatively long period of time (say 12 months). Otherwise, they collect state sales tax when the vehicle is registered/licensed.
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The person in the state that received it would (in most states) be committing tax fraud.
Amazon not the only place that's tax-free (Score:2)
Every tax-free online store is now going to advertise this fact.
Who cares? (Score:3)
I buy from Amazon because it is easy and convenient. With Prime, things are delivered right to the door within a day or two. When same day shipping is there, there will be virtually no where else I'll need to shop.
Sales tax? BFD.
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Sales tax? BFD.
I spend approximately $17,000 a year at Amazon. My state tax load would be a bit over $1500 per year.
Which qualifies it for a serious BFD in this household.
No biggie. There are usually 4-5 online companies with prices within a few percent of each other. I usually give amazon the nod because of their good customer service, return policy, fast shipping and competitive prices. Add 9% to those prices and I'm buying from one of the other 3-4 who don't.
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That's right, imagine the equivalent cost of shipping such a significant proportion of your income (said the OP) on the Pony Express.
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Either you aren't from here, or you're just another retardican. Infrastructure is amazing here, the police rock, and you should try jury duty, the initial opening presentation is inspiring (because they know you are a selfish fuck who doesn't get it, and lay it out such a way that an infant like yourself can get it).
I've lived in CT, LA, VA and now CA. It is so well planned and managed here you can't imagine because you're an anonymous coward, a pussy, selfish, and voted for the wrong party until you "rea
excessively burdensome to merchants (Score:3)
This is the beginning of the end for sales-tax evading commerce of all kinds, e-commerce, telephone ordering, and order by mail. It is the beginning of the end for the small and mid size non-store commerce businesses.
As every state, county, and other municipalities pile on to demanding these non-store merchants collect their sales taxes, the merchants are going to be faced with a very difficult task: keeping track of the tax rate where the purchase is delivered, and then remitting those funds to the appropriate government agency. Consider a city dwelling consumer, who is liable for city, county, and state sales taxes. The merchant must know how much to collect from each customer based on the delivery address, and will need to maintain separate accounting for every district that they must remit the collected taxes to.
This is going to be very expensive, and guess who pays? Mr. Customer. It will also be very damaging to small and medium size non-store retailers, who will not be able to afford the systems to administer collecting for tens of thousands of different tax regions.
There needs to be a better solution, one that can scale, one that is acceptable to both the merchants and the tax-collecting government.
Re:excessively burdensome to merchants (Score:4, Informative)
Sounds like a great business opportunity - tax clearing house. Probably already exists. Oops, just googled it, and here it is [thestc.com].
Fuck you CA, my Dad lives in AZ (Score:2)
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Why shouldn't you or Amazon pay for the infrastructure to get you your goods, the police to protect them, the courts to uphold your rights?
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No, road repairs, cops and courts are paid for by magic faerie dust.
I live in OC; I've lived in Louisiana, Connecticut, and Virginia.
Despite the fiction of CA you believe and have faith in, life is pretty awesome and very well run here.
Money well spent.
What will the result be? (Score:2)
Amazon will fade as all those consumers move to sites where they don't have to pay California's already ridiculous sales tax. Eventually the rest of the states will demand amazon pay up... and they will fade into obscurity. At least, up until now, they were collecting taxes from amazons earnings. In the end California will collect NOTHING as the company people place their orders with will be in Canada, Mexico, or somewhere else.
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Any tax money amazon gets, they'd get anyway. If $9 more breaks the bank on a $100 purchase then you shouldn't be spend the $100 anyway.
You're starting to sound like my wife.
Frankly, I buy 10% more than I would if I were universally taxed. What do you think does more for the economy...me and a brazillion other people spending a little extra to build and deliver things, or giving that money to the California legislators to build that high speed rail that starts near nothing and ends near nothing and that almost nobody will ever ride?
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Actually, someone else who does not apply CA tax, will get the business. If I get a $700 laptop, the tax would be 70 dollars (Recycling tax+tax in my county is 9.25%). I would rather buy it from one of the other online retailers.
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And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
I suspect you'll just buy from whoever has the lower total price, just like 99.99% of customers. In some cases Amazon would still win even at +9% because of their aggressive discounting.
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And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
I suspect you'll just buy from whoever has the lower total price, just like 99.99% of customers. In some cases Amazon would still win even at +9% because of their aggressive discounting.
You underestimate how much I enjoy not giving my money to California.
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So why would it make any difference if Amazon lowered their prices? California would still be getting its cut.
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.
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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.
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Harrison Bergeron FTW!
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html [tnellen.com]
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Don't need BACON?
Wrong bunny.
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It may not change much. If Amazon is opening more warehouses in California, it can offset the negative perception from taxes by making it easier to get free or at least fast shipping. In the former case, it cuts Amazon's shipping costs so they can offer up more things for free. In the latter case, people are very happy to get things next- or second-day when they paid for longer delivery times. This was originally a major reason for me to start buying from NewEgg as a lot of the Southern California area
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I was thinking a similar thing. You can get standard shipping free normally, but maybe offer a free Amazon Prime-like account to states that demand the sales tax with free two day shipping.
On the other hand, I tend to get things from Amazon in a couple days even with standard free ("super saver") shipping anyway.
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how many millions has California spent (in manpower, in legal bills, etc) to 'win' this money? how many years of this will it take to break even?
and now that things will cost more, how much less will California consumers spend (both with Amazon and from local stores)
Ding Ding Ding, we have another winnar!
They'll get almost nothing. Most of it will go to two towns where amazon is building warehouses, and those towns are giving amazon most of the money to get them to build there.
So we the people will have a lot of their tax money spent collecting and redistributing the tax income, but very little of that will actually go to the state level. So they spent all of that (our) money getting next to nothing, and amazon and those two towns are smarter than Jerry and the CA le
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And all that will get pissed away, or affect the economy to the point where revenues actually decrease.
Notice how any criticism of the California government is modded down now?
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Honest politicians can't get into office because the corporate run media won't let them get their faces in front of the voters.
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They don't care. All they want is more money and more power. If this bombs they'll pass something else.
People need to stop looking at politicians as beings with feelings and consciences.
Honestly, this state cannot go bankrupt soon enough, or whatever happens when we reach that point. Federal receivership or handle the bankruptcy one county at a time. Whatever.
Be honest. (Score:2)
They get out of collecting taxes for the Federal and State governments. Why should retailers be forced to take the scorn over the tax system?
Business pays no tax, ever. They collect it. Those good at not collecting it somehow are guilty of something, not sure what.
It is called indirect taxation and if Americans truly understood how much that really costs them those jerks in government, the true one percents, would be out of a job.
Instead they are masters of misdirection, vilifying businesses for not collect
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Tax burden measures who gets stuck with the burden, not whose income statement the taxes show up on. And I do mean stuck, because nobody really likes paying taxes and nobody will if they don't have to.
Who bears the burden depends almost entirely on relative elasticities of supply and demand. To be blunt, who has more bargaining power.
If I have perishable goods to sell, and can't withhold anything, my customers are all informed and ruthlessly play me against my competitors, and a new tax comes donw, guess
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Easy. Amazon has no presence in california, so they never had to collect sales tax. California passed legislation that made affiliates (people who list amazon products on their personal site, often with reviews and 'how-to's and received payment for a click through) were employees, so amazon had employees in the state and had to collect tax.
So amazon 'fired' all of their affiliates, many of which set up fronts in Oregon or other states and continued as before, but many also threw in the towel, costing cal
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I'm sorry, on reflection I could have been more succinct.
California extorted Amazon into entering into a taxation agreement.
Just like they're going to do to the voters later this year.
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.