Massachusetts Enacts 6.25% Sales Tax On "Prewritten" Software Consulting 364
First time accepted submitter marshallr writes "Technical Information Release TIR 13-10 becomes effective in Massachusetts on July 31st, 2013. It requires software consultants to collect a 6.25% sales tax from their clients if they perform 'computer system design services and the modification, integration, enhancement, installation or configuration of standardized software.' TIR 13-10 was published to mass.gov on July 25th, 2013 to provide the public a few working days to review the release and make comments."
Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
It may take about 5 minutes to change tax rates in software, but I suspect it'll take a hell of a lot more than five minutes to update pricing policy, sales processes (and processing), to revise revenue/profit forecasts, modify forms (to point out this new tax, so you don't lump it in with generic sales tax), get the finance folks up to speed...
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So you changed the "configuration of standardized software"? Did you remember to pay the new tax?
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
Note that this effects a bunch of freelancers that are used to providing an untaxed service, and so have no idea how to go about collecting sales taxes and sending the proceeds to the government, since all they did was collect check, report it as SE income, and pay the social security tax on it on a personal income tax form.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
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And did you do the necessary legal reviews and validate the process? Good software consulting includes establishing proper procedures like this. And these things involve a lot of people, including accountants and lawyers to be sure it is correct and strictly follows statutes and regulations. The lawyers are also going to need to read that gobble-de-gook and figure out when and where it applies and not, and your software has to handle that correctly based on customer profiles and such. This law change sh
Re:Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Governments have been "singling out one group of businesses" since Hammurabi first passed a tax specifically targeting breweries. That horse left the barn millennia ago.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)
...That horse left the barn millennia ago.
And the appropriate "barn departure" tax was levied...
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How many businesses can change their processes that quickly?
It won't be collected until the end of the tax year... just that you have to back-date it to the six-days-from-now mark.
Of course, it's going to cost a lot of consulting firms a buttload of money they didn't anticipate (especially if the word "Oracle" is in the specs somewhere), but you know, the government needs their monies (for the children, old, and poor, naturally - though the funds' ultimate destination may differ slightly from what was promised.)
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It won't be collected until the end of the tax year... just that you have to back-date it to the six-days-from-now mark.
Not that I know squat about how sales taxes are collected in Massachusetts, but across the border in Vermont, you pay them, as I recall, quarterly and the amount isn't as much a problem as the fact that many clients -- schools, local governments, etc are tax exempt but you still need to report the sale and their tax exempt certificate number. Which means one more piece of data to collect
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http://www.mass.gov/bb/h1/fy14h1/os_14/h7.htm [mass.gov]
The language there extends the tax to basically any software-related service you could possibly render. I find it surprising how hostile Mass. legislature seems to be towards the software industry, given the presence of MIT et al. and the countless tech startups that come out of these institutions.
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Re:Wow (Score:4, Informative)
Its called Taxachusetts for a reason.
Actually, it makes a nice portmanteau, but it is now factually incorrect.
http://money.cnn.com/pf/features/lists/total_taxes/ [cnn.com]
Massachusetts is #40 on the total tax burden list. Lower than fucking Nevada and Louisiana.
Re:Wow (Score:5, Informative)
It's not a new tax. 6.25% is the general sales tax in Massachusetts. This is just a ruling clarifying, "Yes, it applies to you guys too."
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They could have clarified it even better by just making it work like VAT. It applies to everything but you get to subtract all expenses that VAT was payed on.
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Then they could have just said that.
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Right, it's probably like it is around here. Where you don't have to charge sales tax on consulting work, unless you produce something. So, drawing up designs for a garden wouldn't be taxable, but the moment the designers plant even one of those plants you're then required to pay sales tax on not just the planting, but the design work as well.
I can see how this would be a bit ambiguous, if the law is anything like that in Massachusetts.
Only applies to prewritten software? (Score:2)
Not sure I see a problem with that. Afterall, a reseller is a reseller is a reseller. Seems to me that it encourages creativity and innovation in those who wish to avoid the tax.
Re:Only applies to prewritten software? (Score:5, Insightful)
It also applies to Open Source software. And, what if you're not a reseller -- "you buy Windows, and I'll install and configure it".
Sadly, I'm just going to assume there will be all sorts of problems here -- because most of the time when lawmakers try to pass laws relating to technology, they fail miserably in their understanding of said technology and make a bigger mess of things.
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What does OSS have to do with anything? If you install, configure, etc software, and collect a fee for it, then you collect sales tax on that fee.
This seems to be specifically closing the 'not a reseller' hole. If you ARE a reseller, then you are already collecting sales tax on the thing you sell (which includes your value add). This is making so you have to collect the sales tax on your service even if you are not 'selling' the system.
It is no different than collecting taxes on any other service perform
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It is no different than collecting taxes on any other service performed (eg cooking, barbering).
To my knowledge most states don't tax for services (especially not as highly as sales are taxed). Have you ever heard of a musician or lawyer (or even your aforementioned chef or beautician) having to collect any sort of sales tax?
Re: install, configure, etc software (Score:4, Interesting)
No, this is a NASTY new tax.
The huge case is when the software is cheap and it's all in the support!
Typical examples are OEM/self bought Windows and Quickbooks. The raw software is pretty cheap - but the consulting could be thousands. So suddenly they want a *sales* tax on it? I already bought my software a month ago (for example). Now I have to pay a *sales tax* on a *service*?!
Plus there are really evil clauses in accounting theory that kick in here. If these are "sales" and not "services", that's gonna have a colossal impact on the IRS Schedule C as someone else hinted at elsewhere. I think it changes if you can use Cash Based Accounting vs Accrual, and if you have Sales, you have the Inventory clauses kicking in.
Elsewhere (Score:2)
Anyone hear of anything similar being considered in other states?
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elsewhere in the world it's pretty common. sales tax on sold services.. 6.25 is nothing.
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The problem is that in the U.S. is that your probably already paying close to 8% sales tax (in my home town 15% on entertainment and liquor) and we don't get things like universal healthcare. Instead we get NSA spying and TARP (welfare for the rich).
I truly don't have trouble paying taxes, however, he the U.S. sorrily lacks real statesmen that care about the country and are good stewards of our tax money. That's why so many people here demand lower taxes without any thought about the impact of things lik
Re:Elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
If they need more tax money why not keep things simple and increase the income tax?
Seriously? How are you going to hide a tax hike if you keep it open and honest?
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'Hell No!' _is_ proper intelligent dialog when tax increases are proposed.
Re:Elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
I think a prefer the opposite. Abolish the income tax and make a standard sales tax across the board. Plan the shift over several years in order to decrease the immediate impact of the switch.
Companies never pay taxes. They shift that burder to the customer through increased prices. Placing the taxes directly on the end user makes the tax system more transparent.
Re:Elsewhere (Score:5, Insightful)
That results in the poor paying proportionately more taxes than anyone else since they use almost all of their money to purchase necessities.
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I assume the GP was referring to abolishing the corporate income tax, not the individual income tax. The poor are already paying the corporate income tax disproportionately. It is just being hidden in the actual sticker price of the products instead of being added at the register.
Of course, the most likely outcome of eliminating that tax is that businesses would see it as a corporate windfall, and would continue selling things for the same price and enjoying their new, higher margins. If you actually wa
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If you exempt groceries and other basic necessities (e.g. rent), that problem goes away.
It should also be noted that, say, a 10% tax would mean only 10% on what the person spends. If a poor person makes only $20k/yr, they'll only spend a maximum of $2k in taxes. I say maximum because whatever they save doesn't get taxed (consumption taxes do encourage saving, after all). Meanwhile a rich person making $200k/yr will spend up to $20k in taxes.
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Sorry, that's bullshit. The super-rich need to be taxed MORE than the rest, because they are essentially hoarding currency. If they don't want to spend it, it should cost them a ton to just sit on it. That is what is breaking our economy, and nobody NEEDS "that second billion" while paying taxes on only about $250k.
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If we're going to change things that drastically, lets just tax property. The actual enumeration of a persons property could be privatized if it were done through a mandatory property insurance system, so we wouldn't have the government walking through our living room and counting sofas, and the taxpayer would get some benefit (insurance) out of the process.
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Problem with that is that property taxes won't just bite the "rich" - landlords would have to pay those taxes too, which translates to increased rents.
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That can be said about any tax. The poor are always going to be paying a tax indirectly. At least with simple, transparent taxes you don't get crazy loopholes that only the rich take advantage of.
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And companies would have to pay for their holdings, which would increase prices on their products. There's no solution to taxation that doesn't offer emple opportunities for the taxes to be trickled down to the poor, because rich people can afford lawyers and accountants. The point of shifting to a property tax is it that it is less onerous to the service economy, and likely to be less overall accounting overhead than tracking every single business transaction.
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Elsewhere Indeed (Score:2)
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Contractors pay income tax. Done and done.
So does Walmart, but we still have them collect the sales tax.
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Well, not here in Oregon.
We'd need to have an actual sales tax first, which thankfully we don't have.
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Tax rate ... (Score:2)
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I think the idea is that custom software incorporates at least 1 well paid white collar employee paying taxes, which is a preferable result for the state's economy to someone just installing some software and charging $X,000 for it.
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Welcome to teh Internets. Custom software may very well be coming from Bangalore, India. Yeah, sure. The custom stuff represents additional labor to write, over and above the cost of an off the shelf package. But there is no guarantee that the state will see one cent from its production.
Back to the original question: If I commission the writing of a custom app in Massachusetts (from a local shop), what is the sales tax rate?
States really need revenue (Score:5, Informative)
If you've followed the Detroit saga, you'll know that many states have made deferred pension deals with their unions that are now coming due as the Boomers retire.
Some states, such as Michigan have deferred liabilities of 241% of their annual revenue. Massachusetts is in the top 10 "bad" list (100%).(source of this is Moody's BTW, and this has been reported in The Economist)
What this means is that retiree benefits will take up an ever expanding part of state expenditures, crowding out education, police, fire, parks, and other benefits that modern citizens have come to expect.
So states are hungry for any revenue, Maryland for example, has set up a rain tax to tax people for the amount of rain that falls on their property (Maryland is in the top 10 "bad" list right next to Massachusetts), so the idea that they'd tax something in a completely arbitrary and crazy way will become the Normal.
You're about to see a wave of municipal bankruptcies all across this country, and local taxes are about to go through the roof.
Enjoy.
Re:States really need revenue (Score:4, Interesting)
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From what I can tell part of the problem in Detroit is that the pension funds invested in city bonds - a financially stupid move.
...it gets even better. Those city bonds were financed by a tax base that has been busy running like hell off to other cities and states. I think Detroit's population has shrunk to only 1/4 of it's 1950's peak... and that's in spite of population growth overall. To top that off, the remaining 1/4 doesn't include the wealthier folks (who were likely among the first to pull the D-ring.)
Politicions need to stop robbing children (Score:2)
I see you haven't noticed but politicians spend more, no matter what the tax rate.
I trust you are consistent: The Titanic needs more icebergs, crackheads need more crack, Barbie needs bigger boobs.
Re:States really need revenue (Score:4, Interesting)
States are spending more than ever. Cut off taxes and choke them seems to be the only way. See also the federal government.
As for Detroit, politicians past promised future generations' money to support retirees, a very easy thing to do.
We were warned about this. It is a vector to failure. I've just popped some popcorn over the whole thing. The reason these things are having problems is the math is identical to why the Ponzi scheme was made illegal -- charging current investors little or nothing in exchange for giving them the investmemt of future investors.
These schemes just have the perversity of being able to force you to be an investor.
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As for Detroit, politicians past promised future generations' money to support retirees, a very easy thing to do.
Which is how pension funds are not supposed to be run in the first place. If you run a pension correctly it should work more like a 401(k) in that the money goes into an account that you then don't touch until a certain date. For large organizations you can calculate out how much you need to fund an employee's retirement long before they even retire. The government would actually be the best suited to pensions since they can build up enough of a buffer over time that they should effectively be immune to flu
Re:States really need revenue (Score:4, Insightful)
The government would actually be the best suited to pensions since they can build up enough of a buffer over time that they should effectively be immune to fluctuations in the market and could eventually hit a point where they wouldn't even need to pay in to the pension accounts again. In short, bad fiscal management is the problem, no pensions themselves.
Problem is, Detroit's government did run those pension plans... they had a nasty habit of pilfering them to fund city projects.
Re:States really need revenue (Score:5, Informative)
States are spending more than ever.
No they aren't [epi.org]
It's interesting to see folks talking about "OMG, the government is spending so much!!!!" when in fact it's been dropping like a rock since about 2009-ish. What actually happened was pretty simple to understand: In the fall of 2008 the economy took a nose-dive, shrinking the GDP and causing a lot more people to qualify for SNAP and unemployment insurance and SS disability and TANF and Medicaid and a few other programs. The cost of those programs predictably skyrocketed despite no new laws passing. Since then, as fewer and fewer people have qualified, the costs have been shrinking. Meanwhile, all the budgetary belt-tightening that had happened elsewhere in the budget is still in effect, so in fact government spending is shrinking fairly rapidly.
Also, tax revenue is the lowest it's been since 1941, so complaints about taxes being unusually high are also wrong.
Re:States really need revenue (Score:4, Interesting)
Also, tax revenue is the lowest it's been since 1941, so complaints about taxes being unusually high are also wrong.
Not at the federal level. Government spending rarely goes down. In the past 60 years it's gone now in the following years:
1954, 1955, 1965, 2010 and 2012. Every other year it's gone up. http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200 [taxpolicycenter.org]
But perhaps, we should be talking about tax revenue, not spending since that is what was asked, and in the past 60 years, revenue has gone down in years: 1958,1959,1971,1983,2001,2002,2003,2008, and 2009.
Better than gross revenue, it would be best to compare gross revenue adjusted for inflation per capita, but I don't have those numbers, but perhaps someone else does. Even better would be gross revenue adjusted for inflation paid per member of each income group, but again, I don't have those numbers.
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Your chart in no way refutes my argument:
1. The absolute numbers are misleading, because not only is the federal government getting larger in absolute terms, so is the population and GDP of the country. If you spent, say, $2 trillion to serve 200 million people, and now spend $3 trillion to serve 300 million people, is that really an increase?
2. Federal spending is lower now in absolute dollars than it was in 2009 ($3173.4 billion in 2009 versus $3086.2 billion in 2013). If you instead go by percentage GDP,
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States are spending more than ever.
Which is false, like most Republican talking points. Yet moderated 5 Interesting because it has truthiness to it: "yeah, we are paying too much taxes, [takes swig from beer]".
States today are spending less than they did in 1990 if you consider local revenues only and the same as they did in 1974 if you add federal grants:
http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/Research/Files/Articles/2012/12/state%20local%20budgets%20gordon/state%20local%20budgets%20gordon%20fig%201.jpg [brookings.edu]
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There will be many bankruptcies. There will also be many municipalities and states that have avoided these problems. And you have control over it: leave the places that made bad choices and move to the places that made good choices.
Re:States really need revenue (Score:5, Informative)
Maryland for example, has set up a rain tax to tax people for the amount of rain that falls on their property
It's worse than that. As a Marylander (not for long because of this type of nonsense), I can also tell you that the rain tax, like most other taxes rammed through in the last five years or so, does NOT have to go towards saving the Chesapeake Bay (the justification used to pass it). The revenue goes into the state's general fund, where it is pissed away by the politicians to do things like give state loans to sports bars [baltimoresun.com]. This is a huge reason why states like CA, MD, and MA are destroying their tax bases as people and businesses flee by the millions to more tax-friendly states.
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California's population has been rising steadily for decades, and has increased by about 300,000 last year. Maryland and Massachusetts similarly have increasing populations.
This is not people and businesses fleeing by the millions.
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Mod parent up.
This is the reason I'm a former resident of the Socialist Republic of Maryland.
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/Summing up: The figures from our sources show two different trends. On an annual basis between 1981 and 2003, Texas almost always paid more in federal taxes than it got back from Uncle Sam. But since 2003 the reverse has been true, with Texas receiving more than it paid in five out of seven years, which is close to routine.
Emphasis mine. http://www.politifact.com/texas/statements/2011/apr/22/rachel-maddow/msnbc-host-rachel-maddow-says-texas-routinely-rece/ [politifact.com]
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I grew up there. Detroit was, and still is one of the most segregated cities in the nation. People left for the suburbs to escape crime, crappy schools, and political mischief on the part of former mayors. The http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renaissance_Center [wikipedia.org] was built back in 77 as a way to draw business back. The Lions and Pistons moved back, and casinos moved in. It's not enough though, and there's little that can be done now without flattening most of the blighted neighborhoods, and starting over.
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Re:States really need revenue (Score:4, Informative)
The impervious surface fee actually makes a lot of sense, and isn't simply a "rain tax".
Storm-water runoff is a negative externality that right now everyone in a community pays for regardless of their actual runoff. It's a tragedy of the commons - there's no incentive to minimize it. Charging a fee based on the area of impervious surface on a property converts that externality into a direct cost, rewarding those who minimize runoff and charging those who produce the most runoff more. A property owner need only replace impervious surfaces with pervious surfaces and they'll produce less runoff and pay less; everyone wins. It's the same idea as a carbon tax.
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Some of us disagree with the primacy of government as organizer of 1/3 of all existance.
"Let us decide what we want government to do, and then just tax to that level."
I would insert a .gif of someone eating popcorn if Slashdot were a bit more modern.
Of course, their next impulse isn't to fix themselves -- instead they long for control over every locality so. there's no where to flee to . The "problem" is thet you still have the freedom to vote with your feet.
So system administration consultant sales tax ? (Score:2)
So why do they want to enforce making it more expensive to have secure computers ?
Why only on computers ? why not a sales tax on for example plumbing ?
Cause everyone needs to take a dump so should be a profitable tax.
However since its only on standard software and open source is nonstandard
I'm gonna presume its just a tax on those selling Microsoft software admin services.
Golly (Score:2)
The sales tax should be on the software, not on the additive consulting or installation or customization charges.
Follow the money. Government just wants your money.
Hey MA programmers! Move to NH. (Score:5, Interesting)
We're just over the border, and we promise not to pull any shit like this on you.
Why? It's simple: http://freestateproject.org/
Re: Hey MA programmers! Move to NH. (Score:3)
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Re: Hey MA programmers! Move to NH. (Score:4, Informative)
And have you paid your property taxes yet?
Yes, and gladly.
New Hampshire is always ranked one of the lowest states in overall tax burden: frequently the lowest, usually in the bottom three.
Massachusetts is always one of the highest, always in the top 10. (Citation) [taxfoundation.org]
So yes, I pay my property taxes, and they are unbearably high.
Are you saying that paying more overall is good, if it lowers property taxes?
What exactly is your point?
Re: Hey MA programmers! Move to NH. (Score:3)
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This is likely a maneuver against such tax-sheltering movements. By taxing consulting you remove some of the incentive to use consultants versus having in-house employees. Not much, but it's there. Chances are if your consultancy wants to do business with an MA company they will be subject to this tax on their services.
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Let's call this the Acquia tax (Score:4, Interesting)
I think I know the origin of this tax bill and what it is intended for.
Acquia - http://www.acquia.com/ [acquia.com] - is a large firm that specializes in Drupal. A lot of the work they do is around setting up, configuring and maintaining Drupal websites.
While they don't produce the majority of the code that is in Drupal, they do provide a lot of services around it to consumers and other businesses. This is really a tax on VARs and other people who implement Drupal using their services.
I am sure there are a lot of other companies that operate in a similar space. While I don't like it, I can see the potential revenues to be drawn in through such a tax.
Rational and good (Score:2)
... While I don't like it, I can see the potential revenues to be drawn in through such a tax.
Please make a distinction between "rational" and "good".
"Rational" is when someone does something for a reason; in this case, we can "see" the reason as "getting more revenue".
"Good" speaks more to the overall intelligence of the decision. The value of the decision in the future, or taking the whole situation into account.
In this case, the decision is "rational", but not "good". It ignores the underlying problems of runaway government spending, oppressive regulation, and economic viability.
Cities are failin
Taxachusetts (Score:2)
nuff said
Specific (Score:2)
This all sounds overly specific.
Re:What is the reason for this tax? (Score:4, Informative)
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2. Problem reduces to an existing one
3. Profit
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It seems like this is fairly arbitrary, if they need money they should just put a small tax on all services. If you tax on something so arbitrary, only the honest companies will pay. The
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Don't worry, it'll come to that. While I do agree that the slippery slope scheme doesn't work in every situation, the government has it down to an art. What's worse off is that this tax has nothing to do with anything in this system of business that is causing an undue burden on the government. They're doing it as just another money grab.
As a person gets fatter they need to take in more calories to maintain their fatness. As the governme
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Yeah, I don't think I've heard of anyone who actually lives in Massachusetts complaining about it. That's more of a southern republican narrative to talk about than an actual common complaint by the state's citizens. That's not to say no citizens complain, everyone hates paying taxes.
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Yeah, I don't think I've heard of anyone who actually lives in Massachusetts complaining about it.
You clearly aren't on my Facebook friends list, because people who actually live in Massachusetts (especially those of us who work in the software industry) are absolutely livid about the tax increases. Regular Massachusetts residents are mostly upset about the latest gas tax hikes that will simply increase their cost of living, but yes, this software tax has made the list of things people complain about.
Yes, people who live in Massachusetts are pissed about the pointless tax hike. Maybe not enough to actua
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Far from it. I have family there, and it's where I heard the term.
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1. Ok, just did. Checked boston globe, and a few other newspapers I hadn't heard of before. It doesn't appear to be a particularly common assertion about the story, and notably, the first comment I found seemed to be from Virginia.
This isn't an argument, it's a simple assertion about the OP's post.
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Re:Even I've heard of Taxachusetts (Score:4, Informative)
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You know what I love to read about? Idiots who think that the solution to overspending and irresponsible and unaccountable spending is more spending. Why, we're completely wasteful and irresponsible with the ridiculous amount of wealth we gather from the population already -- but if you just double the amount you give us, we will TOTALLY start to be more conservative and reasonable with how we spend your money!
Seriously, how much fucking more money do you want from me? Americans are taxed out the ass -- the
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The United States have some of the most convoluted tax, deduction and credit structures in the world. Its not so much that I have to pay them. Its that the person* next to me has his own personal deduction, carved out by some Senator in his pocket.
*By 'person', I include corporations. The tax code here looks askance at all of my deductible expenses while companies depreciate their hunting lodges and book their profits in Ireland. Why can't I have my employer direct deposit my paycheck to a Dublin bank?
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Yes, this does look like a loophole being closed. Did they also close the other loophole that allows legal services from lawyers to bypass the sales and use tax? Just rewrite the original law that establishes the tax and say it is 6.25% across the board for all products and services ... period ... and be done with it.
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It's worth noting that the Boston 'patriots' were, by and large, smugglers and thieves. Hamilton's father got rich smuggling. And the original Tea Party were, largely, a bunch of tavern thugs paid by Sam Adams to raise a ruckus. The background was that the British government was nearly broke as a result of a long war with France of which the 'French and Indian War' in the Americas was really a sideshow. The Brits thought, for some reason, that the colonists should have to pay the costs of that war. The