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Analyzing the Real Impact of Taxing E-Commerce
sashae writes: "We've heard a lot over the last couple of months about the gigantic dollar-figure sales the net has been generating, that the US Gov't has missed out on taxing. American Outlook magazine has an article about the true impact of Internet sales on taxes that the states would normally collect. "
not only does smoking kill the person smoking
Smoking is harmful to one's health, but the effect on lifespan is quite small: 3-5 years. You may not know this, but other people die too, and they also require medical care at the end. The only difference is that on average, they suck up 3 to 5 more years of social security and medicate benefits. I will repeat this very slowly: They suck up 3 to 5 more years of social security and medicate benefits. You. Will. Die. Some. Day. Okay? Everybody. Will. Die. Some. Day. It's a fact. You are not immortal. When you are old, you will probably get sick and require expensive health care. Most people do.
You should also be aware that eating fatty foods or a lot of salt, or drinking to excess, will also tend to shorten your life. Are you going to put absurdly large taxes on fatty foods? No? Why not? What about skiing? That's not safe either. Then you've got skydiving, bungee jumping, playing sports in general, etc. etc. You're arbitrarily choosing one "harmful" behavior out of many, and making it a special case. Why? Can you explain why? Do you even know why? Or do you just think what you're told to think?
Your logic, if applied impartially (there's no danger of that, I know
There was a study done by the EPA which purported to demonstrate adverse health effects from second-hand smoke, notwithstanding the impossibility of gathering meaningful data. The study was publically condemned by the American Cancer Society as a subjective, meaningless piece of crap. In case you're not familiar with the American Cancer Society, they're not exactly carrying water for Philip Morris. They fund more "targetted" (i.e. "let's find some data that will support our conclusion") studies on the subject than anybody else on earth, but the EPA study was so blatantly fake that even they wouldn't get behind it.
but all of the people around him are also injured from the second hand smoke.
I assume you're aware that there's no conclusive evidence of this? You don't care, do you? Any excuse will do, as far as you're concerned. And given the general hysteria on the subject, no excuse is even necessary. As long as you go along with the crowd, you'll always have a majority to back you up.
Snoking kills, homosexuality doesnt.
"Practicing" homosexuality involves far more high-risk sexual behavior than practicing heterosexuality. Not all gays are promiscuous, but the ones that are tend often to be very, very promiscuous. HIV happens to people. This is real. It's not a joke.
I would much, much rather have my taxes spent on AIDS research and providing care for AIDS patients than wasted on funding endless flawed studies which purport to "prove" what everybody already believes about smoking anyway.
smoking hurts many people, and causes a monetary burden on the taxpayer
Smoking is a private matter which hurts only the people who do it. Nobody has ever done a study comparing the "monetary burden on the taxpaper" with that of nonsmokers, for the very good reason that all research into smoking is done by institutions which start with the conclusion that smoking "must be stopped", and then go out to find evidence that supports it. That's not science, it's political propaganda. Nevertheless, there's a lot of money in it for the researchers. Nobody will fund a study that might contradict received wisdom on the subject.
The troll is absolutely right: Taxes on smoking are an emotionally-motivated "punishment" inflicted on people who do something unpopular. They make exactly as much sense as taxing homosexuality.
Yes, it is, my son! I never met a cracka I didn't wanna break.
Most bonds are held by pension funds and Insurance companies. George Bush owns global crossing shares. Or he did. Who knows what junior holds.
Is it okay to talk about Kenyes [spelling??] in the US? I thought there were laws againts common sense.
Depends on which taxes. The highest federal capital gains tax in Canada is now lower then 20%. The lowest in the US is 20%. Some industries pay lower taxes. Sure the banks and tech companies are required to pay more. Thats because they are mainly in Ontario and the rest of Canada is too lazy to pay thier fair share. Just look at the massive amounts of money going to western farmers. Of course when you talk about biz taxes you need to talk about the total outlay. A few years ago when Chrysler built a new plant in Brampton the reason was the total cost to operate the plant was lower. Yes they pay higher taxes but they didn't have to pay the same sort of health insurance. Ended up the total outlay was lower here then there. If you work for yourself in the US and need to buy health insurance [200-300 US per month. Is that reasonable for a family?] unless you are making a fair bit of money the total coming out of your pocket won't be much if any cheaper in the US. Of course when you get in to the higher wage areas things change. But that's because things like health care don't go up with wages. You may get a better plan but you don't spend it all. So if you are a wage serf the US is likely better for you. If you run a company or work for yourself then it isn't so simple.
Second, taxation for Internet activity would be a snap. A simple browse of secure certificate ownership (or our pals at NSI) would provide the shortlist, with just a few small timers escaping the net. Evil symptom #1: The IRS starts taxing domain name ownership for US mailing addresses- and makes declaration a requirement on 1040 forms.
Third, even though we know that lower taxes == better compliance & more money... Nobody since Reagan has walked that line. So a thriving underground economy is good for business, because it's way more resiliant than a fully compliant economy - and it keeps the money circulating, even if it's just a few dollars at a time. FM Petain
I recently speced out a network job. On th e issue of buing over the internet-vs- locally I actually discovered it was cheaper to buy the same equipment locally in most cases as 4.5% sales tax usually added up to only a third the money internet companies charged for avrage shipping (i.e. not fed ex!) Dealing with multiple vendors the shipping costs compound above that! As always the devil's in the details. It looks to me though as if the government has lost less than UPS, Airborne Express, USPS, and FedEX have picked up. and the folks who have lost money are actually those who turned to the internet soley to save on taxes (though they may have made it up in comparison shopping).
How much of the internet infrastructure has the government set up?
None (forget DARPA, too long ago and too far away)
What will those paying the taxes get in return for paying them?
Nothing
Should the government be able to continue increasing the amount of money it steals from people?
NO!
Would you ever pay a corperation money and not know what you might expect in return? Of course not. The government should be just like any other business (and it IS a business), you should exchange capital for a service.
People like the illusion that they can get somthing for nothing. This is why they sit back and allow meaningless taxes to pop up all over the place. They like free roads, free schools, free health, but nothing is free.
People that use services should pay for them and know what they are getting regardless of who provides the service. People that use the roads should pay for them. People that want health insurance that covers absolutly everything should pay for it. Basic health coverage should be available to everyone not on the basis that everyone deserves it, but that it improves the quality of living for those who are paying the bill.
It seems like the meaning of capitalism has been getting altered over the years. People associate the word capitalism with huge, lumbering corperations that sit on monopolies and screw the consumer over. Capitalism is supposed to mean competition between businesses to produce the best products possible at the best prices possible. It is supposed to mean getting what you pay for and paying for what you get.
I believe in capitalism in it's true form. Unfortunatly it rarely exists in its true form, it gets polluted by thiefs and moochers along the way.
This is supposed to be a capitalist country, it is time we got a capitalist government.
Yum! Flamebait, tasty flamebait. I expect he's a Republican because the the Democratic Party is the party of slavery, of Jim Crow, of lynchings and the KKK, and of taking black votes every election and never giving anything back but fear-mongering and race-baiting.
More socialism. If companies in New Mexico can't get on the net without a government handout that's thier problem. The people of New Mexico shouldn't be taxed to death so some snot nosed kid can have a min wage job stuffing boxes full of porn.
Actually just tax the delivery methods. UPS et all use the road and the rest of the State infrastucture. So you tax them a percentage of total revenue. You just watch them pass on that to the shippers. Sure non-internet companies endup subsidies internet companies some what but they already are. This would just cut down the amount.
So how do those goods get delivered? Do they fly down the DSL line? Or do they travel in the back of a truck? Who covers the cost of the police chasing down the credit card frauds? All you've done is move the retail store front out of state all the other costs are still there.
I'm talking about tax witholding. How did this shit start? Why am I forced under threat of cops and guns and clubs and jail time, to give the gov't some payola every payday to "hold" until the real debt is figured out? I'd rather keep it and invest it until tax time in April. By then, I've got $12,000 "witheld" for taxes. I can make a lot of fucking money with that while it's still mine.
Purity law was repealed by germany. It never really was a "german" law. East germany didn't follow it. Breweries outside of Bavaria ignored it for export. In reality it was just a Bavarian law. The EU saw it has an attempt to restrain trade. No wonder Guiness violated the Reinheitsgebot. I won't even mention Krieks or many real ales.
You are absolutely correct, sir!
Not that homosexuals are evil people, but that it is exactly this kind of slippery slope that our government is falling into.
It must be stopped, and it must be stopped now!
I'm voting for Browne
You obviously haven't been paying attention to Canadian politics lately.
Calling Canada democratic is seriously optimistic.
I hear they invented this thing called an electronic cash register. It's amazing what it can do. I hate to tell you but all you really need to do is track taxable sales and non-taxable sales. Then apply the percentage to the taxable sales. I'm old enough to have done it by hand. With a POS system it won't kill anybody.
There are so many
So Many more First Posters
Than there are first posts
people like you are why I sleep with a shotgun by my bed. You nazis are irritateing. You never mess with people who can fight back. Now go back to your double-wide and shut up.
That's the illusion of the "Tax Free" internet. Where on earth are you going to get a computer shipped from for FIVE dollars? Get real. I don't believe you can get a corrior to deliver it next door for 5 dollars. Then there is the fact that your estimated sales tax seems really inflated. 4.5% on that purchase would be around $63. (EASILY LESS THAN INSURED SHIPPING OF A COMPUTER PLUS MONITOR!) I don't know where you live that you think your going to get taxed over 13% on a computer purchase in your example?
I agree 110%!!!!
Alan Keyes is still in this race, go vote for him.
The article was pointing out the fact that this wouldn't bring enough new taxes to pay for the collection.
It is also important to note that some purchases you make outside of your local area the tax still makes it back (i.e. your car)
The internet tax is probably inevitable so buy up while you can...or start sending those letters to your representitives.
Oh, that's great. The Liberals tax something that they find sick and disgusting (tobacco), and everybody in the Media Elite labels it as being an honorable thing to do, and they all talk about how evil the tobacco companies are. Then when decent people try to tax something that they find sick and disgusting, they get called "nazis" (your words.) The hypocrisy is physically sickening.
.45, along with enough ammunition to survive an armed governmental incursion into my hometown. I've read the Second Amendment and I know what my duties as a citizen gun-owner are.
You might have a shotgun, but I've got an Uzi, an assortment of various carbines and shotguns, and a Colt
Here is Oregon, there is no sales tax. Sweeeeet! Don't you dare try to tax *me* to pay for *your* streets and highways though.
On the other hand, if the plan is to get retailers to charge local tax to everyone, there's the problem of no taxation without representation, and this will drive big web stores to places like Oregon, where there is no local sales tax.
Either way people are getting gypped.
Also, perhaps Monroe county is not /that/ large (I have no idea really). Perhaps the larger counties (population wise) have much larger budget... So that wouldn't make so much more money for this one county ; most of internet sales are made to/from the most densely populated ones.
as much as i *completely* dislike taxes, i must also admit, consistency means enforcability.
the reason the tax law is so unenforcable in the u.s. is that its complexity far outweighs its average IRS agent's ability to digest and enforce it.
simpler = better.
consistent = better.
if i have to pay more taxes in order to be consistent *and* fair (and am actually getting something for said taxes), i approve.
and i'm definitely not a "liberal" spender.
it just makes good common sense to me.
humans thrive to find "loopholes"...
erase the loopholes, erase the cheaters.
>The highest federal capital gains tax in Canada >is now lower then 20%. The lowest in the US
>is 20%.
Actually, the lowest in the US is 12%.
This is true , but only to an extent.
The fact of the matter is, right now those who make more money pay a disproportionate amount of their income to the government as taxes. This is why we need a flat tax.
With a flat tax, those with more money still pay more, as they pay a percentage. However, those who make less pay the same percentage.
People argue that the problem with the flat tax is that the poor need the money more. However, that doesn't change the fact that right now, the US has a policy of acceptable extortion, taking sometimes more than half of the income of those who do well. It is simply unacceptable. To analogize: The fact that a person makes a lot of money does not make it any more acceptable to steal it.
I have a friend who has worked all of his life to get to where he is. He grew up on a farm, one of 12 children in an extremely poor family. He was the first of his family to go to college. He served his country in the navy. He is now the president and part-owner of his own business, after having worked at literally every position in the company in the course of over 17 years. He makes a good amount of money (~$175,000 a year). He pays about $85,000 in taxes. Because of this, he is going through hell putting his children through college.
Is this right? Does he not deserve this money he has made which he has worked his whole life for? Doesn't he have the right to make a better life for his children and send them to college? Isn't there something inherently wrong with taking almost 50% of a persons income?
If you proposed to take 50% of the income of a person who makes $20,000 a year, people would be outraged. Yet it is OK to take 50% of somebodies income if they make a lot of money?
End point: the tax system in the US is fucked up, and needs fixing. If a flat tax of say 20-30% doesn't generate the income to run our government, it is time that the government trim down. In europe, it is common to pay more than 50% of your income to the government. But at the same time, this almost always comes with benefits that the US simply does not have, such as universal healthcare. Currently the US gives no real reason for the exorbitant amount of money it supposedly needs, other than running around and playing policeman to the world, sticking its nose where it doesn't belong, etc.
Ahh well. I'm ranting.
The current tax system SUCKS.
See how quick the liberals moderated you down. It's almost shameful. That's okay though because Christ Jesus is on OUR side, not THEIRS. When the day of judgement comes all of their wrongs will be righted in one fell swoop.
The small business thing is because large business are much better able to deal with paperwork and forms than small businesses. If you have thousands of employees, it's easy to deal with the regulations, but not if you have lots. (Just like how the rich can always find their way through campaign finance regulations, but poorer and grassroots organizations can't.) Sales taxes are efficient only when placed on goods that people will generally buy anyway with the tax. The yacht and luxury tax was inefficient, since people just stopped buying yachts, the economy suffered, and the government didn't even get the revenue predicted by a long shot. This is really unfortunate, because it means that the only goods worth having a sales tax on have a low elasticity of demand, i.e. are necessities. This is bad, because necessities are precisely what you don't want to tax because of how it hurts the poor.
Brought to you by MS of course.
...
Never seen a site made with software running on Mac BeOS or one of a dozen Unix variant spit so much garbage.
they?re
won?t
haven?t
"Smart" quotes use the *wrong* ASCII code
So I've heard - it uses some font encoding stuff and Xdefaults or something. No one seems to be able to point me to it.
Because its all his fault.
I'd moderate you (-1, bullshit).
You seem to think every government expenditure is a paen to socialism. Distinctions are obviously not your forte. ARPA was a Department of Defense project. Even libertarians would fund the DOD. And medicare is hardly a model of efficient action in health care coverage. If medicare is your poster child for American socialism, you're going to fight a losing battle.
Minnesota also issued a refund in the early 1980s under Gov. Al Quie (Independant Republican).
it's "you're"
I'll give you "funny", but "informative" - no. This isn't to say that your position is untenable, just that a quick pipe through sed doesn't an argument make. This reminds me of Citizen Cane, where Charles Randolf says, "...post it on the front page and call anyone who says different an anarchist!".
.. but if you're a poor, uninsured child, we recommend that you pray for Baby Jesus to save you, because we can't; that would be socialist."
This reminds me of something that Dave Barry once wrote. In dispensing some advice on how to be humorous, Barry said "And remember, before you tell a vicious racist joke, you must first announce that you were a liberal back when it was still legal to be one." The idea, of course, is that people have managed to give the word "liberal" such a negative connotation that it is considered by some to be borderline profanity.
The same thing goes for "socialist"; if you listen to Right-Wing Radio (Rush Limbaugh, Michael Reagan, G. Gordon Liddy et. al) for a sufficient amount of time, you're guaranteed to hear dire predictions about how the "socialists" want to take over and bring their brand of "socialism" into America. Maybe the negative impact that "socialist" has can be explained by the fact that the word appeared in the expansion of the acronym "USSR." However, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics might have been Soviet (whatever that means) but it was most certainly not a Union composed of Republics, and it was not Socialist.
But that hardly matters. The goal is apparently to polarize completely meaningless words so that they can be conveniently tossed around whenever a debate needs to be avoided. "Universal health care? Well, now, we can't have any of that, because it's socialist, by God! If you can afford health insurance, great
Blah. Fuck 'em. I'm a liberal and damn proud of it. And "liberal" isn't a dirty word.
You assume that the revenue must be replaced. It doesn't. It's not a given that a particular state must have X dollars to spend. Let them be frugal, let them scrape for every goddamn penny if that's what it takes.
When did taking our money become a right?
Dumb, dumb fuckstick. I hope you're European so I never have to live in the goddam wasteland your vote would encourage.
Dumb, dumb, dumbfuck.
It's moderated up just to piss off dumb little peckerwoods like you, sir.
Keynes was a nasty little Cambridge fudgepacker. I mean, a real poop-shoot fisherman.
TEE HEE!
That was just a flakey poem, not government policy. As an American, I hope the tired poor wretched yearning masses wanting to be free will take a shower, get a job, and stop asking for handouts upon arrival.
Are you serious, or just stupid? Kentucky is a wonderful state. Of course, if you're really this dumb, I'd just as soon hope people like you don't visit.
I feel the current private system where everyone can be denied basic services (don't kid yourself because your rich, when you are a negitive on someone elses balance sheet you get dumped, and you may not be transplant rich) Where we all have to struggle with what is covered, when it's covered and by what doctor it's covered besides being just purely inhumane, probably causes more stress and ulcers than any efficency it produces
It'd probably be more like someone boring $20k from their 401k plan to buy a house rather than credit card debt. Sure, "technically" you're in debt, but you borrowed the money from yourself. Face it, we don't NEED to pay off the "national debt". It's all smoke and mirrors. It doesn't matter.
How the fuck is that informative?
Just remember to stay out of the black neighborhoods here in the states.. you'll be fine. Almost universally, if an area is inhabited by a majority of white people it is a nice area.. except the hicks of Kentucky and West Virginia.. avoid those areas too.
If you move to Canada from US, you will be taxed even more than some clueless US government who dares to tax internet sales.
BTW, there is someone that can effectively collect taxes on internet. If you know what Windoze tax is, the chances are you are already paying for it.
Don't forget the restocking fees. Almost everyone (except computers4sure.com!) seems to charge outrageous restocking fees these days. "Well, I got this new thingamajiggy and I decided I didn't really like it and would like to return it." At my local brick and mortar store they'd go "no problem, bring it in and we'll credit your account." Over the Internet you'll not only pay the charges to ship the product back but also a restocking fee! A monitor could easily cost $50-$100 to ship btw!
It distresses me to read that so many people are apparently so receptive to the idea of yet another government tax levied upon them. We have all been warned about this. Once the government begins to chip away at the foundation of our freedoms, the rest will come easily. Once we're "conditioned" to accept governmental intrusion into our wallets and paychecks, what's another tax? Just a few cents here and there, right? Wrong.
Well, I've got an idea that won't be popular, but I think it deserves serious consideration. We need a tax on homosexuality. I'm crazy, right? I'm a hatemonger, right? Well, am I? Think about this. Do you really think that the Government would ever levy a tax on a group of people because they engage in an activity that is considered by many to be filthy and disgusting? If you answered "no", you're wrong. They already do! There is no other way to characterize the taxes levied by the Liberal establishment against the tobacco industry and against people who choose to use tobacco products. The liberals hate tobacco users and aim to punish them with these targeted taxes.
Well, well, well. We have a saying where I grew up, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If the liberals can arbitrarily tax things that they find filthy and disgusting, then decent people ought to be able to do the same. That's why I think that homosexuality ought to be taxed and furthermore, given the presence of tobacco taxes, there is legal precedent for doing it. Homosexuality is a sick perversion and its participants are vile people. I think that it's wrong and should not be allowed, but hey, as the liberals say, it's a free country, right? What two consenting adults do in their own bedroom is their own business, right?
Okay, fine. If the Liberals can tax a person for smoking a cigarette in his own home, then I believe that I ought to be able to tax people for committing an atrocity of nature in their own home. I figure $2500, per person, per year. We can then take this money and cut taxes on the top 10% of the wage-earners in this country who share an absolutely unfair burden of the taxes paid in this country.
So flame me and moderate me down, but at least I've had my say.
ALAN KEYES 2000!!!
Keep in mind that this is an article produced by the Hudson Group, the right wing think tank that employed Dan Quayle to chair a the 'Competitiveness Center' to "study ways to increase America's competitiveness in a global economy". So of course they are against taxation. What they are correct about are the relatively small amounts of truly taxable revenue vs. the costs and difficulties of collecting the taxes.
None of the solutions discussed in the article seemed at all viable, but I don't imagine they picked them for their competitive value. I mean, Tax-farming! This has been a widely discredited practice since the late days of the roman empire.
The only viable answer, wait to implement taxation until the market is much larger (read, some of that potential is realized)
wake up and find out that you are the eyes of the world.
I liked your post, Izubachi.
Get off it, the USSR is gone (though Russia's not much better for it, in my opinion)
Actually Russia is much worse now since they turned their economy over to the Harvard experts who told them, "just cut all social spending and that will fix everything" (it's more complicated of course). GDP is down by 50%, and there are literally millions of orphans, last time I heard. This isn't defending the totalitarianism of the USSR; it's just a fact, people are doing worse.
Socilism is a GOOD thing, unfortunatly it was linked with the USSR during the McArthy witch hunt for 'communists' and forever since has been associated with the 'big, bad, red menace'.
I agree. (This makes us 'fucksticks', according to one poster; wait a second, that sounds like a compliment!)
The first big red scare (that I know of - check out "The People's History of the United States" by Howard Zinn for an excellent U.S. history) was during WWI, when thousands of U.S. socialists were arrested for speaking out against the war. In a famous Supreme Court case, the court decided that speaking out against a senseless war that killed millions was equivalent to shouting fire in a crowded theater! The right to free speech meant nothing until people organized the ACLU and started defending ourselves! It wasn't until then (in the 20s) that the people won a single free speech case against the government, AFAIK.
There were once millions of socialists in the U.S., which is ironic since people have been taught to see it as a Russian thing. Even the May Day movement started here in the U.S., I believe; it was a movement for an 8-hour day (how far we've come!) and workers around the world marched in solidarity.
Dumb, dumb fuckstick. I hope you're European so I never have to live in the goddam wasteland your vote would encourage.
Nice talking with you, fellow fucksticks. And does this person realize that the U.S. trails the rest of the industrial world in most indicators of quality of life, like infant mortality, cost of healthcare, number of homicides, etc.?
Personally, I've always felt that this sort of taxation is akin to shooting yourself in the foot. One of the biggest incentives ordinary people have for buying online is the absence of taxes, and taxing this would destroy a very good reason for people to be hooked up. This, in turn, promotes a lack of technological literacy. Not such a great move for a few bucks, eh?
-raph
Coming to you from the I-Just-Learned-How-To-Use-The-Linux-Banner-Command -dept.!
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Not a typewriter
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Thanks
Bruce
Thanks
Bruce
Have you checked out TECHNOCRAT.NET?
You can simply complain, but that is what got you in trouble in the first place. What I hear is that rather than be held to account for your very messed up tax (actually your total government) structure, you (and Canada as a general whole) would rather whine! The commitment to cradle to grave government intervention in your life has come a very great cost, no just a monetary one either. You may think that you can do nothing to change your government, but try to see past what you are used to and get out and organize - inspire - live life on the edge - Do something about it!! IT IS AFTER ALL YOUR GOVERNMENT! GOD SINK THE QUEEN, START BY GETTING YOU CONSTITUTION UNDER YOUR OWN CONTROL not the house of lords and queen Liz. Let Quebec out if they want and move on! Quit complaining!! Take some responsibility, THERE IS NO FREEDOM WITH OUT IT "XML is the subset of SGML that Microsoft's developers could understand"
. . . compared to the interest on the national debt. Which is being paid to holders of Treasury bills. Which come in denominations of $10,000, IIRC. Which is a practical investment for the kind of people G. W. Bush considers friends, but not for most of us (my total investments come to less than $30,000 -- and that only because, through sheer luck, I bought NAVI at 146
In other words, you are paying taxes to pay interest to rich people. Who wouldn't be grateful even if they ever did bother to waste time thinking about little people like us.
Everything's fine. The people who actually matter are doing quite well, thank you. By sheer chance some of the rest of us are doing pretty damn well for a change also, but that's not the point.
Gov't has no incentive to save money. I remember when I worked at the campus library at UC Berkeley. In April or May, just before the fiscal year started, the standing order was "find something to spend the remainder of the budget on". Because if you didn't, the dept. got that much less $$$ next year. And we can't ever let that happen can we? Gov't never gives refunds if taxpayers over pay them. Under pay the gov't though, and they'll come after you and lock you away. Real fair, huh?
Commie alert!!!
When will you people learn proper math? $8.5trillion dollars times 7.25% sales tax (here at least) equals $616.25 billion, plain and simple. Just as every other industry loses bazillions every time you play an MP3, pirate software, watch a DVD movie in Linux, so too this wonderful country LOSES money each day the Internet is not taxed. That is how much money all you stingy bastards are keeping out of the hands of this nations sweet, innocent youth.
These kind, caring youths can't build new schools with indoor plumbing now. They can't have that brand new shiny computer hooked up to the Internet any more. Look at little Jimmy here (pull up some kid with dirt smudge on his face), his mother has to work 23 and a half hours a day waiting tables at Hooters just so he can keep the dirt he plays in so much. Do you really want him to not have his dirt?? Hope you and you're amazon.com books are happy.
Oh, and remember that nice little planet you live on? Well, it won't be nice for long, not without some money. How do you expect this planet to keep going without money to clean out it's coal and oil, the feces of this world? The world will just get all backed up and it won't be purty then, let me tell you.
And here is sweet little ol' Mrs. Kravitz. Her husband died last year, and she's been all alone since. She is expecting here Social Security check today. Look at her stand down there by her mailbox, all lonely, waiting for her only friend in the world, Mr. Newman, the postman. You see folks, in these parts, people don't have friends like you and me. No, they are only visited by some kind, generous civil cervants we like to call, postman. But what Mrs. Kravitz doesn't know, is that a bunch of mean lil' 20-year-olds don't want to fund such generosities as the United States Postal Service. Mrs. Kravitz will probably die in a few days of starvation, waiting here for her only friend in this world...
So, I hope you people are happy. And don't let those evil Republicans convince you that you don't need any more taxes. Look at how wonderful taxes like tobacco and gasoline have made everyone smile. Just imagine what sort of world this would be without taxes...
bah.
Reasonable efficiency in private health insurance is fundamentally unattainable under a free market system. It has perverse incentives built in from moral hazard of the insured, to the Hippocratic oath taken by the doctors, to the quasi-cartelization of health care insurers. I can't guarentee that full state sponsored health care would be more efficient than a laissez faire system, but some level of government intervention is required to maximize social welfare.
I'll give you "funny", but "informative"- no. This isn't to say that your position is untenable, just that a quick pipe through sed doesn't an argument make. This reminds me of Citizen Cane, where Charles Randolf says, "...post it on the front page and call anyone who says different an anarchist!".
Pax -- Ob
Nice smart-alecy answer, but each of those calculations need to be done (by hand or by machine), should to be checked for accuracy, and takes up space on paper or a disk. Which would take more time (and thus be more inconvenient), more calculations or fewer calculations? The correct answer is "more calculations", which might lead one to think it was less efficient. I hope it leads you there...
...yellow number five, yellow number five, yellow number five...
Sure there is more to it than just the taxes. Economies are way too complex for anything to have a single cause. The Tax regime is however a major factor. The governments habit of planing in 3 month increments ( at best ) is another.
:)
As for what we produce and earn. Tourism is the biggest earner. They come for sunshine and Reggae music. The Ganja, prostitutes and long cocked gigaloes have nothing to do with it.
Bauxite ( raw material for aluminum ) is big. Coffee is huge but we don't produce or export nearly enough of it ( Government bloat at work ).
The single largest source of foreign exchange coming into the country right now is simply classified as "money transfers". I.e. Western Union moves more money than any hotel chain or bauxite mine. This money is mostly from Jamaicans overseas taking care of the family back home. It turns out that the IRS as classed Jamaicans as one of the wealthiest ethnic gropes in the US, right next to the jews and no; for you cynics drug dealers don't pay taxes and are all rated as unemployed and broke by the IRS.
How many people here have a Jamaican coworker or snack at a Jamaican owned business etc... ? Probably a disproportionately large number, since this is a very small country. At 2.7 Million most of your cities are bigger
In other words our biggest export is skilled labor.
PS : Other places with huge taxes ( a few european countries come to mind ) guarantee, and deliver near flawless roads, free health care, subsidized public transport an efficient justice system and public education that leaves the wealthy without much reason to use private schools.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Trust me. The US dose not do much brain draining from any country. Rather the country has to chase it's people away and in Jamaica's case the US just happens to offer the best deal for a migrant.
1: Shortest, and hence cheapest journey ( except for Cuba which doesn't need to import labor and most wouldn't want ).
2: Fast moving economy. Lots of new jobs every day for the aggressive job hunter ( When you land you have to find something before your cash runs out ).
3: High salaries. If Jamaica offered 1/2 of what the US did most immigrants would never have left. Around here you need a Collage degree to earn $540K per year. In the US that's what you get for flipping burgers. ( 540K J$ per year == U$250 per weak ).
If any of these things were not available we would be going elsware. Even then the Racism in the US is enough to make many Jamaicans look elsware. I.e. most have never been called "Niger" until landing there and often wind up breaking some skinhead in half shortly after. Like most people we would rather avoid violence.
Most people will stay home for a hell of a lot less than the travel for. Why would you want to leave comfortable weather ( to you ) and a familiar culture? Simply, put you don't.
BTW : The US doesn't encourage Jamaican immigrants. Anyone who has ever been to a visa interview here or been searched in Miami airport is left with the distinct impression that they don't even want us to visit.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
This is just a hunch, but don't you get something for those taxes ? Like say good roads and free ( or subsidized ) basic services. Taxation for it's own sake is bad. That's not what you have.
BTW : About that 100% - 120% import duty. What figure is it charged on ? What you paid for the car, What the industry catalog ( who's name I can't remember ) values it at or what customes thinks it can sell for ? Here we use the highest of the 3 figures and it's usually the last one by about 3X.
Also a car doesn't need to be very big to go over the 100% mark. Very few American vehicles don't. A Corolla is about borderline.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
I reckon taxes are collected in the wrong way at the moment. This includes the UK as well.
At the moment, the national gvernment grabs about 40% of everything I earn and then grants some back to the local governments (councils). I would much rather see my tax revenue go to the local councils who can use the money for local services and projects which will benefit me and my neighbours. They could then decide what services the national government should be providing and how much they should cost.
Deleted
...no matter where it comes from.
Fact is, sales taxes hit the poor and middle class harder than they do the rich, even if you exempt drugs, food, etc. The paper rather overstates it's case regarding how much money there is out there, but the point is well taken that much (if not most) of the revenue would be eaten up in transaction fees. There are simply more efficient and less regressive ways to raise revenue than collecting sales taxes on Internet transactions.
I grant that the less wealthy out there do not have access to the Internet (so they couldn't take full advantage of this). This is to some extent an intractable problem (a certain percent of the population will never get wired, no matter how cheap or easy it becomes). OTOH, it doesn't take too much resourcefulness to find a friend who is Internet-savvy, so this may not be nearly the problem it seems to be on the surface.
On "Through a Loophole, Darkly: Why the Internet Exemption From Taxes is Not Entirely a Good Thing", Bob Cringely warns of loopholes.
--
__
Men with no respect for life must never be allowed to control the ultimate instruments of death.
GW Bu
wow, now /. should only post what you want, and everyone who actually thinks this should've been posted is unable to understand?
/. readership.
/., as well as in many other places. Until something new or seriously different comes along (again, either legislation, judicial decision, or something equally serious) it's just rehashing the same old net-taxation bugaboo.
/., it still ends up causing lots of handwaving and bloviating, wasting hundreds of poor kilobytes, on an issue which is pretty much clearly defined. The only interesting discussion of this issue in the foreseeable future would be regarding any specific new actions related to the issue (again, new legislation or judicial decision, or something equally goofy like a consortium of companies attempting to voluntarily collect tax.. tried by many mail-order companies quite recently and failed quite miserably).
/. code could allow 'runner up' submissions to appear in place of submissions whose topics were killfiled..
;) AIIGH! How do I exclude 'Money' stories from my homepage? I've already excluded 'Comdex', 'Internet Explorer' and 'Microsoft', but I don't see 'Money' anywhere...
.i really do...open source, closed minds, blatant hypocrisy.
/. in technical and editorial terms. I am just as free to take issue with this as you are to take issue with my opinions. And my mind is _not_ closed, but it is under a constant barrage of information and anything that adds valueless content to that barrage inspires annoyance and frustration.
No, but there are probably more deserving technical articles sitting in the queue (or worse, being bumped so this article could be posted). I wouldn't know, as the queue is not public or moderated by
This article and issue have been covered many times before on
While this is not as egregious as some of the other redundant articles on
Go ahead and talk about what you like, it just annoys me that another submission had to die for this story. Keep this in mind: for every unworthy and/or redundant submission posted, something more interesting probably had to die.
I wonder if a new patch for the
I wonder if a new Topic for 'internet taxation' should be created... 'Money' seems a little too generic, though I guess I could forgo IPO news for a little sanity...
Please tell me where I've been hypocritical? My opinion on the US net.tax issue is constant and pretty much unshakeable: net sales taxes are unconstitutional and unlikely (compared to the e-commerce damage they'd inflict as well as understanding that consumers will simply switch to mail/phone order which are protected by precedent as well as the constitution). In addition, I find that rehashing this issue every frickin week (it feels that way) is simply provoking sound and fury, signifying nothing, and it not only wastes space and eyeballs but it contributes in a negative way to the overall S/N ratio of
Time for coffee..
Your Working Boy,
The fellow is saying that the question of 'should or should not' is irrelevant. It *will* happen, which neatly puts 'should' out of business.
Hokey statistics and ancient misconceptions are no match for a good thought in your head, kid!
Depends on your definition of "pursuit of happiness" :) :). At one point there was a constituitional ammendment banning alcohol, so would the ammendment that repealed that ammendment count as a constituitional right to alcohol?
Yeah, I know that's really Declaration of Independence, and not Constituition, though there's always the "more perfect union" clause in the preamble
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
Ok so the mechanics and fairness of collecting taxes is not well thought out. Use the FCC Teleopoly model and collect taxes at the Federal level and disburse them back to the States. By any other name the access fees, surcharges, universal fees, etc. are flat amount taxes, levies, whatever you want to call them. One way to do this would be to build in a gaggle of fees to your basic connection. True it would unfairly tax those who don't purchase G&S but so what. You're phone usage is already taxed no matter how much you use it and what you use it for. What about freeISP's and freeEmail you say? Tax them anyway; 0$ service + X$ Internet levy. Or tax the hardware itself. Not fair you say? Maybe you'll never connect to the net and why should you pay a levy? Who cares. I'm taxed to build roads I'll never drive on. I'm taxed to safely treat water I'll never drink. I'm taxed to send satellites to Mars. What's your point?? There are all kinds of imputed taxes you pay where the base rate is already built into the price: taxes on gasoline aren't rung seperately but there they are.
Veteran, Bermuda Triangle Expeditionary Force, 1992-1951
On the other hand you have California, where property taxes have been politically frozen for 20 years. The only viable source of revenue for local government is sales taxes (which is one reason we have so many strip malls).
In the Silicon Valley, local sales taxes are even a popular way of funding highway projects. The irony is that can be cheaper to mail order from San Jose than to actually drive there and pick it up.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
A good point - that taxes are not evil per se.
;)
Also, people seem to think that taxes get taken by the government and then thrown out the window. Tax dollars started the ARPA net, provide education, and, if you live in a halfway civilized country, free health insurance.
It's not 'free' though if you pay for it in tax dollars, to start with. Or, in my instance, in tax francs - I happen to live in one of those partially civilized countries that have decent health insurance infrastructures (not too much taken out of my monthly check, and I never worry about illness or accident).
For all that, do I clamor for my government to levy more taxes ? I don't - I would much prefer it to use what it already takes from me more efficiently. (And I think of myself as leftist, very much so...)
I like to think that the hubbub over taxing Internet sales is more of a case of the US govt saying 'whatever we can't control should be banned, taxed, or declared bad for your health'.
Oh, jeez, let Hemos get a little ahead in the rat race, and before ya know it, he starts pushing these right-wing libertarian rant sites...welcome to the club, Hemos. Isn't funny how this stuff starts to make more sense when you're a self-starter who makes it into the money?
The essential truth here is the genie is already out of the bottle. The harder the pols and the crats squeeze, the less they will be able to get their greedy fingers onto. You socialists - this is not about having enough taxes to provide for infrastructure and the safety net, this is about power. The State covets it, and they's not gonna get it, furthermore, they may not even be able to deny power from us!
It's easy for the impressionable to blame the Demon Internet for all sorts of social problems. What's truly amazing, tho, is how impressively easy it is for internet users to really shrug most of this off. See how little impact the country-specific censorship and gambling rules really have, for example. The State will never catch up. And when our guys go over to the Dark Side - weeel fr'instance, who cares about Dorothy Denning now?
It really does seem to me this will make little difference in a few years. Even the physical nexus will stop being an issue because people will vote with their feet - and sensible jurisdictions will step out of the way, coming or going.
It works in Oregon and others. Revenues can be gained from property and income taxes in the state. Think of all the sales tax paperwork that could be prevented.
I hate hearing people bitch about sales tax on the internet, it is a stupid idea. Then again, I know from experience. In California we have to pay sales tax for just about everything. I bought a pair of books from B&N and paid sales tax, same as when I buy from anywhere else. My sales tax is 7.75% though. People whining about 5% just make me mad. Shopping on the internet is overratted, at least for me. Because of shipping and sales tax I don't really save any money and you can usually expect 3-6 days for your shipment to arrive. How am I saving through this glorious revolution, now I know what the Russians felt like after the Bolsheviks took over.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
You're right about the backwardness of my assumption - I got too worked up and didn't realize that it was my state trying to tax me. However, I'm still unhappy with the the revised situation.
It's not that I don't want my local government to have money, but rather that I don't think I have used any additional services of the local government as a result of the sale, and thus I don't see why they have a right to tax me. I'll admit that I used local phone lines/cable lines to place the order and that UPS used the local streets to deliver the package, but all of those things are already taxed by the state. If UPS makes more trips to my door because I've bought more things online, the taxes that individuals and businesses already pay to keep up the roads should be increased. But we don't need a new tax. There are already taxes which pay for phone lines, roads, law enforcement, etc., and if we need more money for those things it's much better to increase the existing tax rate than to create a new tax with new forms, laws, and general confusion.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
It's fine with me if states tax businesses which are residents in order to provide the infrastructure that those businesses make use of. I just don't want to be taxed by states of which I am not a resident, because I won't receive any benefit from those tax revenues. If amazon.com is using resources which could be provided for by a 10% tax, for example, then the 10% tax should be applied to amazon.com in that state and they can pass the higher costs on to me in the price of their products if they want. The wrong solution is to tax them 5% and tax me the customer (and all the other customers too) 5%.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Good point - I hadn't considered that some states may have different and/or less organized revenue models than the ones that I am familiar with. However, giving states the ability to tax nonresidents seems like it could be prone to abuses and would cause more problems than it would solve. At the very least, it would cause e-businesses to move to states with no sales taxes.
Ultimately, I don't see a significant difference between ecommerce and catalog or mail order purchases. Sure ordering over the web is quicker (usually) than a phone order, but phone ordering is faster than mail-order and we didn't change all of the tax laws for that. This is one case where the Internet would be in better shape if we stayed within the boundaries of existing laws, rather than reinventing how taxation works online.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
I have to admit this is one thing that's been bothering me lately -- the US doing a brain drain on other countries. While obviously it's in our own short-term interest to get all we can in whatever resources are available, I question the long-term feasibility of essentially strip-mining a country's population.
Fortunately, many people send money back, but as you point out, if the money is wasted it doesn't do much good. The obviousl answer is to invest in education and such, but then you have a new generation of educated students (at local expense) leaving the country to generate income for the US.
I suppose a national sending money back puts more into the economy than he would if he stayed behind, so in that light it might be a good thing.
Man, i hate trying to figure this stuff out. No matter how you look at it it seems like everyone's getting screwed (and yet everyone is making money!)...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Ack! No german beer purity law?!!!
Next you'll tell me that America doesn't really want the tired, poor, wretched masses yearning to be free!
All my delusions, shattered!...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
income taxes are viewed as punishing people for making money
If we're going to come up with outrageous analogies, sales taxes punish people for existing, and punish the poor more heavily than those who aren't poor.
If it makes it less painful, the correct response to "income taxes penalize people for making more money" is "the people who benefit most from our economic system should bear a similarly greater responsibility for maintaining it".
Unfortunately both points are correct, as is true with most fo these debates. So no matter what we do, we'll continue arguing about it (g)...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Everytime somebody here talks about the internet, they make it seem like some sort of foreign entity that nobody here can be a part of. This state has that sort of attitude about a lot of topics so I was wondering whether this was just us or prevalent in other parts of the country/world.
...
-!Don't take this as an insult to New Mexico!-
This is a fairly common attitude in less-developed areas, in my experience. Very common in poorer states as well as poorer countries. What's frustrating in working with these folks is, as you point out, that they believe this is something foreign they can have no part in.
The single largest obstacle to lifting developing countries (and poor people on an individual level) is convincing them that there is nothing stopping them from getting out of the hole. This is not to say that shooting sunshine up someone's butt is going to make them a millionaire, because it's a long process that takes generations for the attitudes to change. I just get so frustrated with our third-world partners because everything is always "Oh, we're not as smart as you Americans, we can't do that sort of stuff." When of course they're just as smart, and frequently much harder workers -- they just don't accept that it's possible and thus they run in circles of poverty.
Ugh.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
The difference is that purchasers are being taxed but not receiving any government services in return. All of the pro-taxation arguments which have been made so far are along the lines of "but everybody else is raking it in, why shouldn't we?" without any consideration of what those tax revenues will buy for the people who are being taxed.
But this assumes that there is a clear-cut division between rveenue/expense sources that doesn't exist. The state's (and country's) income just goes into the budget and is spent -- in many places the sales tax does pick up the cost of education or social services.
Saying that sales tax ONLY pays for the infrastructure to support the businesses ignores the equal reality that the infrastructure equally benefits the customer.
There are states without sales tax, where the income/property taxes pick up all expenses; there are other where there are no income taxzes, and thus sales tax picks up a larger burden for the local support of government...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
No, unfortunately the repeal of prohibition did nothing but say "the amendment is hereby repealed".
Believe me, I'd be in line to sign up for the guaranteed right to alchohol! Especially if we got some similar laws like germany regulating the purity and freshness. That's some legislating I can work up an appetite for (g)...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Liberals are supposed to be against the sales tax because it's regressive. Conservatives are supposed to be against it because it puts a disproportionate burden on small business, and because it is economically inefficient
Ok, I'm not an economist, though I am an economics major (and a liberal), and I don't understand why conservatives would think excise taxes are economically inefficient? I was always under the impression that they are more efficient at least when compared with income taxes, since since they encourage savings and investment (by discouraging consumption) rather than discouraging income, which isn't a good idea (and lessing the effect of the Laffer Curve with which many coservatives are enamored). Why are they supposed to be inefficient?
I also don't quite get the bias against small businesses (waving the bloody shirt, perhaps?). Is it just that all businesses must deal with sales taxes, and that will seem larger for small businesses? As I said, I'm not a conservative and fail to see the reasoning behind the opinions you claim they have.
I don't doubt they're regressive (you're right); I just don't get the other stuff.
I don't mean to flame, but anywhere a business sector can profit, the government HAS to put in its 2-bit laws and squeeze the profit out of the business.
As a canadian, this is the major cause of the Brain Drain, where everyone who wants to make a decent amout of money moves south to the States, where the tax rates are much lower.
Private Industry cannot raise prices as it pleases, and it cannot add costs where there are none, but the goverment can add taxes on taxes. What can we do about it, except complain?
Actually, you have it backwards. The proposed "sales tax remedies" would make it possible for your state to capture sales tax on a sale made by that California company. The money would go to your local government to pay for your local schools, streets, or whatever.
Well, Social Security was actually devised by Otto von Bismarck, who was not, I believe, a socialist, nor was he the prime minister of a socialist state. BTW, is everyone who believes in an adequate social safety net a socialist? I wouldn't have thought so.
Jeff
In the case of Texas (one of the states with usage tax but no income tax), they have a form that you fill out and send in for the next tax period. Tax periods for Texas begin on the first of January, April, July, and October.
Florida, Nevada, South Dakota, Washington, and Wyomng also have no state income tax. If you're in any of these states, I would check with the agency that handles the sales tax for your state. Most, if not all, states have a state government web site that can be found at http://www.state.xx.us where xx is the state postal abbreviation. Many states have the tax information and forms on their site. Some even let you handle this electronically, if you trust that sort of thing.
-Jennifer
I mentioned this last week, so at the risk of being moderated as redundant...
As far as I know, in the U.S., tax can't be charged on transactions across state lines. You'll see the simplest example of this on a mail-order catalog, where you only pay tax if you live in that state.
Purchases made across state lines may be taxed, but the basis of the tax can't be made on "interstate commerce". A prime example of taxing interstate commerce for a reason other than interstate commerce is usage tax. All U.S. states that have sales tax also have usage tax. This tax applies to any purchase where the merchandise is intended to be used within a state other than where the purchase was made. The usage rate is the state's sales tax rate minus what you paid in sales tax already. It's supposed to be paid on your state income tax.
This tax has been upheld by the Supreme Court and it applies to mail order houses as well as Internet purchases. So, just because BarnesandNobel.com didn't charge you sales tax doesn't mean that you don't owe any tax on your purchase.
-Jennifer
I can't speak for the cost of your ambulance ride, or your "speeding" ticket (38 in a 35 is hardly speeding, I agree), or so forth. But the fact remains, the government does provide services to the public. And the things that they do are usually the expensive, nasty stuff that nobody wants to deal with. You may pay a fee to have the garbage picked up in the Nashville suburbs, but here in Philly, it's run by the city. Out of my tax money. I'm okay with that, I like that the garbage gets picked up. And the various emergency services. Thankfully, I have had no need of them in a long time. But just in case I do need them, it's good to know they're there. But then there's stuff the government does that I don't like. Nobody is going to be all happy. Because maybe you think that you don't need the fire dept, and i think I don't need the garbage service. Or whatever, the point is the same. The govt. can't satisfy everyone all the time, but they're doing a hell of a lot better than the average person gives them credit for. But let's talk Washington for a while. Priced real estate there lately? Or consumer goods? Believe me, your average government employee in the DC area is suffering through the real world too. The attitude I'm talking about _is_ whining. Life is about ups and downs and struggles, that's what makes the good parts good. What I'm talking about is people complaining - "I want no taxes, but I want the government to do all this crap for me" "I want the government to leave me alone. But I also want them to protect my interests w.r.t. this or that foreign policy." That's greedy, whining BS.
itachi, who isn't a student, and isn't a farmer, but don't make assumptions there, eh? I'd love to continue this one on one...
Not having the full text in front of me, I'm guessing the way around that would be an elimination of state sales taxes in favor of a Fed sales tax. (This way, it's not taxing the exports, it's taxing the sale that occured within US borders - that clause looks like it was meant to prevent the Fed from deciding that Texas, for instance, would not be selling anything out of state anymore...) But that voids the point of sales taxes, which, as implemented, support state budgets. I think that there isn't an easy answer because each of the 50 states raise cash in their own way - some of them with sales taxes, some with property taxes, Alaska makes money on oil, etc. And each state budget is different, too. Maybe the best way to do it would be to think of internet and catalog sales as happening in a 51st state, and then let the Fed. manage sales taxes and so forth there, with all the money being earmarked for state funding (eg. Fed highway funding, Fed school subsidies, etc.)
itachi
To you or me, 5 billion is a lot, but to the U.S. Federal govt, 5 billion USD is chump change. Like, really nothing. Take a look at the federal budget sometime, or look at the IMF statistical yearbooks. There's really big money floating around out there...
itachi
The online retailer is making heavy use of the physical infrastructure and so forth in the state in which they are based, much heavier than an individual citizen. Just a thought...
itachi
If you would have read the article, you would have noticed that it wasn't about whether the government would or would not tax Internet commerce. It was about if it should or not...notice the difference.
As JPelorat pointed out, my main point is that it will, so the whole should debate is a waste of time.
But, as an aside, what you are saying, in effect, is that it's OK for rich white technogeeks not to pay for local and state services, while taxing the heck out of poor people or groups that aren't on the Net. Which is OK if that's what you believe, but not a good thing for society. And that is what happens when we don't tax the Net.
Note I don't mean ISPs or Net services - I mean the selling of goods and services through the medium of the Net. And I don't think they should be taxed more, and maybe even less, but I don't think they should get a free ride.
Will in Seattle
I am not an economist, but I'm targeting a minor in Economics on my CSC degree:
Sales taxes are inefficient because they are difficult to administer. Consider a retailer who sells 1000 $0.50 items in a day, (20,000 tax calculations a month!), and then consider an income based tax which is calculated twice per month for each employee.
Note that this penalizes small businesses heavily as they are much more likely to be selling $.50 items than $100,000 items. There are exceptions, such as Wal-Mart, but go ask a small retailer what they have to do to work around the local sales based taxes.
Most conservatives will probably argue (myself included) for a Capital Gains Exemption (such as we have in Canada) where only 75% of your capital gain income (stocks, bonds, interest, house sales, etc.) is taxed. Note that in the current budget, this is moving to 67% of capital gains over the next 3 years. The capital gains exemption gives you all the benefits of increased rates of savings (you know that, in the long run, you won't be beaten over the head with taxes (as badly as regular income)), and the exemption is relatively easy to calculate, and its difficult to cheat on, whereas sales taxes, due to their transaction nature, are much easier to cheat on and bury.
Cyano
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
He wasn't talking about a system. He was talking about just buying the proccessor. Goto pricewatch.com and you'll find it for sale for 1400$, 10$ shipping. He was 5$ off.
Later
Erik Z
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
So what people are complaining about is that the federal government has too much power compared to state governments. Then they want to remove the states ability to raise any revenue through taxation (if you have no internet taxation and 25% of business has moved over to the net, then 25% of the tax income of the states has dissapeared.) The further this continues the more powerless the states become compared to the Federal government and the more people will complain about the irrelevence of the government to their everyday lives.
You may think the government in general is taking too much of a bite from your pay. but you get what you pay for. If you pay no taxes, then the corporations pay for the government, and then the customer always being right they tend to get the rules that they want.
Retail Business's have been crying about this for years. You can order something out of state and get it 6~8% cheaper (-shipping) than if you bought it locally.
It also makes them want to put their bussiness online and bring in money from outsite their state.
I would think _not_ inforcing a state internet tax
would be more profitable.
AdFuel
The one fifteen minute ambulance ride I have taken cost me approximately $1200. The state government did not help me to pay for any of it. Thankfully I was well insured.
/. post should try working on a small farm in southern missouri for a week in July or August)
I pay a small fee, something like $5 a month, to get my garbage picked up. That is in a suburb of Nashville; I've had similar expenditures in St. Louis and Denver when I lived in those cities. I don't know of anyplace in the country that covers the cost of garbage collection with state taxes. If you don't pay it yourself, the odds are very good that your landlord does (which means you pay for it in your rent check). And even if garbage collection were covered by the government, it would be a city level civic function, funded by property taxes or the like.
The one time in my life I have been robbed, in Boston in summer of 98, I stood in line for over an hour to file a police report. The unsympathetic clerk took my paperwork and said he'd get back to me if anything turned up. Obviously I never heard from him again... Of course, the county clerk in the 2-bit town of Wickliffe, KY, whose policeman pulled me over for going 38 in a 35, and then changed the ticket to 65 in a 35 when I refused to say "sir" to him- was happy to accept my check for $163 last September. The fact that it was the third consecutive Labor day I had been pulled over for speeding when I wasn't really speeding, and the fact that the policeman was driving a very shiny white '99 Ford, which cost his town of less than 500 people something like $25,000, adds to my cynicism towards government officials somewhat... at least to the extent that I don't want them taking more of my money than necessary. I have my own car payments to make.
Stop whining. What on earth is wrong with...
I don't think it is whining, so much as it is screams of anguish coming from people who see themselves paying way too much for what dubious returns they receive. People who see excess every day, and are sick of hearing the words "close enough for government work"- especially coming from public school teachers! People who work their fingers to the bone to make the house payment, or to put their daughter through college- and then find that they still owe uncle sam $1500 in taxes. These people aren't necessarily greedy, or selfish; they just exist in the real world, the one people in Washington don't see much of, and are trying to live their lives as free from interference as possible.
Rev. Neh (who thinks that students who use the word 'greedy' vicariously in a
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
> > Tax dollars started the ARPA net, provide education, and, if you
> > live in a halfway civilized country, free health insurance.
> s/civilized/socialist/
An excellent substitution! Precisely what the U.S. needs: more civilization.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Minnesota just gave a refund to its taxpayers, so don't say it never issues refunds. Then again, this is under Jesse Ventura's administration; you're not likely to see a major-party official actually do this...
--
Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.
Online stores make customers pay sales tax if they live in the same state. If a store doesn't have a physical pressence in a state then there is no need to pay sales tax, in fact it's UNCONSTITUTIONAL.
So tough if mom and pop shops are having a hard time, they are merely paying for the infrastructure they use and if they don't like it and consumers don't feel it's worth the extra dough then they will have to move online or suffer. Deal.
It seems to me that if you have no/low sales tax on food, clothing, and shelther, and negative tax for transportation, that's a fair deal for the hard working people. A key benefit of a consumption tax is that you can target people who pay for food service, SUVs, gasoline, computers, jewelry, big back yards, country club memberships, etc.
No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State.
This is directed at the legislative branch (the U.S. Congress). I'm sure they'll find some way to weasel around it without amending the Constitution, though.
17.5% just sounds outrageous here, though. It'd be tough to make that kind of thing happen. When I already pay around 8% sales tax for my STATE, plus federal income tax, plus property tax, etc etc... it's tough to justify more taxes. To implement a VAT we'd have to overhaul the whole system.
Best regards,
SEAL
> income taxes are viewed as punishing people for making money
If we're going to come up with outrageous analogies, sales taxes punish people for existing, and punish the poor more heavily than those who aren't poor.
"punishing people for making money"... jeezus....
But...
Ummm...
--- brain of a long time liberal ( hell, often left wing Canadian - but appreciates capitalism and competition ) with a background in Physics ( and thus pride in logic and thought ) makes strange creaking and groaning noises for a few minutes ---
JEEZE. It's been a long time since I came across something which, upon attempting to crush it against my world of logic, results in strong challenges to my current view of the world.
I'm going to have to go away for a long while and think about this
Maybe I'm just tired, I only had 4 hours sleep last night...
I know damn well that the regressive nature is wrong, but I can't figure out at the moment what the advantages/purposes are of tax rates applying to earnings way way beyond the point where one covers the the benefits I obtain from govt (plus extra for social justice and the like) way out to infinity...
I haven't gotten to the point of even considering 'no income taxes', I think that's dumb, it's just so much more efficient to collect income taxes, and more importantly one has so much more control over the social justice of who is paying what.
BUT - I am wondering that if, once a person reaches an upper income limit, all further earnings should be tax free...?
Of course, what happens to the tax revenue when those with more income earn more...(removing income from others, moving income from a taxable area to a non-taxable one)?
God in heaven, my mind is wandering towards 'flat taxes', well not absolute flat taxes, but staggered flat taxes... but there are still boundary like issues... perhaps they can be dealt with using a sharp but still graded transition from no taxes to the flat 'amount' based upon income (and I'm talking *flat* tax - no tax rate - just a fixed dollar amount)...
I must be missing something big here. Perhaps I'm confusing the effects/implications/differences between Corporate and Private taxes...
Anyways, I know one thing FOR SURE. In terms of 'alleviating' the 'taxes punish you for making money' thing, I'd deal with it completely within the framework of the private/corporate income tax area. I'd still get rid of sales taxes. They are a blunt blunt completely flat instrument, unless you start re-imbursing based upon income, whereupon you might as well do it through income taxes. (I was about to say they are archaic holdovers from when our society was much more idiotic than it is now, but hey, that's true about almost everything in our society.)
If you poor buggers can't use income taxes, and are left with only sales taxes, and the rest of us do THE RIGHT THING and eliminate sales taxes, then I think you're going to have no choice but to implement consumer side sales taxes, whether your residents are buying from out of state or not. Here in Canada anytime we buy anything from the US, it get's 7% GST tacked on coming over the border. But how you're going to nail e-transactions that have no physical deliverable... perhaps you're going to have to stick to only taxing physical deliverables?
So? It would be much simpler for the state to tax the customer's income. Then you don't have to worry about the international situation, and you have much less accounting and hassle.
ECommerce and B&M Retail operations should be taxed the same, else one would be getting subsidized. Whatever the sales tax rate ends up being, the end result is equivalent: If you make a lot of money, you'll make a lot of purchases. Whether you tax the income or the sales doesn't matter, it's simpler to tax and collect the income.
Some people support a sales tax over equivalent income tax because it discourages consumption, promotes saving. However from an economic standpoint, consumption is good. If everyone saved their money, stuffed it in a mattress for example, the economy would suffer. People wouldn't be able to sell their services because less people would buy them. Fewer goods would be produced.
The sensible way to promote investment would be to lower the capital gains tax, or create a tax subsidy for investing in american business. It doesn't do our economy any good if the tax laws encourage you to invest in foreign countries.
The real reason the tax system is so fucked up is that the government wants to obfuscate the total amount of your income that you pay in taxes. Several 10% taxes seems cheaper than one 30% tax. Every paycheck, the government mugs me and my employer 7.5% for Social Security. Why do they split it up between me and the employer? It doesn't make any difference, I'm actually paying 15%. But the tax looks cheaper if I think of the tax as $7 out of $100 instead of $15 out of $107.
If they were sincere about Social Security, they could force me to put 15% of my income into some sort of IRA. They'll probably bankrupt the program before I retire, it's all a scam.
Anyway, why are you fighting for taxes? I have never understood people who want to be mugged and raped (figuratively speaking) by the government. Do you realize that about 4 months of your salary already goes to the government (in the US)? And you want to give them more?!?
Oh yes, we must save our our wonderful public education system! It's the best in the world you know! (*gag*) We pay far more money per student than any other country, but we are still lagging. That's why we must give even more money for education!! (*double gag*)
Any thing that government can do, the private sector can do better.
I am not a politician, but I sometimes think like one.
Liberals recognize that the sales tax is horribly regressive although they don't say it out loud. They generally would prefer to make up the difference with a progressive income tax. This is more politically expedient, and it looks good to the lower middle classes. Also, from the Puritanical point of view (which includes some conservatives) directed sales taxes are useful for discouraging the purchase of gas, beer, guns, ammo, and other luxuries. Conservatives are not generally that concerned with small businesses, and if you are rich, then from a personal point of view, sales tax is definitely not one of the things you care about.
If you would have read the article, you would have noticed that it wasn't about whether the government would or would not tax Internet commerce. It was about if it should or not...notice the difference.
That's $35 billion of sales, not taxes. Multiply by the tax rate to get taxes collected, divide by 50 states then by 40 counties.
Not nothing, but not all that much either.
I think lots of folks are confusing "no sales tax" with "no obligation to collect sales tax." The two are the not the same. When the author of the article says:
"...much online retailing involves purchases that would otherwise be conducted with paper catalogs and 800 numbers--and thus not taxed anyway. "
he's being a tad misleading. No, the purchases wouldn't be taxed but that's not because tax isn't owed. It's just because the tax is hard to collect. Later, he goes on to say:
"If states had a cost-effective method of policing mail-order sales, they would already be collecting taxes on them. (Most states with sales taxes ostensibly require "user taxes" on goods purchased elsewhere.) The only rational explanation why states do not collect significant taxes on out-of-state purchases is that it is simply not worth the trouble. Collection costs for the government, business, and consumers evidently exceed the expected revenue. "
he touches on correcting his earlier mistake, but still doesn't quite grok the situation.
Let's take an example. You retire and move to Florida. After settling in for a few months, you decide to buy a housefull of furniture to replace your old, ratty stuff. So you make the pilgrimage to High Point NC, the center of the furniture universe (at least in the U.S.), check out the huge manufacturer's showrooms, and buy USD$50K in furniture for delivery to your home in Jupiter FL.
The furniture company doesn't collect the sales tax because the sale is to an out-of-state destination. They have no obligation to collect tax for FL. **BUT** the state of FL **DOES** require the payment of sales tax on sales into the state. FL just doesn't know about the sale yet. Theoretically, when you receive your housefull of furniture, you're supposed to contact the state sales tax folks, report the purchase, and remit the sales tax directly to them. You, the purchaser, are still supposed to pay the tax.
Big deal, right? Nobody ever reports those sales, right? Well, maybe, but that doesn't mean you escape paying the tax. Florida made a big splash in the taxation press years ago when *exactly* the scenario described above (furniture ordered from out of state by retirees)began happening with some frequency. They began posting sales tax people at weigh stations and having them tag along on truck inspections. The sales tax people would inspect the manifest, determine the value of the merchandise being delivered, and send out bills for sales tax to the recipients.
So what's my point?
Sales tax on cross-border sales has always existed. The people who want to "tax the internet" in this area, at least, have a pretty firm footing. They are only trying to use new tools to enforce laws already on the books.
Of course, they're screwing up the whole process royally by trying to foist the responsibility for collecting off on the sellers. They don't like the idea of billing each and every one of their residents individually for their internet purchases.
And also of course, the practical problems pointed out in the article basically swamp any point I've made in this post. Internet taxation has so many problems for so little reward that it'll turn out to be an unprofitable PITA.
...sarcasm on
The solution? As another poster has already suggested, junk the sales tax everywhere. While we're at it, let's junk the bad 'ole income tax and every other tax that nobody likes (that's all of 'em, btw) and go live in some Utopia where no government needs any revenue to pay for any basic governmental functions because everyone lives in respectful peace and harmony and takes care of each other.
...sarcasm off
While I understand and accept the basic fairness of 'net taxation, I just don't think it's practical. So what to do? I dunno. If I figger it out, I'll git me a job wit one o'dem fancy think tank thingies...
Yes, sales taxes are regressive, but I want to bring up another topic, green taxes. I realize this is slightly off-topic, but it's interesting and no one has mentioned it, AFAIK.
The idea of "green" taxes is that instead of taxing income or sales we tax use of non-renewable resources and pollution. This encourages care of the environment and it makes a product's price reflect the true cost of making it. Plus we could then lower income taxes (for the lower and middle-classes first!)
Before anyone grumbles about having these higher prices passed along to them realize that we all pay the costs of pollution. We also need ways to produce that do not deplete Earth's resources, but renew them, like the processes of the rest of nature seem to do.
I've heard some parts of Europe are using green taxes.
However, as Arthur C. Clarke pointed out, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics might have been Soviet (whatever that means) but it was most certainly not a Union composed of Republics, and it was not Socialist.
I wouldn't call the USSR socialist either, but it was definitely not Soviet!
The soviets were councils or groups of ordinary citizens. During the first stages of the Russian Revolution, workers got together in these soviets, took over their factories, threw out their bosses and started running the factories themselves. Peasants also organized and took over production of the feudal estates. I believe soldiers also organized and quit fighting WWI. It was truly a revolution, and you can why the capitalist powers that be were terrified and have spent billions of dollars making sure it would never happen again! (For a short, thoughtful summary of the Russian Revolution I recommend the section in Daniel Guerin's "Anarchism".)
There were two major groups of revolutionaries: the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and Trotsky and the anarchists. The Bolsheviks argued for taking over state power and using it in the interests of the workers and to defend the revolution. The anarchists argued against dictatorship, even dictatorship of the proletariat; they wanted to run the economy in a bottom-up way through federations of these workers' organizations, not through central planning.
Unfortunately, the Bolsheviks won. The soviets, the unions and peoples' councils were destroyed - all authority was taken by the Communist Party. So the USSR was not soviet.
As for the term "socialist", it depends on what you mean by the term, of course. Everyone from the Nazis (National Socialists) to the USSR to the U.S. Socialists (one of their mottos: production for use, not profit - I like that!) have all used that word in very different ways. I think of "socialist" as an economy based on co-operation, not competition and a political system based on democracy, not tyranny like capitalist "democracy" where you get one vote for each dollar you have.
The USSR called itself socialist to claim it worked for the people. The U.S. called the USSR socialist to claim that socialism meant central planning, a one-party state, and political mass killings.
I don't mind being called a socialist, but what's important are issues and ideas, of course, not names.
By the way, I enjoyed your post, even though I went off on my own ideas.
The point of having more taxes is to increase government control. Politicians drool whenever they think of something sitting out there untaxed. Once it's taxed, there's that much more money that they can buy votes with.
I don't know about that personal interaction part...didn't you see the article in Newsweek a couple of weeks ago? With the low unemployment rate and pay for salespeople well above the minimum wage, salespeople evidently don't feel any great motivation to exercise even minimal civility to customers. Much more of that, and I'd think that an online service could advertise not having to deal with obnoxious salespeople as a benefit.
IANAL, IANAE, but I am an Accountant. Companies (in Illinois) are given a discount on the tax paid vs. the tax collected if they pay in a timely fashion (30 days, IIRC). If I collected $1,000 in tax I would remit less than that amount to the state. It's been years since I had to fill out a form myself, so I don't remember the exact percentage. It's not much, but it more than covered the 15 minutes it took to fill out the form. This could easily be considered payment for collecting the tax. Small businesses are hurt because they have to pay all the tax they owe. I now work for a large company and we DO NOT pay our proper amount of tax. Every couple of years, a state will send an auditor here and he/she will tell us to pay more money. We then sit and argue with him/her (the auditor always wins) and finally pay up. In the meantime that money has been sitting in the bank collecting interest (or been plowed into some type of money making venture). Most small businesses cannot afford to play such games.
If you are in any doubt as to what that dose to an economy you need look no farther than Jamaica. Right now we carry a heavy tax burden.
Are you kidding me? I'd gladly pay the taxes you just listed instead of what they rob here in Funlan..., um, Finland. And we don't even have the highest taxes in the world! So, we're close, but not yet there.... And yes, the government is still trying to figure out how to tax more.
Funny thing, every time the government tells us that they're lowering taxes, it turns out that it only works for the few rich people left here. Us normal people end up paying more. Always.
Anyway, for the record:
25% income tax
I (should) pay about 40%
15% sales tax
22%, expect for some rare items
40% import duty on consumer items ( like cloths )
Hmm, me thinks this is between 0% and 10% depeinding on what you import.
20% Duty on trucks
Ha! 100%
40% to 280% on cars
Still the same 100%, it used to be 120% but they lowered it a few years ago.
1/2 the cost of gasoline
3/4 of the cost of gas! Which currently runs at nearly FIM 7/liter or ~$4.40/gallon. Guess why there aren't any big cars in Finland?
In fact the only sensible thing is that most computer equipment attracts only the 15% sales tax
Again, 22% of VAT + roughly 3% duty.
and books and magazines of all types are tax free.
This wasn't 22%, me thinks it was 12%. Don't remember, as I don't buy books.
Hm, an example: if I buy something from Amazon, it's the cost + roughly $15 for shipping + ~3% of tax + 22% of VAT which I have to pay. The funniest thing is that it's STILL cheaper than what I'd pay here in Fun..., um, Finland.
Of course, U.S. politicians won't listen to that argument. Instead, they'll blindly stick to a "this is America, it can't happen here" attitude and then sit there stupidly, helplessly as our beautiful economy crashes and burns.
While consumers' desire of stuff they don't really need is good for the economy, a government that wants things it doesn't really need is not.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
The Supreme Court, maybe, but it's not in the Bill of Rights. Every sensible person recognizes that taxes are something to be avoided, but there aren't many constitutional restriction on taxes.
What I would like to see is something like: "No new taxes or tax increases shall be legislated without specification of their intended use. After the intended use is no longer valid, those taxes shall be abolished", or the equivalent legalese.
For instance, personal income tax was first implemented in the US in 1913, to pay the arms race that led to World War 1. After WW1 ended, income tax had no longer any reason to exist, but politicians kept it anyway, and invented a whole new set of bureaucratic agencies to spend the money. The final result? The 1930s Recession.
I recently saw a graph (don't remember where) showing the correlation between overall tax rates and unemployment in several industrialized countries. More than 70% correlation.
taxing alchohol is fine -- there is no right to alcohol in the constitution...
I guess the 21st Ammendment can be regarded as a right to drink -- it's not as explicit as the 2nd, but... ;)
In the state of Massachusetts, if you buy anything from out of state and import it into the state you are legally required to file a Use Tax form and pay a Use Tax based on its value at the Sales Tax rate. It does not matter how you purchased it. It can be via the Web, while you were on vacation, via the tellephone, via a catalog, etc. You still owe the tax and are legally obliged to pay it. Needless to say, almost everyone in Massachusetts ignores it. What the compaint is is that, since all the folks in Massachusetts are scofflaws in this regard, they want to compel out of state merchants to collect their tax for them. As a sometime web merchant in Mass, I have an obligation to collect Mass tax on Mass sales. Since I do not derive any benefit from any of the other 49 states (as their citizen), I do not care to be their pro bono tax collector and have to file 49 additional forms and be familiar with 49 more state sales tax laws because their citizens are scofflaws.
Even if you consider $1.75/50 billion dollars in tax revenue to be a trivial amount (I don't, btw) what do we do in 2004, or 2005? If you fund a government by taxing sales then you have to do it consistently. Failing to tax this segemnt of the economy will cause the sales tax to become more REGRESSIVE, that is, the less unfortunate members of our population who do not have access to computers, internet and credit cards will carry a heavier tax burden than those who make purchases via the net, mail order or other tax free venues. Yeah ok, call me a liberal but otoh, saying an internet tax would be too difficult to implement is hardly a solution...what if Mr. Torvalds decided not to code an os because it would just be too darn complicated, hmmm?
no sig
Most of our Tax models are basically horribly out of date. By what I personally consider to be sane standards (yeah, flame, here we go, just my opinion) we seem to be very keen on taxing Good Things (tm) like income, sales, capital gains and the like (in short, wealth creation), and in general very bad at taxing Bad Things, such as use of scarce polluting fossil fuels, dumping of toxic material, development on greenfield sites, er, blah, you get the picture (in general, resource destruction).
Of course there *is* the inevitable snag that if these taxes are set high enough to discourage the designated Bad Things, after a while the Bad Things disappear and you need to find a new revenue stream, but we're an imaginative species, we'll always come up with new Bad Things to replace the old, and in the meanwhile, anyone who p!sses in the tent has to pay for the privilege.
TomV
Before we know it, they'll propose taxing e-mail! (just a tribute to the online hoax that makes my blood boil like no other)
'k, first off, one of the solutions I suggested was to abolish all sales tax.
Also, there is plenty of justification for taxation, but, as you said, let's leave that can of worms unopened.
I wasn't really thinking of CompUSA, because they could and have opened eCommerce deals already.
I'm thinking of Joe's computer outlet, who I've been shopping with for 10 years until I headed over to find out that Pricewatch lists the same part at joe's for the same price, only... since i'm in the same state as Joe, I have to pay an extra 30-40 bucks.
Of course on some items, like monitors, cases, larger things with more expensive shipping, It works fine, and Joe has the advantage, but overall, I think the online deals have the advantage.
You're totally right about support though. That's huge, that's the main reason I've never purchased memory online, so I could easily return it.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
The only athlon 1GHZ listed on Pricewatch is selling for $1399 (outrageous), and $10 shipping. Handling is another matter, but I would be surprised if it went much above $10.
If you really wanted to make a good counter argument, you could point out things that DON'T ship cheaply (Monitors, cases, UPSs), I thought of that, but In general, I think computer parts are small but cheap.
The rest of retaildom is another matter. I certainly think this should be investigated further, though.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
To reiterate with linebreaks...
First of all, I do not support any of the taxes mentioned. I was just saying how there are valid reasons for tobacco tax, , none of which apply to the other tax.
>>but all of the people around him are also injured from the second hand smoke.
>I assume you're aware that there's no conclusive evidence of this? You don't care, do you? Any excuse will do, as far as you're concerned. And given the general hysteria on the subject, no excuse is even necessary. As long as you go along with the crowd, you'll always have a majority to back you up.
You are right, in one sense, all is probably too strong of a word. I do know that I, and many people I know, have adverse reactions to inhaling cigarette smoke. So it does harm me. Im not "going along with the crowd". I hate smoke. If you can create smokeless cigarettes, that would be great with me, and you can smoke tham all you want for all I care.
>> "Practicing" homosexuality involves far more high-risk sexual behavior than practicing heterosexuality. Not all gays are promiscuous, but the ones that are tend often to be very, very promiscuous. HIV happens to people. This is real. It's not a joke.
Now this is a bunch of hogwash. The promiscuity argument is just plain ludicrous. Im sure you will find heterosexuals just as promiscuous. Obviously, there is a problem -- homosexuals are not allowed to marry. If they were, Im sure there would be less promiscuous behavior, Sure, they can now be domestic partners or something like that, but marriage would do so much for them.
FreshVeiw is correct that the thing to do is iether "a) Abolish sales tax, or b) Institute eCommerce/Mail Order tax. " Paul Krugman (MIT Economist) argues for exactly that here .. http://www.nytimes.com/library/opinion/krugman/021 300krug.html
States can already collect sales tax from companies that make sales within their own state borders- this type of law exists in many states already. There is not much of a need for further taxation above and beyond what is already provided for.
However, I might add that many of these online companies have a narrow margin of profit (largely due to developing a previously non-existent infrastructure, called "an Internet"), and an additional tax will have them very quickly finding another state or country to work from. Of course, if it were my state, they would also be very quickly be losing my technical talents and those of my local compatriots. People like me can afford to move. Can you say loss of tax base, infrastructure, and skilled labor? Thought you could...
Of course, states can go ahead and start taxing internet sales. That is fine with me. This is why I already make a bi-annual trip up to the Fry's in Oregon- I actually SAVE money by driving up and back with a friend for major purchases (enough for a campground, gas, a show at Ashland & dinner, plus change). Now, how much revenue did my state lose by trying to collect taxes on an income that, well, they had already taxed? Will that be easier or more difficult for citizens and businesses to exploit over the net? Will making it "illegal" change a damn thing? (this one is rhetorical)
'Hail Eris, baby, hail Eris...pfffffffttt.' *cough* 'Yeah.'
In fact, I believe that all states which collect sales tax collect tax on items purchased from out-of-state vendors, whether the medium of purchase is the Internet, mail order, or a telephone order. In many states, though I haven't checked them all, you will find a form in your state income tax booklet for remitting money to cover the tax on out-of-state purchases. Unsurprisingly, most people never pay this money, since most people aren't even aware they owe it, and most states do not aggressively try to collect it from the average individual. I suspect this is largely because it's too much trouble for them, and that if the federal government did something to make these purchases easier for the states to track, they would eagerly start collecting their money.
This is not actually an Internet-specific tax. Instead, it's a tax on things which are going to be used inside the state that the state hasn't been paid tax on. Usually, states cooperate and grand reciprocity, so if you paid state sales tax on it in SOME state, generally no other state will try to collect. It mostly only comes up in cases where the product was being shipped across state lines, so the shipper's state never collected any tax on it. There are a couple of situations where states actively pursue this. For instance, if you are a construction contractor and purchase your materials from an out-of-state supplier, the state may refuse you a building permit until you post a bond they can use to insure you pay the tax. (At least, that's what they do in Louisiana - I'm on a contract with their revenue department this month). Along the same lines, there are some products (alcohol comes to whichy ou can get into legal trouble for transporting into a state without paying tax. My mother once ended up in court for purchasing some wine at the package store on a military base (where state sales tax is not collected) and taking it home (off base). --Sean
Actually, the state I live in (Delaware), and a few others don't have a sales tax. For some of us lucky folk, it really just comes down to whether its cheaper online + shipping or to buy in the store + retail markup. We seem to be getting along fine without a sales tax, and actually, I have never purchased anything directly over the internet, I always look for a phone number first.
True, the government will want to get a big piece of the "ecommerce pie", but that might not even be practical. Since many traditional catalog-type mail order companies have moved online as well, how do you distinguish between traditional mail order and online transactions? will customers ordering online from L.L. Bean (for example) pay a different ammount than those ordering by phone or mail? Also, what if you order from a company that has traditional stores in your state and you have to pay state sales tax? do you pay tax twice on your purchase? this isn't only a bad idea because online ordering isn't fundamentally different from traditional catalog ordering, but it would also be a horrible nightmare to manage and collect such taxes. there are too many possibilities; ordering from foreign companies, multiple-taxation, taxing downloads or intellectual property. where do the lines get drawn and who draws them and has to manage and enforce them? this isn't a can of worms that the government really should open...
Death, Taxes and Crashes when using Windows
Click here to crash Windows98
How damaging a tax would be ecommerce depends on how elastic the demand is. A sufficiently small tax would still gain revenues for the government (a la the Laffer curve). An alternative "solution" to the tax dodging issue is to institute a national sales tax or VAT. While that would encourage consumers to purchase from foreign nations, typically shipping internationally is more expensive, both directly in $$$ and convenience. A uniform national tax would be much less expensive for the firms to implement than trying to deal with taxes from the various States and localities. Politically, it's probably not feasible, but it is a way to avoid the States playing "beggar thy neighbor" tax codes while enforcing a tax on consumption.
I don't believe he is talking about a Computer system with an Athlon 1GHz processor in it but only the processor package itself.
That price is not even close to that for a complete system that includes an Athlon 1GHz. Otherwise I want to know where he gets these deals.
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
Ah, we come back to socilism again. I really don't see why people continually think that's a bad word, let's list things you would not have without socilism: Unions Fair Wages "Real" Rights (Oh, sure, you have rights, that you are going to give up because I'm the boss and I hold your paycheck) Social Security (Isn't working out too well, but it's better than what was happening beforehand) Programs helping the poor (Don't start complaining about handouts, ever read "The Christmas Carol"? How 'bout "Oliver Twist"? You want to go back to that?) Socilism is a GOOD thing, unfortunatly it was linked with the USSR during the McArthy witch hunt for 'communists' and forever since has been associated with the 'big, bad, red menace'. Get off it, the USSR is gone (though Russia's not much better for it, in my opinion), and China won't be able to continue their policy much longer (look what happened with encryption liscensing, no one turned up!). There really is no more red menace, so stop throwing words around like there is.
>There were two major groups of revolutionaries: >the Bolsheviks led by Lenin and Trotsky and the >anarchists. Not strictly true, Although the Anarchists were the prinicpal opposition, they were not the only ones. These other groups were loosely organised as the Mensheviks (or majority - Bolshevik means minority), and the Bolsheviks overthrew the elected, democratic Kerenskey Parliament (not the Tsar - hed had already gone by then). Otherwise an interesting and informative post.
---- For Whigs admit no force but argument
Sales taxes force businesses to be (unpaid) tax collectors.
Sales taxes eg VAT require accounts in a particular format, require you to collect the money, collect the details and send these off to the tax collector. Thus a business may have to have two separate accounting systems to cope with the tax and the business
Large businesses have finance departments that can handle this without problems, for small businesses the overhead is proportionately larger
BTW for US residents VAT works on added value. An example, I buy goods at £100, pay VAT £17.50, do something and sell them at £200, collecet VAT £35.00. I reclaim the VAT I have paid and send the difference to the VAT collector (£17.50 in this case). You can get VAT back, for example if the product is a book, no VAT is payable when sold, so the tax collector sends you a cheque for any VAT you have paid!
---- For Whigs admit no force but argument
The internet "bubble" has a similar effect as bad patents. And the lack of taxation has been a contributory factor to the expansion of the bubble. The problem, as i see it, is that the demand for developers is so strong that firms are allowing programmers to get away with bad programming. The result is lots of companies investing into disaster. But for the "bubble" firms would not be as willing to tolerate the odds on project failure at such a high rate (3/4 I've heard - maybe higher). And our skill would be more susceptable to being "professionalised", which is something we are missing right now. Hence a person can learn html and Javascrip badly and then go onto design a web site for big bucks. This should be much more difficult to do than it is.
But the BMG example is exactly the same thing as the ecommerce loophole. Close one and you will almost certainly close the other. Businesses are obligated to collect sales taxes for states where they have physical presences. So BMG establishes its physical presence there, and I don't pay tax to B&N.com because they (.com, not the brick and mortar) don't have a presence where I live. If they made a federal law that you have to collect taxes for ALL states, BMG's only choice would be to move out of the country and start paying tariffs (I seriously doubt they would make such a law without taking care of any loopholes NAFTA might provide).
The Economist had a great article on this recently, which said that some judges have made it clear that if anybody wants to try to sue for back taxes on these corporations which establish separate companies for the purposes of evading taxes (ala spawning off bn.com), he'd be more than happy to find in the government's favor (you may just think of that as government corruption, but I believe the judge would be justified in this case).
It's a tad more complicated than that. Our government has allowed USWest to totally screw up the data infrastructure in this state. USWest owes NM over $50 million they made illegally over their profit cap. If the state had the guts to get that money, it would do a lot for a lot of small businesses without having to do anything to the tax code. Our phone lines are barely good enough for voice in most parts of the state and getting any kind of good bandwidth has been ridiculously expensive until about the last 3 months. We're also one of 3 states that charge tax on consumer services, as was mentioned in the article. If it were a level playing field here I'd be right there with you but the fact is that it's not. Also, it's not like we'd be the first state to help out online businesses, many other states do it and it's worked wonders.
We've had quite a bit of discussion here in New Mexico recently about this very topic. The Mayor of Albuquerque recently gave a speech blaming the internet for a 3% loss in state tax revenue (it turned out that the state tax revenue actually grew by 3% but the projections were 6% so he called that a loss). Since then, many people have been complaining about the net's influence on our state since we're pretty poor overall. I think I'm going to print out and mail this to those people in charge here, just to shine a little truth on the hysteria.
On a semi-related topic, is it only in New Mexico that people completely neglect the idea of helping businesses get on the net in order to bring money into the area? It seems that tax breaks or some sort of help in getting local businesses on the web would be the best plan, that way the cost of the item comes into your area, not just the tax. Everytime somebody here talks about the internet, they make it seem like some sort of foreign entity that nobody here can be a part of. This state has that sort of attitude about a lot of topics so I was wondering whether this was just us or prevalent in other parts of the country/world.
- If you buy that PC from a vendor that has an "operating presence" in your state, then you'll get taxed by virtue of the existing tax law.
- If you buy the PC from a vendor where you don't get taxed, then this is a situation where mail-order transactions are not being taxed.
Note that the two situations described above have nothing to do with the Internet.What, precisely, do you think you intend to have taxes applied to?
Be PRECISE. Tax law requires great precision. The practice of tax law involves examining transactions and determining how to determine how those transactions are to be taxed. "Sharp" tax practice involves presenting transactions in such a way that they are taxed less than they otherwise might be.
If you're proposing that there be some sort of "Internet Sales Tax," applied on top of other taxes, then you'll see a vast exodus of sales activity, as people will decide that if it will cost an extra $50 to put the request in via the Internet, then they'll just submit specs for the PC via the web site, and then phone in the purchase request, which will result in the transaction not being taxable.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Ok, I don't like it particularly, but most (all?) of Europe has VAT - Value Added Tax. It's just sales tax on everything with a few exceptions (in the UK at least - books, basic foods, sanitary products, etc). You get charged it on everything you buy from anywhere, and it's a uniform rate for almost all goods (electricity & other utilities an exception at the moment). The UK has VAT at 17.5%.
If you import stuff from outside Europe, you get charged VAT by customs & excise (as well as import duty). If you buy something from inside Europe but outside your country, you pay VAT at source - ie, where you got the stuff from. Businesses get to claim back their VAT, but it's still charged when (eg) a distributor buys a whole load of PCs from HP.
The point is - it's uniform. The playing field is fairly level and will get more level as the countries in the EU move their VAT levels into agreement. It's a slight headache for businesses, but hey - if you run a business you have a pile of paperwork to deal with anyway. Noone has to worry about net businesses having an unfair advantage (apart from having virtual premises and often virtual stock) - you can't avoid the VAT.
If the US took up such an option, each business would have to account for sales to other states (like you have to do when selling to other countries in the EU) and then it all would get balanced up by the federal government.
Might work. Works here.
Hugo
I think he would have done better quoting the Supreme Court as "the power to tax is the power to destroy", a landmark case in which the Supreme Court set limits on how much taxes were reasonable.. and weren't. But, the old wrinkly judges that nobody bothers to listen to aside, did anyone ever consider that the politicians, in a remarkable reversal of all existing laws of physics, might be a step ahead of the rest of us?
Internet taxation is a jolly big problem, but it's obvious that global capitalism / corporatism is the next big thing. 10 or 20 years down the road the idea of a "local economy" will be a complete and udder joke. It's already getting that way right now. Any major purchase I make - computers, computer parts, person-to-person (used car(s)!), office furniture.. you name it, I buy it via mail order. Read: no taxes. They nip me for a buck here, a buck there, and several hundred bucks when income tax comes due, but that's about it.
But I digress, my point is that we're moving towards global capitalism / commercialism. Alan Greenspan had more to do with preventing the complete collapse of the Japanese market a few years ago than the Japanese had themselves (don't believe me? Ask an economist; I'll give you a hint: interest rates). In such an era, tax collection on individual goods and services will be extinct as we know it - it's a good 10-20 years away, but it's out there. In the meantime, the government economists and politicians are busily preparing to either find a new tax base.. or new ways to tax the existing one.
The government will get it's share.. believe me.. it's the ONE thing it's efficient at, if nothing else.
Technically, we're taxed on Internet purchases already in Kentucky, USA. Our state has a "use tax" which applies to all goods and services bought for use in Kentucky on which sales tax was not paid. So you order something online and don't pay sales tax, you owe the Kentucky Revenue Cabinet 6% of the purchase price when you file your state income tax. Same thing if you order from a catalog. Technically, if you take a trip to New Hampshire, buy something in New Hampshire and bring it back to your home in KY, you still need to pay the use tax because NH doesn't have a state sales tax. I imagine many other states have such a tax on the books.
I pay this silly tax when I file my taxes because I don't want to be prosecuted for tax evasion if I'm every audited. You see they can seize your credit card and bank records in an audit, so the numbers won't lie on where you've spent your dough.
We don't need more taxation in the United States. We need less taxation and less regulation of commerce. Let's face it, if we let politicians continue to tax everything like mad, we'll end up like Europe, with 4 and 5 taxes levied on every purchase, gov't telling business how to operate, reduced individual purchasing power, and double digit unemployment.
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
Keep in mind that the US is a large place (not as large as the world, but it certainly does cover quite a bit of ground :-) What may make sense in one state - heck, even in one county - might not make sense in the next.
In LA or NY city, for example, subsidising public transportation and having a higher tax on gasoline/car sales makes sense. In the midwest, though, you might want to forgo these taxes (higher gasoline prices raise farming costs, and massive public transportation systems aren't cost effective) and replace them with something else.
IMHO, the worst part about the problem of taxes is the desire to come up with a "one size fits all" solution, particularly at the federal and state levels, where the "one size" solution is constantly being tailored with new laws, special exceptions and additional specifications in order to try and make something general work in all cases.
"Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgement." Job 32:9
Tax dollars started the ARPA net, provide education, and, if you live in a halfway civilized country, free health insurance.
s/civilized/socialist/
No joke! Christ, I can't believe those fucking socialists wasted our money on that damn ARPAnet.
We should have just waited for the benevolent and highly efficient AT&T (pre-socialist breakup) to develop an open communications network we could all tap into.
And to top it off, medicare goes around spending more per funding dollar on healthcare than any private health insurance company. How can they be so goddamn insensitive to the needs of insurers to make money by showing how efficient it could be if they stopped denying coverage? Don't they understand that the free market is perfect and their goddamn government efficiency is screwing up everyone's math?...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Well, you have to understand that i'm starting with the assumption the business owner is trying to make money.
.023 milliseconds for the computer to calculate those extra kilobytes of numerical data, I hardly think such a delay would justify scrapping the current tax system?
In order to do that, he already keeps books (presumably on the computer) with tallies of sales by date and kind. Presumably this already existing data (scanned in at time of sale!) would be capable of generating exactly the tax numbers you claim are so costly to produce? I can only assume the bank that holds the loans that started his business would demand much more detailed financial logging.
While i grant you that the accountant may wait an extra
And, to pick a nit, yes this is "less efficient" than fewer calculations, but you didn't say it was "less efficient", you said it was "inefficient", which it patently isn't. It also doesn't penalize small businesses "heavily".
At most, it is simply one more calculation in a series of hundreds of others done on a regular basis with the same figures for many other reasons not involving taxation.
At best, it is entirely automatic from the moment merchandise arrives in inventory to the moment it is sold, meaning that it is essentially a zero-cost proposition (though obviously there is an incremental cost involved).
So no, I don't think it's inefficient, any more so than making every American sit down with income tax forms on a yearly basis.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
You should read a little more constitutional law before making such exaggerated claims.
In fact, the Supreme Court and the US Govt in general have always recognized that taxation is an inhibition. Maybe that's why churches don't have to pay taxes? You can't be taxed on speech, either.
taxing alchohol is fine -- there is no right to alcohol in the constitution...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Consider a retailer who sells 1000 $0.50 items in a day, (20,000 tax calculations a month!), and then consider an income based tax which is calculated twice per month for each employee.
If someone is calculating the tax by hand 20,000 times a day, they should probably deserve to go out of business.
If, OTOH, they are simply printing out the reciepts at the end of the month and having the total sales/total taxes collected printed out with a check to the tax office, i don't see how it's any greater inconvenience than printing out the same salary/taxes paid summary to the tax office for every employee...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
So the taxes are the reason for unemployment and the bad exchange rate? What goods and services are produced in Jamaica? Obviously tourism is major, but with a bad exchange rate that isn't gonna bring you more money (although it will bring more people!).
I just question the cause/effect -- if the US economy is doing well and the Jamaican isn't, then the exchange rate will suffer.
High taxes are fairly common throughout the world, including many countries with currently booming economies...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Well in Texas, it's in our state constitution that there will be NO income tax. We could have an interesting state's rights battle if you propose every state simply abolish sales taxes wihtout providing an alternative income source.
As others have pointed out, while sales taxes are regressive, income taxes are viewed as punishing people for making money...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Keep in mind that the huge "surplus" is still several orders of magnitude smaller than the debt we have -- we still owe several trillion dollars.
This is the same as wondering how to spend that $200 bonus from work when you owe $20,000 in credit card debt...
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Why? Because the tax rate, combined with the cost of shipping will make Internet purchases generally more expensive than traditional retail.
If the internet stores can't keep up with the brick and mortars when faced with the exact same tax penalty, that means the brick and mortars are more efficient and the internet stores should die. Is there any particular reason that we should favor Internet stores over local ones? Just because we like technology?
Think of it this way: If they removed all sales taxes, the Internet stores would have to lower their prices to compete, and in many cases they'd go out of business. If they had a choice, I'm sure the brick and mortars would lobby for this, but they know that's not going to happen. They'd like a fair playing field, and if they can only have it this way, they'll take it; is that so wrong?
\me prepares to run and hide from people on Slashdot who will say removing all taxes is the proper way to do things. Yeah, maybe. Let's see you pass that law (I don't agree with you, so don't ask for my help!)
So it doesn't make much of a difference to non-americans but we have always been paying tax on online transactions. For a little while you used to be able to pay less tax by buying something from a different province that charged less tax than your province but pretty much all the online store charge the correct tax now. Oh well, it's still cheaper to buy online than local and if you know what you want it's the same in the end.
Just a SkiBum stuck in the east...
I always thought that sales taxes were regressive because the poor typically spend a higher proportion of their income and therefore pay a proportionally higher percentage of the tax.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
There is no moral justification of taxation, period. But rather than open that can of worms (yet again), consider this:
Many states don't have sales taxes, period. Don't like sales tax? Move to another state.
If you consider taxation of internet bought products, then you must also consider taxation of mail order products, as well. If you do not do this, all that will happen is that these internet companies will open up 1-800 lines and take phone orders, while using their website as an online catalog.
Furthermore, I doubt the future of CompUSA and the like is in jeopardy to online sales. I still buy 75% of my stuff from these places, even though I know I could get it less online. Why?
1) No shipping/waiting times. I go to the store, buy it, take it home and install.
2) Support. If the thingie breaks, I just take it back to the store. I may have to wait in line, but compare that to the wait times at some online customer service phones, well, it's no big deal. Chances are, I can swap on the spot, don't have to worry about being home when the UPS guy shows up, etc etc.
I'm sure there are others with the same view.
Taxation is *never* the answer.
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
Better get a high-bandwidth Net connection on that Athlon system, to field the flood of inquires asking where they can get that kind of deal on S&H.
When realistic numbers are used, your argument becomes rather less compelling.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
In reality, government is inevitable - if it went away tomorrow, one way or another people would just form a new one. Governments inevitablly collect taxes to support themselves. So arguing about the ethics of taxation is rather like arguing about the ethics of continental drift. We can make changes in the specifics, but the general phenomenon of taxation will be with us for a long time to come.
Many? There's Deleware and one or two others, I thought. But it all pretty much balances out; states with lower sales taxes tend to have higher property or income taxes.Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Since we all know that 99.999% of internet sales are PR0N related, that's what we're really talking about here.
This post is funny. Laugh.
Don't like my sig? I don't either.
How much is taken through taxes is not really relevant. If you took everything I made, and in return the world was a Utopia to live in, I doubt I'd complain. However, the real issue is, our centralized governments are horribly inefficient and corrupt. Ideally, the money would pass straight through the system and on to its intended target. If the system were perfectly efficient, 50% probably wouldn't seem bad, compared to what you received in return. In practice, it gets used up in political battles, pork, national paranoia, and outright stealing. So, why should anyone support higher taxes, and thus greater inefficiency?
So, I'm agreeing and disagreeing (of course - what else?!). I think, however, that there is the possibility, in this day and age, to run things fairly, lock out corruption and stealing, and get very close to an ideal level of efficiency. However, it involves a drastic separation between policy makers and control of the money, and heavy reliance on computers, which people are generally not comfortable with.
First, make it work, then make it right, then make it fast, then, make it bloated!
Oops. I hate making stupid mistakes like that. Thanks.
As for the size of monroe county. The numbers I gave are about right. I think I remember them right from about 10 years ago. And Rochester NY is in Monroe County.. Rochester is the world headquarters of Kodak and Bausch&Lomb, and Xerox has a large presence. Its also one of the top 50 (or so) urban areas in the nation. Its not huge, but its not inconsequential either.
Taxation on internet transactions is inevitable. We can argue over whether it's a good thing or not; an interesting contribution to the debate is Paul Krugman's oped piece in the NY Times (free registration, blah, blah, blah).
It seems to me, though, that the reason it isn't already taxed is not this garbage about strangling the new economy but the fact that it's the states that want to collect the taxes, and the Constitution specifically prohibits that. The politicians are just pretending to care about the Internet until they can figure out a way to tax it that's not against the constitution.
Happy Premise #3: Even though I feel like I might ignite, I probably won't.
Most Florida residents don't know it, but Florida citizens are required by law to pay taxes on interstate purchases. If, for example, I buy a PC from Gateway 2000, the state sales tax will already be on the bill, because Gateway 2000 has a store in Tampa so they are required to collect the sales tax. But suppose I buy a PC from Computer Gate in California, which has no offices in Florida. Computer Gate will not collect any Florida state sales tax. But then I am obliged by law to get in contact with the Florida Department of Revenue and send them six percent or whatever it is these days.
As you can imagine, most individual Floridians don't pay this tax, if for no other reason than that most Floridians don't even know about that aspect of the state's sales tax law. Somewhere I read that the voluntary compliance with this law is less than one percent! But companies like the one I work for definitely do pay the sales tax, as they get audited. I remember how surprised our head of accounting was, a few years back, when we got a notice from the Florida Department of revenue saying that we were apparently in arrears for an interstate purchase of $180 or so; he too had never heard of this law.
By the way, this article originates from the wholly looney Hudson Institute, originally founded by Herman Kahn, author of that masterpiece of hyper-rational insanity "On Thermonuclear War." (A good commentary on the deranged Herman Kahn worldview is in Philip K. Dick's short story "Null-O".) Right away that should tell you to take whatever they say with a grain of salt - make it a fifty-pound sack, actually.
The article has several details which seem to me at least doubtful and at worst downright mendacious, such as the supposition that taxing "internet sales" would promptly cause them to diminish by thirty percent. While the price difference is an advantage for internet vendors, I doubt that the major factor inducing people to buy products on the internet is just to save a few percent in sales tax - against which you have to weigh the cost of the shipping, the wait for the product to arrive, and the difficulty of returns or service. The real advantage of internet sales is that, even though you might be in your underwear in your living room at 1:00 AM you can still conveniently order a vast variety of goods.
For one example, what makes Amazon Books so great isn't a tax advantage, but their enormous catalog, which beats any brick-n-mortar store I ever saw, even the so-called "superstores". (Boycott 'em anyway! - unpaid political advertisement) It's no big deal if you're ordering a best-seller, but if what you're looking for is somewhat obscure, you'll have to "special order" it at a ordinary store - and it's surprising what you can't order at, say, a Barnes and Noble "superstore". One time they told me they couldn't get a book that was published the year before by the Yale University Press! As though they'd have some kind of difficulty finding so obscure publishing house as that. That's why I prefer to buy books from smaller locally-owned bookstores that are run by real bibliophiles, rather than megacorporations, run by stockholders in the grip of their monomania of greed.
Another advantage to internet sales is that you can get products on the internet that are simply unavailable in any local stores. For example, a couple weeks back I needed a 50-pin internal SCSI terminator in a big hurry to fix my company's network server. The Tampa Bay area isn't exactly the stix, with well over a million residents, but despite making dozens of telephone calls, I couldn't find a terminator anywhere in the area. Of course, I was able to find several vendors on line in about ten minutes, and I ended up ordering it on line and having it shipped FedEx next-day.
Another dubious asserttion in this Hudson Institute article is that it is somehow unconstitutional to charge Florida taxes to a vendor in California who derives no value from the tax. First, the vendor obviously does get value from those taxes: if there weren't for the Florida state road system, how would his package have ever got delivered? and if the customer couldn't get the package, he wouldn't have ordered from that out-of-state vendor, right? And second, it would seem that the state of Florida interprets its sales taxes as weighing not upon the vendor, but upon the customer instead, and the customer does live in Florida and benefit from the taxes.
In my opinion, the guys who profit more than anyone else from the tax-free nature of internet sales are delivery companies like UPS and FedEx; I'd bet that the internet sales phenomenon is really boosting their business. To the extent that interstate sales are stimulated by non-taxation, whatever the customer gains by not paying sales tax, he at least in part loses to delivery charges. So you might consider non-taxation of interstate sales as the equivalent to a subsidy by the state governments for these corporations.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Local sales tax also is used to attract and maintain businesses in the area keeping the customer base happy and business owners happy.
This system has served this country very very well in the brick and mortar days, so why not carry it over into the .com days?
Use the local Internet sales tax to build, improve, and maintain the infrastructure that feeds my .com. Use the local Internet sales tax to pull fiber in the community, make net access more affordable for potential customers, and make the local Internet attractive to new businesses seeking to relocate. Use the local Internet sales tax to make your towns NAP (network access point) larger, more secure, and more reliable. this kind of competition between local communities will lead to happier businesses happier customers and a better Internet for everybody.
It all comes down to R & B.
In the old days businesses needed roads and bridges in the.com days businesses need routers and bandwidth.
_________________________
Really? Out of the 50 states in the United States, how many DON'T have a sales tax? I live in one - Oregon - I believe there was one other (two at the most). I don't believe that falls into the category of "many states". I suspect that many non-US countries are even worse.
Ah...then how do you propose government be funded? Usage fees? Then we can REALLY talk about how money buys government. Donations? Don't make me laugh!
I, for one, don't particular feel like living in an anarchy - I *like* having a stable society around me (although I don't like it when some members of that society have too much influence over everyone else). The only way to get that funding is through taxation - the only argument is how, how much, from & to who and why.
I'm not being argumentative - just curious:
:)
You said this is supposed to be paid on your state income tax. But I live in a state which has no income tax. Are they gouging me somewhere else that I don't know about? Just wondering. I'm not a tax specialist (although Apr 16 is sneaking up on me...)
- SEAL
Most of us don't realize this, but the real reason we don't currently pay tax on items from out of state is because of the age-old complaint of "taxation without representation". Sales taxes go towards supporting the state and local government. If we don't reside in the state of purchase, we are not being represented. Even suggesting an ecommerce-tax begs the question, what representation will we receive for this additional tax? Will I now be able to vote in state elections where I have paid taxes? Will I be able to request help from a state which I don't reside simply because I bought something over the internet before? Or will the government tidy this whole mess up (as usual) by simply stating that the tax will go to the state in which you reside?
Be alert people, this is one of the REAL issues of ecommerce tax. It's time we start asking these questions before it's too late!
SL33ZE, MCSD
em: joedipshit@hotmail.com
SL33ZE - Artificial Intelligence is No Match For Natural Stupidity -
wow, now /. should only post what you want, and everyone who actually thinks this should've been posted is unable to understand?
/. readers....i really do...open source, closed minds, blatant hypocrisy. We ARE slashdot.
boy, i love you
Actually, the figure is more along the lines of a little over a trillion dollars. That is over a course of 15 years or so, of course. But that is the federal government - this article was dealing with state taxes. And many a state do not have a budget surplus - many are deep in debt actually and would dearly love to tax the Internet.
signature smigmature
- James
These words were written by Robert A. Heinlein in his 1965 novel "The Moon is a Harsh Mistress".
It's interesting to note that very few politicians agree with this. The U.S. "Bill Of Rights", the first ammendments to the Constitution, present several restrictions on what the Government can do to the People. Yet, among those restrictions, there is nothing limiting the right of the Government to impose new taxes.
Government may not restrict the People's rights to a free press, to religion, to keep and bear arms, etc, but all these may be taxed. Is this coherent? Taxing may be the most effective way of imposing restrictions on the people, anyway. Prohibiting alcohol, for instance, like they did in the 1920s, was rather ineffective, but imposing high taxes on alcohol is a very effective way to limit alcohol use.
Perhaps we need more Constitutional limits on the Government's power of taxation.
Canada needs to reform and decentralize itself badly. Canada represents a vision of the nation state that was relevant in 1945 - geographically large, rigidly cerntralized, and harmonized by high taxes and excessive social programs.
This model is dead. Canada is nothing more than a democratic Soviet Union.
Let me call your attention the Congressional power granted by Article I, Section VIII, Clause III: "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
Doesn't sound too bad... but it has become so. Since FDR started packing the courts, its interpretation has been expanded to mean, "any activity with an economic effect in more than one state."
Take the Brady (anti-gun) Bill: "crimes committed with guns, and especially handguns, have created a substantial burden on interstate commerce". The Federal Water Pollution Control Act. The Violence Against Women Act. You name it. Everything affects interstate commerce.
For 40 years not a single Federal Law was overturned because the power to make it wasn't ennumerated in Article I, Section VIII. Only recently have courts boldly decided that the pipe-bombing of a Pennsylvania car isn't a federal crime, even though there was a bottle of Florida orange juice from in the trunk.
And you're telling me that Article I, Section IX, Clause V is going to prevent this sort of taxation? IANAL, but I looking at what's gone before, I'd say this is an extremely naive stance. The courts will assuredly side with Washington. Again.
I'm sure that a creative politician could do much better than what I've been able to come up with off the top of my head.
And regarding your former post...
I think Washington DC will get anthraxed or nuked before the more reactionary segments of the US Population will permit a nationwide sales tax..
You really are the optimist, aren't you? After the personal income tax (which required the 16th amendment!), the death tax, national gas tax, capital gains tax, blah, blah, blah, you think the John Birch Society is crawl out of their hole with an A-bomb now??
You'll forgive me if I remain skeptical.
"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton
Whats the point in having more taxes. Not long ago, the US Congress was debating what to do with the $5 billion that will accumulate in extra money over the next few years. $5 BILLION! We don't need more taxes, we need smarter congresspeople.
----------
Not a typewriter
Hmmm. May be we should tax people running for office....
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!!!! At most you'll see what is going on now (and which I have no prob with): tax sales to states in which the seller has a retail point of presence. Fine, I'll just buy from businesses that don't have POPs in my state (Sorry Hateway, Borders, etc..) and screw the taxman just that little bit more.
/., et al, could you please Please PLEASE not bother posting anything about taxing e-commerce in the US unless it involves an explicit attack on the constitution (that is, legislation or judicial decision)? I don't care about any cockamamie theories, or any "it's inevitable" rantings by spread-the-wealthers. According to the Constitution and precedent set by mail-order, phone, and other interstate business concerns, it is UNCONSTITUTIONAL to charge tariffs on goods exported from one state to another state except for 'controlled' items and substances (like liquor, tobacco, etc). The only way to change this short of a constitutional amendment (or by judicial misconduct in not applying the constitution to any erroneous law that finds its way thru the congress) is by federal VAT. I think Washington DC will get anthraxed or nuked before the more reactionary segments of the US Population will permit a nationwide sales tax..
:p )
Unconstitutional, and I doubt the states will win any appeal. See my previous rant for the constitutional details.
Even if they do, guess what, I'll just use the phone or mail to order my swag, and the government will have succeeded in killing yet another golden goose.. The B&M oldthink shops will still lose business, and life will go on.
Hemos,
How hard is this to understand?
(but go ahead and post stuff not about the US, as their Constitutions don't necessarily defend the citizenry from the taxman..
Your Working Boy,
The author believes, and states, that Borders and B&N have to charge most US residents sales taxes, because they have stores in almost every state. Not so: these stores assert that their online operations are separate companies. borders.com says it has operations only in Michigan and Tennessee, for example; see their pricing policy. Barnes and Noble claim to have online operations in only four states. So large companies can locate their online operations only in states with no sales tax.
Consider a situation where a CEO, say, has most of their salary paid in some offshore tax haven, has most goods delivered from a company incorporated in another tax haven with a wharehouse in Mexico, say, whose government (hypothetically) removes all sales taxes for re-exported goods. I'm not sure of the import duty situation, but with NAFTA I'd imagine they are very low. Our executive ends up paying virtually no tax in the jurisdiction where he/she lives, works, and uses government provided services.
I suspect that in the not-too-distant future governments will need to come to additional treaty arrangements to ensure people pay a fair amount of tax, and this will probably involve a tax on internet-based transactions be they domestic or international. Is this intrusive and a bugbear? Yes? Is it any more intrusive than the IRS (or its equivalents)? Probably not. Is it necessary? Almost certainly.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Tax dollars started the ARPA net, provide education, and, if you live in a halfway civilized country, free health insurance.
s/civilized/socialist/
________________________________
His numbers might be off slightly, although not nearly as much as you think.
He hardly needs a "compelling" argument as to shipping costs, it's essentially irrelevant. What you seem to be implying is, that, because some Dot-Com has to contend with 30 (or ANY other number) dollars of shipping and handling, they should be given a break. Excuse me, but this, in any other context, would be called a subsidy. Under your apparent line of reasoning, a mall operation should be given a tax break over their discounted counterparts, because they inccur higher overhead costs due to their high end retail presence.
Businesses should operate based on the services (and/or products) and the efficiencies they can create, not because some politician (nor, for that matter, his constituents) think the internet is the best thing since sliced bread. If the internet is appropriate for that specific good or service, it will MORE than make up for whatever it has to cover in shipping and handling, without any artificial tax differentiation (read: where the consumer, in any given state, pays less on that specific good).
Furthermore, you are neglecting the various costs of traditional brick and mortar stores. In almost every existing field, BMs' overhead costs per item, exceed the shipping costs to domestic customers from Dot-Coms. Remember, that Dot-Coms are free to locate in whatever state they want, since most don't need to have actual operations in the states they're selling to (further reducing potential tax considerations of all sorts).
Tax rates and costs shouldn't play a significant issue in (Remember, it doesnt need to be absolutely 100% equitable in every single case...there will be some error, but such is life) choosing between buying a product online or at a retail store, should not be swayed significantly by any tax considerations (e.g., both the tax rate they're plied, at the costs associated with gathering, administrating, etc.) Despite the panicked pleas of some, this is not a huge burden on the DotCom, and even if it were, the rate could be adjusted to compensate. While it may be true that there are several thousand possible tax rates within the US alone, any reasonably compotent firm could handle such issues.
Despite popular opinion, not all mail order firms (e.g., firms that are located in some state and ship all their goods out directly to the customer, with little or no direct customer interaction) are tax exempt (perhaps just "true mail order" firms). I happen to know of a few, and they cope just fine. There are, in fact, services/software with keep track of all the tax rates for you, and they're easily integratable into software/databases. Furthermore, when, and if, DotComs have to pay tax rates like their competition, you can be sure that better services for tracking tax rates/districts will arrive. Also, the federal government could easily compile an official database of tax rates, zones, and methods for which all firms would be held exclusively accountable.
The "free tax collector" argument is similarly tired. Given the relative ease of collecting taxes (in the vast majority of cases), as demonstrated by other mail order firms, we're talking about mere fractions of a penny per transaction (if intergrated into CGIs and the like), maybe a penny or two to be generous. Few people today are swayed by such small change. But even if they were, it is still fair. Even though the DotCom may be loosing a penny, it's such a small price to pay when you stop and think about it. How do those goods get there? The customer's state's roads. Whose court will disputes likely arise in? The customers state. In the case of fraud or theft, who is going to give the thiefs chase? Most likely the customer's police. And those are just the DIRECT incremental costs involved in maintaining that type of commerce that I can think of.
You also have to consider the ASSOCIATED costs in maintaining a state with consumers capable of buying your products (e.g., education, courts, police, roads, bridges, airports, telecommunications, etc.). What happens to the tax revenues of truely boondock states where consumers start buying from out of state DotComs in record numbers? Sales tax accounts for roughly 30% of most states' revenues, something has to give, no matter how small some may think it is. But what does the DotCom care? All they're using are their roads, their police, and their courts. Maybe we can shave 5% off the budget of that state's education system, and only pay for roads that DotComs uses... As you can tell, the usage argument is ABSURD. Modern society simply can't operate like that. Like it or not, modern commerce depends on each and every state to facilate not only your particular transaction, but also the economy that allowed for that transaction.
In closing, my concern is less the "fairness" (for it's own sake), nor the changing revenues of particular states. Rather, economically speaking, there a strong argument against taxing the internet less (read: subsidy). Like all subsidies, it will lead to inefficiencies (these inefficiencies could also hurt the DotCom) in the long run. Anyhow, I've rambled on for long enough. I apologize if I've boxed you in, or put words in your mouth that you disagree with, but I tire of all the myopic statements on slashdot.
Granted, taxes are generally intended to pay for services that the government provides for citizens, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. However, what's important is that the things that are taxed correspond in some way to the expenditure of the tax dollars. To take your examples,
I can't complain about any of these issues - in each case, the people who will receive the benefit from the government expenditures are the people who are being taxed. What's different about this next example:
The difference is that purchasers are being taxed but not receiving any government services in return. All of the pro-taxation arguments which have been made so far are along the lines of "but everybody else is raking it in, why shouldn't we?" without any consideration of what those tax revenues will buy for the people who are being taxed.
It's fine with me if the states want to tax resident e-businesses at whatever rate they see fit, since those businesses do use the roads, fire departments, police, courts, etc. at their physical location. But as a customer of one of those businesses, I haven't used a dime of the resources of the state of California (for example and because many e-businesses are there), and I resent CA's or any state's attempts to extort money from me on that account. There are some situations in which taxation is good and useful, but this is not one of them.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Yes, pre-election debate on whether to use it to shore up Social Security, use it to start new programs, or use it for handouts under the guise of "tax cuts". (You can bank on the last one, since it's an election year. The only thing still up in the air is how much they're going to hand out.)
There are several problems with the whole thing:
 
 
And since I'm already on my soapbox: The government really has the whole thing ass backwards. Traditionally they lower taxes when times are good and raise them when times are bad. If they gave a shit about their constituents (as opposed, say, to their need to get re-elected and their obligations to lobbyists) they would do just the opposite: lower taxes when times are tough, and raise them during boom times, to cover the bill from the last slump.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
If I wanted to hear the lobbying of the right-wing political equivalent of Mindcraft, I would spend more time in the mainstream media.
/. needs more people researching the backgrounds of some of these stories. Or perhaps I'm expecting too much.
Read some of the other "reports" they publish.
What did you expect them to say?
Also, people seem to think that taxes get taken by the government and then thrown out the window.
Tax dollars started the ARPA net, provide education, and, if you live in a halfway civilized country, free health insurance.
Maybe
(Watch the moderation down because of political slant...)
Oh, get real.
The reality is that there are many things that the Net is being used for - such as BlueNile.com selling diamonds - that are heavily taxed in non-Net sales. And cars. And yachts. And sails for your sailboat. And Palm Pilots.
The way to measure this is to look at the money drops in local and state collections, compared to total sales. From this we can extrapolate that up to 25% of current non-Net sales are on the Net now.
The reality is that this will be taxed. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe not this century - but when 2001 rolls around, expect those tax collectors to start auditing, and people to start going to prison for avoiding taxation.
What's next, an article saying that death will be avoided by using the Net?
As long as there are politicians, someone will be taxed. And most likely based on the higher of the delivery address or billing address tax levels.
Will in Seattle
Disclaimer: I am NOT for internet taxes.
Looking at his numbers, I find something fishy.. He says that its ONLY 35 billion among 50 states... That's 700 million per state (or so. I don't know about other counties, but in Monroe county (in NY), the yearly budget is about a billion. It also has a 8% sales tax. Of that, 5% (?) goes to the county. But of the billion dollars, only about 200 million is actually discretionary spending. (The state forces them to spend the other 800 million for welfare and other state-required programs.) There are around 40 counties in NY, so Monroe's share of that 700 million would be about $20 million a year. That's a lot of money if you compare it to the discretionary budget. Its an increase of almost 10%. That isn't inconsequential or chump change.
I don't know about other states or other areas of the country, but at least in monroe county in NY, a lot of the sales tax revenues are given to local governments and to the schools, where they help keep property taxes down.
I remember this because about 10 years ago there was a big debate on whether the county should lobby the state to increase the sales tax from 7% to 8%.
I'm ignoring all of his arguments on the problems in collecting taxes on internet goods, but how he blows off 35 billion is fishy.
This article was interesting, and made some valid points, but all in all, I don't think it's going to matter. As the author states, figures being thrown around relating to e-commerce are just too large for any government to resist. No matter what is said by "experts", the government will have a tilt at reaping tax revenue, and only after probably throwing large amounts of money at the problem of collecting such tax will it be seen to not be a possible, or even a financially viable proposition.
In these states, where the main differences between shopping locally and shopping out of state is that the latter also adds a shipping fee, plus the time spent waiting for the order to arrive, shopping locally is obviously the more advantageous deal, and supporting local businesses is a no-brainer.
With the lack of a sales tax, consumers' purchasing power is increased as well, which means more cash flowing into local businesses.
And more cash in local businesses means they have more income which means more tax revenues for the state.
So "e-commerce" (silly term, IMO, but ubiquitous nonetheless) is not harming States' economies. Rather, high sales taxes are harming local businesses, lowering consumers' purchasing power, and overall dampening the local economies which means less revenue for the state and local governments.
And the perceived shortfall of revenue simply gets used as an excuse to raise sales taxes even further, which aggravates the problem rather than remedying it.
All this makes consumers even more interested in seeking out-of-state deals which cost less.
IMO, Tax-free Internet sales are a godsend for the consumer, and maybe to staunch the flow of cash out of state, states will have to make shopping locally a better deal, rather than trying to discourage interstate commerce.
Impeding or discouraging interstate commerce does not a happy economy make.
--
Stay up hacking each weekend. Sleep is for the week.
Honestly, I think internet sales should be taxed. Perhaps less than Brick and Mortar companies, but some. It simply comes down to not being fair. If I can buy a new Athlon 1GHZ for $1400 at a local store and play $102.20 in sales tax versus buying it over the internet for the same price but paying $5.00 shipping, then of course I'm not going to buy it from the local store. I may want to support local busineses, but a hundred bucks is a hundred bucks.
The argument that attemped to address this "Catalogs have always been tax exempt" failed, because catalog purchases haven't been as widespread, historically, as eCommerce. I've never bought anything from a catalog, but I have purchased several hundred dollars in computer parts over the Internet. I don't like paying more money than anyone else, but as far as I'm concerned, it's either a) Abolish sales tax, or b) Institute eCommerce/Mail Order tax.
It's just more fair that way.
-------- "All I want in life's a little bit of love to take the pain away" --Spiritualized
When telephone service and credit cards became common, making it easier and faster to order from mail order companies across state lines, the government didn't decide to tax those sales. now, the internet has made it possible to do EXACTLY the same thing (only easier and more user-friendly), and the government wants to tax it. why should transactions completed online be treated any differently than those completed over the phone? businesses like amazon.com must have warehouses or NOC's somewhere, so why not tax purchases in those states? if you look closely, ordering online is not fundamentally different from ordering from a catalog by phone, so don't treat it differently!
If you are in any doubt as to what that dose to an economy you need look no farther than Jamaica. Right now we carry a heavy tax burden. Our government is still trying to figure out new ways to bleed money from the economy. These include;
:)
25% income tax
15% sales tax
40% import duty on consumer items ( like cloths ).
20% Duty on trucks
40% to 280% on cars ( depending on the CC rating. There are around 3 Cadilacs in kingston
1/2 the cost of gasoline and electricity are tax.
In fact the only sensible thing is that most computer equipment attracts only the 15% sales tax and books and magazines of all types are tax free.
What dose this do to an economy ?
17% to 35% unemployment ( depending on which figures you trust )
Devaluation ( from J$5 to U$1 in 1989 down to J$42 to U$1 now )
Low tax revenue. The cost of servicing the government debt actually exceeds the total tax revenue. Seriously, the old concept that "the more tax you charge the less you collect is true.
If you Americans want to follow the same path then go right ahead. Tax everything and tax it heavily. Maybe after a few decades of such abuse you will drop into the same hole as we are.
BTW : Our government has not figured out how to tax eComerse yet anyway.
--= Isn't it surprising how badly I spell ?
Businesses are always one step ahead of lawmakers (that's what corporate lawyers are paid the big bucks for). Pick at random a large mail order business , say BMG or one of the other "12 for the price of 1" CD resellers. Look at the package your new Backstreet Boys cd came in . Note that the address is usually from some sparsely populated midwest state (North Dakota, Iowa, etc). Reason? These companies calculate where their business comes from and move their location to areas where they get the least amount of taxable sales. I assume most companies have avoided Alaska simply because of the expensive shipping costs, but if 6% sales taxes were levied in all 48 continental states you can bet there would be a huge jump in land prices in Anchorage. And don't get me started on how the state government would prove that these purchases actually occured. If i ever get a letter from the state of California that starts out "While routinely sniffing your ISP's network, we found a rather large set of encrypted packets which resemble a credit card number", I'll rescind my citizenship and head to the Keys. Of course, Uncle Sam can still tax my income for a few more years, but that's another story...
--BlueLines "The cost of living hasn't affected it's popularity." -anonymous
Also note that any future big dollars in general Internet retailing are likely to come from companies that also have a physical presence in most states, such as WalMart, and will therefore be required to pay sales taxes without any new laws.
This is true about walmart... at least it was. My roomate works in their internet engineering "team". After walmart online came "online" they realized this about the taxes and sold the online store to another company (that does not have stores in all 50 states). Now they dont have that nasty sales tax problem.
john
-- john
(I'll start with the standard IANAL disclaimer...)
;)
As far as I know, in the U.S., tax can't be charged on transactions across state lines. You'll see the simplest example of this on a mail-order catalog, where you only pay tax if you live in that state.
Now, for the Internet, the dilemma is that it has become very EASY to purchase goods out of your state. UPS and Fed Ex, and even the good ol' US Mail are getting very good at delivering things quickly. And sometimes, you can even download what you purchased.
No more 6-week waits to ship. This has made traditional merchants and the federal government fearful of lost revenue. So they say they want to tax the Internet. But the thing is, IT IS ALREADY BEING TAXED. Inside your state. The way it's supposed to be. The same rules mail-order catalogs use.
So in reality, the government wants to CHANGE the rules on us. So ok... let's say there's some flat tax on Internet transactions. Who ends up paying, really? The merchants (and I expect small business owners will get screwed even more, as usual).
Why? Because the tax rate, combined with the cost of shipping will make Internet purchases generally more expensive than traditional retail. So in order to maintain customer bases, the Internet merchants will have to either lower their prices (and profit margin), or find ways to make Internet shopping preferable, which is difficult. You are already removed from personal interaction with the customer by the nature of an online business.
I think tax changes will only benefit the old-school retail businesses. And I'd expect them to be lobbying heavily for it, if they aren't already. Oh yeah, and they'll probably want to vote for Gore too
Best regards,
SEAL
I haven't run any numbers on this myself, but that fellow's arguments look sensible. Wholesale isn't taxed anywhere in the U.S., the value of the transactions which are taxable will certainly fall if a tax is imposed, and so on. I think his basic point is sound: attempts to tax e-commerce will fail, and do far more harm than good in the process.
Another poster, above, pointed out the obvious: the solution is to eliminate sales taxes on the local merchants,too! That levels the playing field in a sane fashion. This is a solution that both ends of the political spectrum should like. Liberals are supposed to be against the sales tax because it's regressive. Conservatives are supposed to be against it because it puts a disproportionate burden on small business, and because it is economically inefficient. We need to make it clear to all who will listen that this is an opportunity to get rid of sales taxes everywhere. How to replace the revenue? Let each state figure that out for themselves. At least one will probably come up with a good idea.
See what I've been reading.