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US States Vote 26-0 To Move Towards Taxing Non-State Sales
buss_error wrote to us with a breaking news story from ZDNN. 26 states, with three not attending/voting have decided to move towards simpliying their tax codes. Why? So that they can begin to try and tax catalog and Internet sales with their applicable state sales tax. I think it was back in 1967, the Supreme Court ruled that you had to have a "nexus" within the state for the state to charge sales tax because of the patchwork of different sales tax laws. Catalog sales are much higher than Internet sales currently, but the states can see the phenomenal growth of Internet sales and want to reclaim some of the sales tax they are losing. The vote here doesn't mean as much as the actual decision they will make - lots of negotiation still to come, I'm willing to bet. CNNfn has a more detailed report.
One of the big benefits of no tax on mailorder
sales is that you have a built-in discount that
is usually negated by the "shipping" and "handling" charges. With sales tax added, mail
order will cost more than local retail stores,
and local stores will be able to provide instant
gratification. If I had to pay sales tax on the
boox I order from fatbrain, I'd start buying them
at a local bookstore instead, since the tax represents the discount.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Oh, great, another Sovereign Citizen.
e ig n
http://www.militia-watchdog.org/suss2.htm#sover
How many times do judges have to say "Petitioner's arguments are no more than stale tax protester contentions long dismissed summarily by this court and all other courts which have heard such contentions." before you guys stop spending $39.95 for TOP-SECRET INFORMATION on how the SUPER-WEALTHY avoid paying taxes!!! Call now, only REALLY SMART PEOPLE (like yo!) can do this!
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Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
US Constitution, Article I, Section 10:
No state shall, without the consent of Congress, lay any duty of tonnage, keep troops, or ships of war in time of peace, enter into any agreement or compact with another state, or with a foreign power, or engage in war, unless actually invaded, or in such imminent danger as will not admit of delay.
Looks like you're right.
Did you quote his post and not read on? The original poster shows where government gets money for things like streets, municipal services, etc. He referenced the gas tax, property tax, and could have included tolls.
Also, things like "Microsoft Highway" do exist. They are called "Adopt a Highway" programs; corporations and organizations can fund highway cleanup, repairs, or whatnot and get a little sign on the side of the road saying how nice they are. Many states run this program.
Many municipalities -- especially in suburbia -- allow private citizens to buy the roads on which they live. This basically allows for gated communities, but it also means the town doesn't pay for repairs or snow removal.
"What? You didn't buy anything out of state? Well then you can explicitly claim 0 but we're gonna look at those closely"
"Oh, you paid 3% sales tax to another state for the purchase? Well hmmm... we charge 5% for our sales tax so how about you pay us 2% use tax and we'll call it good."
Sounds like sales tax to me. Sounds unconstitutional to me, anyone have deep enough pockets to fight it?
Welcome to Maine. I understand a number of states use this same scam.
Last time I bought a PC from Micron they charged me sales tax. They have _no_ nexus here in Maine. But they decided it was easier to cooperate with the state for some bizarre reason.
This is all a big joke. Can't tax interstate trade? Well call it something different yet base it on the same thing. Something seriously needs to be done about this.
Perhaps its a good thing that the internet sales are gaining a lot of attention. Perhaps its time to stop the states from collecting any kind of tax based on sales (whether you explicitly call it sales tax or not) and let the feds collec it. Then dole it out back to the states based on some formula that takes into account revenue generated and population and keep a percentage for the US Treasurey and reduce or eliminate the income tax.
There is no easy answer to this question. As the buyer, it would be my preference for the tax money to go to Colorado. That it would benefit the infrastructure of my state and not Texas. But I'm sure Dell and the state of Texas could make the same arguemnt.
Then there is also the question of verifying the location of the purchaser. How are they going to do that on the internet. Shipping address would work, unless you have the item sent to a friend who lives in a state with no sales tax.
But that is my biggest question, who gets the revenue?
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I like not paying taxes as much as anyone, but I have to admit it's not fair that a local retailer gets taxes, but if I order from an Internet site, it's not taxes.
Personally, I've always liked the idea of moving toward a national sales tax as a replacement for the income tax. It would do wonders for saving and privacy (since you would no longer be required to report income). Of course, the problem is that recent administrations (read: Democrats) wanted to add the national sales tax, which would totally suck.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I know this flies in the face of the general anti-tax sentiment, but there are a handful of places I do mail-order that actually have a nexus within my state (Washington). I think it's unfair for places to have to compete with out-of-state sales simply because they get around a tax loophole. By the way, I believe Washington requires state sales tax to be paid no matter where the purchase is to be made, so technically they're making it EASIER for us since the consumer burden is back on the storefront.
If a state is losing major revenue from online sales, it'll just try to make up the difference with higher local taxes. That disproportionately hurts poor people who don't have the access to eshopping.
If states would look at this Internet taxation as being a way to even out their tax structures (as opposed to being a big windfall), I'd have no problem with it.
Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?
Why is states all colluding together to fix sales taxes any different?
The consumer is the one responsible for paying sales tax. Retailers, etc have been providing the service of collecting and remitting the sales tax on behalf of the consumers. They get a discount from the states for doing so.
On all sales on the internet, and from catalog, the consumer is still responsible for paying the sales tax. It has just become common place for retailers to not collect it because it is an enormous pain in the ass for them to keep track of all of the local taxes (there are services like Vertex that will provide this data for a fee). In these Internet sales situations, the consumer is obligated to calculate and remit the tax to their local taxing authority. This just never gets enforced.
So, they aren't going to create any 'new' taxes, they are just going to force retailers to collect the taxes that have always applied. This will be more difficult in some industries than others. For example, with dental products (those sold to dentists, not consumers), the tax classification for each product varies from state to state.