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States To Try Taxation Of The Net Again
kimbermatic writes "From the Denver Post comes this article that the states are ready to try and tax the internet sales once more. The poor economy is sending the 'hounds' sniffing for more money. An interesting, and alarming read if your interested in protecting online merchants from this taxation plan." 'though it's not really online sales that are the big ones people want -- it's catalog mail order sales, which are still much bigger then online sales.
Can you imagine having to try to figure out what sales tax to charge and who to forward the payment on to if local/state governments are allowed to tax online sales? Not only do you have to contend with different rates for different localities, but you have to mess with different exemptions and ways of classifying products for tax purposes. This will kill the small online merchants in a heartbeat.
What's next - taxing garage sales?
This means the only time I buy at Fry's is when I either need it *fast* (which happens) or when it's so little it's not worth ordering (which also happens). I mean, the CA taxes on anything in the $50+ range makes it worthwhile to always buy online and pay shipping.
This, on the other hand, could change all that, couldn't it? I think this will just drive more people away from online business, sink a sector of the economy and drive prices up for the consumer (which means they'll probably spend less, which is a Bad Thing, especially when you're in a recession).
But hey -- if that happens, I'll start selling motherboards on the street in SF right next to the guy selling the fake Rolexes.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
In any case, I see taxes as one of the prices one pays for living in a civilized society, so I see no problem taxing online folk at an equitable level.
That is all.
What politicians fail to understand is that the major draw to e-tailing is the lack of taxes. Sure, shopping online a huge convenience, but people today would still choose to drive to their local retailer and actually touch and try out a product before making a purchase, and forcing taxes on e-tailing would take away any incentive for consumers to use the services of the fledging new industry.
With huge competition with prices and selection from traditional real-life retailiers such as Walmart and Best Buy, e-tailers are already having enough trouble trying to grow their new industry. Slapping taxes and removing incentives for consumers to use online services would only impair progress. We're already seeing the effects of fees on online services and its related decrease in usage (MSN, Yahoo, Hotmail), taxes would further the disincentive campaign that seems to be propagating through the online world.------
Amadaeus
The last bastion of Mathie-ism
If you order a CD from Amazon and don't pay your use tax, you're cheating your state out of more money than the artist would lose if you downloaded the CD from Napster.
Don't try to rationalize. You're all thieves. Bow your heads in shame.
(I have to make myself stop here. It's just too fun to spew out righteous indignation.)
My word, when will these overbearing government goofballs learn that having LOW taxes while surrounded by HIGH tax areas drives business AND revenues up for the low tax area?
Also, don't think that if there is no visible sales tax that you are buying anything tax free. The politicians conveniently forget all of the inventory, property, business income and other tax streams that they are already getting BEFORE they jack up/create a sales tax.
A perfect example of that was Washington, DC. They exempted "not for profit" organizations and had the highest sales tax in the area. This only resulted in the few businesses that were paying taxes to loose business to Maryland and Virginia.
Tennessee is now on their way to driving every bit of retail business near it's borders into the surrounding States with their 9.5% (or is it 10%?) sales tax. That is on top of their invintory taxes, "licensing" taxes, etc.
Solution? A small group of States make it inviting for internet business to locate their warehousing, data centers, etc. there and reap the benefits of elevated employment and higher volume of money due to a lower % of taxation.
Eve Fairbanks says I drive a hybrid!LOL
From the article: Twenty-nine states will vote on a tax proposal next month that could be pivotal in their effort to tax all online sales.
... To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states
Section 8 of the Constitution: Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises
But then, who cares about the constitution? Certainly not the United States.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
But the US needs free trade more than anybody to soften the risk of entering foreign markets. Most of the 'free trade' agreements in place (at least with Canada and Mexico) were the brainchildren of US business men in order to make it easy to get into other markets (well, really, to make it difficult for local governments to protect domestic markets - same thing) .. I'm not sure setting up tarrifs would go over well at this point.
It'd seem pretty hypocritical of the US, and it'd probably be difficult to get away with, given the amount of trade agreements in place that purpot to provide free trade with various foreign markets.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I do so enjoy it, when people comment without reading the articles first.
It QUTIE clearly says, that in order to get on board with this plan, states have to harmonize their sales tax regimes. So that the state, and local taxes are the same.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
After years of disagreement, I no longer believe that Internet sales should be free of taxation as a class unto itself. I argued in the mid- to late-90s that the shipping cost was a barrier to the then dozen-or-so e-commerce sites, and we needed to not throw up more barriers to prevent the economic success of the Internet. The Internet has now had that development time, and I am no longer convinced that an exemption is necessary.
.com (and there are lots of them) would likely find having to file in so many different manners at different deadlines on different paperwork to be a significant problem.
My remaining concerns are not sufficient to convince me that Internet taxation should not occur, but they are significant. The biggest one is the logistical nightmare of paying sales taxes to 50 different states, should that be the nature of the changed laws. Though the software end of calculating the fees surely wouldn't be difficult, the average mom-and-pop
JM2C.
-Waldo Jaquith
The governments shouldn't need to create any new laws to tax internet sales, because they should already do so.
Performing an age old activity like sending packages through the mail in exchange for money transmitted by credit card should be equally taxable regardless of whether the customer places her order via phone, email, paper mail, http, fax, or the trusty old carrier pigeon.
We've seen it again and again- government regulators/lawmakers/busybodies get tricked into thinking that activities are somehow inherently different when computers and internet are involved. This gives us special laws to prohibit computer intrusion (we've had wire fraud statutes since 1910) and special patents for "carrying out traditional business XYZ, but over http".
I can understand the argument that to support budding e-commerce, you want to give them a temporary reprieve from some normal costs of business. But the expiration of such grace periods shouldn't be newsworthy, it should just be expected.
Its about time this happened.
Can anyone put forward a well-reasoned argument why the Internet should be exempt to sales tax? Every other method of interaction in the world - from face-to-face transactions to mail order to telephone sales - is governed by state statues which tax that commerce. Is the Internet exempt simply because it is 'too cool' or 'over the head of stuffy old lawmakers'?
Perhaps taxation laws are merely over the heads of overexcited teenagers.
Dr. Joseph Hairston
Superintendent, CCBC
To be a REAL retailer with inventory, rent to pay, etc. and have to compete with 12 year olds with online stores that don't have to pay sales tax. Why, exactly shouldn't online retailers be taxed like everybody else?
Democratic businessman Rollie Heath, Owens' challenger in November's gubernatorial election, is pushing for Colorado to join the tax project.
He said that not taxing online sales puts local businesses at a competitive disadvantage.
"I just have a strong bias against having our own business having to compete unfairly with somebody who can send the same product in here from out of state," Heath said.
Sure, some businesses have suffered quite a loss due to the internet, but many businesses rely upon the internet to order items for themselves. Restaurants for wine, bike shops for parts, used book stores that buy, sell, and trade on the internet. All of these types of stores and shops would be hit by this tax as well as Joe consumer. And on top of this point, would this not increase the amount of items ordered directly from countries such as Canada and Mexico?
Yeah, but "the long run" when you're talking about the negative effects of tariffs on trade is, like, five years. Tariff wars were among the main causes of the Great Depression. I'd rather not see us go down that road again, thanks. The few countries that have success with big tariffs (e.g. China) tend to be developing countries that can sell their exports so cheap that when richer countries (e.g. the US) slap retaliatory tariffs on the poor countries' exported goods, those goods are still so cheap that the people in the richer countries will buy them. In cases where the economic situations are more nearly equal (e.g., the US and Japan) tariffs end up hurting both sides, and revenue goes down pretty fast because everyone's out of work, and bums don't pay taxes.
...
The other issue, of course, is that US States can't enact foreign policy. I think that there may have been a couple of times when state governments have tried to enact tariffs on foreign goods and have been shot down, though I'm not sure. And since we're talking state revenue, not federal
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Remote merchants use FAR less resources than local ones. The SFPD rarely has to respond to problems at the Amazon offices in Seattle, etc. Any wear and tear to roads, etc caused by delivery trucks should be borne by the freight handlers, and passed onto the merchants that way. By and large, a remote vendor will use basically no local resources.
"Politicians are interested in people. Not that this is always a virtue. Fleas are interested in dogs." P.J. O'Rourke
Why would you love to see import taxes? You do realize that means no more cheap TV's and other consumer electronics. Any tax on imports gets passed onto you, the consumer. Taxes on imports have little to do with generating revenue. They are more about encouraging people to buy American (which in turn increases tax revenue).
I was taxed by a company on eBay a couple of weeks ago and brought this subject up with a state investigator about these matters. Here's the rundown from what I understand.
A company doesn't have to charge you sales tax if they are located out of state. They CAN if they have an agreement with the state you are in if it's different from the state the company. Even if that company doesn't have a branch or whatever in your state. If the company does NOT charge you tax it's YOUR responsibility to go the the local department of whatever and tell them that you bought whatever item at whatever cost from whatever company and you will then pay the tax.
Obviously a lot of people do not follow this course. And most mail order companies don't charge tax because it's apparently a giant pain in the ass for them to keep track of it all. So they don't charge across the board.
So it looks to me that they aren't trying to tax something that's not taxed. They're trying to collect what's suppose to be.
Abiit, excessit, evasit, erupit.
Welcome to North Carolina, USA folks. There is a nice little worksheet on our state tax form to report online and mail order purchases and pay state sales tax on them. So if this is offloaded to the companies selling the products, the prices will just go up. Simple economics.
Same for many agricultural products. The undisputed leader of agriculture subsidies in ADM, supermarket to the world. Europe subsidizes its agriculture industry, just like the US.
Bush just slapped tariffs on steel, tariffs on lumber from Canada, and gave cash and loan subsidies to the airlines. All the Republican administrations - Reagan, Bush I, all believed in a large central government that centralized economic power, and redistributed wealth from the middle class to the rich. So did Clinton. Free markets are like a free lunch - ain't no such thing.
When the US says other countries should open their market and lower trade barriers, they mean just that - OTHER COUNTRIES. Not the US. We play by our own set of rules.
When other countries subsidize their industries and protect their local businesses, we call that SOCIALISM. When the US subsidizes our industries and protect our local business, we call that CAPITALISM. See how it works?
There are two types of people; those who divide people into two types of people, and those who don't.
The report estimates that all 50 states could collectively lose more than $45 billion in Internet sales tax revenue in 2006.
Hmm, states can lose money that they don't currently collect? Isn't this a bit like saying, "Microsoft could lose more than $10 billion in annual revenue in 2006 if the government switched to Linux"? [Note: No, not a gratuitous MS swipe - I don't think MS would be so obnoxious as to use this phrasing.]
How about, "All 50 states stand to gain more than $45 billion in revenue by imposing a new tax they are not currently in a position to impose"? Seems like a more accurate rendering of the situation, although still somewhat hyperbolic since all 50 states are not considering this proposal. Some states don't have sales tax, period.
Michael
"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality;..."
In the long run, I'm dead but my heirs aren't. When my daughter is elected President in 2046, I don't want her to have to deal with the economic collapse caused by silly isolationist policies.
Logically, where does it stop? We tax their imports, they tax our exports at a higher rate. Inflation skyrockets, black markets are created, we try to force them to lower tariffs by raising ours, they raise theirs in response.
That first line in your post is hilarious. :P No tarrifs == sharing of wealth? Laugh.
.. lets see, privatization, liberalized trade .. for business for all of which, for some odd reason, seems to go to american multinationals!
.. and they wouldn't give a flying fuck how anybody sees the US, so long as they can start selling Pillsbury to Venezualans.
.. cause tarrif wars make it exeedingly difficult to gain access to foreign markets. The inevitable tarrifs that would go up in other countries as soon as the US started using them more would have the effect of making it more difficult to exploit foreign markets.
More likely it would piss off the world because multilateral free trade is how american multinationals get into foreign markets (b/c it weakens the foreign governments' ability to protect industries.) Consider all the conditions of IMF aid
The US doesn't _need_ tarrifs, which is why it doesn't have any. You don't really suppose American international trade policy has anything to do with whats nice, do you? I mean, the trading policies in place are pretty much what heads of multinationals want them to be
So no, its not foreign countries that would be pissed if tarrifs increased. It'd be heads of US corps that would freak
Just look at some of the prominant trade agreements in place. NAFTA was dreampt up by american corperate heads, and then pitched to Canada and Mexico through 'figure heads' inside those countries. The biggest opponants to increasing tarrifs would be growth-minded CEOs inside the US's border fearing a tarrif war with markets they're trying to expand in.
"Old man yells at systemd"
It's great to see that the internet has succeeded to the point that government wants to tax it. What's too bad is that many ecommerce businesses see their only advantage to be price. And if 4.5-9% in sales tax will cut into your orders that much, you are already among the living dead. Those that live by price, die by price. You can't make money selling $.99 for $1.00. For that matter, it's damn hard to make profit selling $1.00 for $1.10.
$G
-- $G
Why don't we just try taxing imports? Works well for the Chinese and every other country that has positive GDP growth this year.
Both the US and China are members of the WTO, which makes it very difficult to put new tariffs in place. While China certainly has more trade restrictions than the US, the main reason for the trade imbalance is that the China has something to offer that the US wants (cheap, simple goods like toys and Halloween decorations) but there are few american goods that are affordable to the Chinese (this has little to do with tariffs, but rather with the fact that the average Chinese has a monthly salary that is one tenth the average American's).
The suggestion that tariffs are essential for growth and prosperity is ridiculous, the US and other of the worlds richest countries all have long-standing free-trading policies. The fact that China has higher GDP growth than the US should be attributed to the enormous opportunities that have become available during the last 20 years as the country has opened up economically. It is also much easier to have a high GDP growth if your current GDP is one tenth of the most modern countries (like the US).
Tor
Am I alone in thinking the US economy is not so bad ? Yes companies are dropping like flies and people are losing their jobs. However I also see plenty of success within families and small companies. Looks to me like this unrealistic fantasy has burst for the large corps and their employees. We have simply come back to reality. The US is one of the most well to do countries, so I can hardly feel bad about the overall situation.
I listen to same drivel about why the US economy is bad and wonder who's economy they are talking about ! It bears no resemblence to economics I studied during school.
They neatly separate everything into consumers/spenders and sellers. If the consumers are not throwing down money on frivolous junk but rather save for more important things to improve their lives all of a sudden the economy is bad. Seems to me the economy they talk about is where the rich get richer and poor get poorer.
This net taxation is just another money grab with a convenient excuse. Unjustified and unrepresented. Hell if it has anything to do with the economy hurting state governments. Rather more of a result of the mismanaged bureaucracy that they are. Throwing more money at mismangement never helps.
Ahh Im done ranting..
I bought a new G4 a couple weeks ago from the online Apple store and they charged me tax anyway. Is it because they are shipping from California (probably some goofy CA law) or did they forward this on to my state?
I don't know which but I do know that I did have to pay tax and wasn't too happy about it either.
--Won't that be grand? Computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop. - Dr. Walter Gibbs
Because they don't use the states resources.
A local shop or store uses the states resources. It relies on the state's police officers to ensure that it isn't vandalized, and to prosecute anyone who steals. It relies on state money which supports and repairs the streets which give access to that shop or store.
Online businesses don't rely on state resources, or if so only very very rarely and in minor regard. Thus, they shouldn't be taxed.
The other problem with online taxation is that its taxation without representation. If a company is based in NY, it is only represented (in terms of state law) in NY. But lets say that the servers for its products which it sells online are in California. Thus, the company would be taxed in California, without representation. The same thing occurs for us citizens.
Those are some good reasons why online taxation shouldn't be allowed. Here's another one -- its called the will of the people.
How many people can you find (anywhere) that want to be taxed online, so they have to pay online taxes in addition to shipping and handling? Has anyone asked the people about this, or even mentioned it in an election? No. My guess, 99.99% of the people in America don't want online taxation. So we shouldn't have it. Its called Democracy.
"Most states are running budget deficits, and they're looking ever more aggressively for ways to stem the erosion of their tax bases."
Here's a suggestion: fire some of those useless paper-pushers. Get rid of obsolete programs and organizations. Stop letting greedy fucking politicians vote to raise their pay every year. The states have a money problem -- that's their problem. They mismanaged the money we gave them with our taxes. Now they want to punish us by adding more taxes (this very cowardly way to do it, add new taxes, instead of raising existing ones). Probably upwards of 80% of the money you give the state in taxes is wasted anyways. Try cutting off some fat first.
In any other facet of life, people are held financially responsible for their money-management. Where else in the US can you keep on fucking up with money and always get more precisely because you fucked up? Where else do you get to run enormous budget deficits without the plug being pulled on you?
I get really sick and tired of hearing about how the states don't have enough money. Taxes are raised at a much faster rate than inflation devalues money, and they always need more money. Apparently, the government is like God. All-powerful, all-knowing, all-wise, but just can't handle money.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
"Projected Sales-Tax-Revenue Losses in 2006" heads the chart in the Denver Post article.
A "Revenue Loss." What a crock.
"The US doesn't _need_ tarrifs, which is why it doesn't have any. "
That is a bald-faced lie (you might also want to find out what the US is doing in regards to steel, it's the same back-stabbing).
The US government is very happy to force tarrifs, taxes, etc, on imports. They don't like it when an unrefined resource producing country like Canada has a competitive advantage, even though it makes more sense economically for both parties (as you pointed out: the US gets the resources it wants, Canada gets the refined goods it wants, companies make the money they want).
If you wonder why this situation exists, it is because the US government continues to pander to special interest groups. Why do they do this? Because, as the most recent election showed, voting for a republocrat is throwing away your vote -- only a few people, the special interest groups, get to decide the entire fate of the country.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Two things about this bother me. First of all, these provisions are only addressing "Internet" stores. This leaves traditional phone-in mail order services exempt from sales tax (as they currently are as well). I'm seeing a huge loop-hole here. Place your order online, call a number, press a button to confirm your order, and all of a sudden it's not an internet sale anymore. Tax free!
Second, this is simply unfair to mail order companies in general. Having worked for one the better part of my life, I see the costs that go into such a business. Not only does the warehouse pay all of its traditional taxes -- property, employee taxes, and whatever else you have, they have several high expenses on top of their costs. Since accepting cash is not practical, they pay an additional 3-4% of EVERY DOLLAR that passes to them in credit card fees. I'm not sure exactly how the credit card companies pay their taxes, but I'm certain they do. Also, you have shipping fees on top of all that, in two places -- receiving product and sending out product. These shipping companies are definitely taxed -- the gas they use in their trucks, the employees, their infrastructure, everything. So, point being, a mail order business of any kind, internet or not, is already paying 10-15% of its goods' value in various expenses that directly translate into a tax revenue at some point for governments.
Adding yet another tax on these companies will certainly make them struggle, reduce sales, and greatly affect revenues collected from the other sources. And since online merchants margins are generally very low, we're talking less than 10% in some cases, this extra burden could very easy put a lot of them out of business. Now, we can't tax someone who's out of business, now can we?
The government should be supporting commerce, not stifling it with extra taxes that really don't have any return value for the merchant. How is paying 5% to a box I ship to colorado from florida going to benefit me? It can't! At least local sales taxes have a direct, tangible effect on our daily lives, which makes them somewhat tolerable.
Seriously. . . I've read today more childish arguments from people who are basically saying, "Well, if I have to pay tax, then so should everybody!" --Which stems in part from the barely legitimate fear of losing the precarious toe-hold on their own income through a Bricks & Mortar business, which won't happen unless they are nincompoops who don't know how to run a business in the first place, (Why not set up your own internet order department and get one of your clerks to manage it? DUH!), and from a rabid sense of unfairness which has precisely nothing to do with what is good for the nation and everything about, "MOMMM! BILLY GOT MORE ICE CREAM THAN ME!!!"
As for more new & wonderful taxes. .
Bullshit. Greed and nothing else. For one thing, the economy is mostly a make-believe game anyway, and for another, if you want to live in the 'good little consumer' head-space and play the make-believe 3rd edition rules to the letter, well then if the government would just, say, tax Microsoft properly, punish corporate criminals, (like Bush), and stop plans to drop a billion dollars worth of bombs on Iraq every week, then MAYBE we could dispense with all this other nonsense.
Internet Tax? Fuck off. When the net is taxed, it'll also be so tightly controled that a pipsqueek like me won't be able to speak his mind. And wouldn't that just make for a bad day?
-Fantastic Lad
P.S. Is it just me, or has Slashdot been particularly 'careful' these days to steer clear of political and social topics which actually 'matter'? I've asked it before and been modded to shit for it, but I'll keep on asking until my Karma is dead and gone. . . "Who is whispering into the ears of the Slashdot Editorial staff these days?" I notice the story about the story about implantable microchips broke several days ago and hasn't shown up here. . . Hmm.
Basic economics.. higher taxes = less money to spend, thus lower overall tax revenue..
Here in my state they are pulling the stunt of raising sales tax an additional 1% because tax revenue is low. Just in time to ruin the shopping season. ( oh and after voting themselves a pay raise, and better insurance benefits.. but canceling all non-political state workers raises for the next 2 years because of the poor revenue )
Will they ever realize that lower taxes is what stimulates the economy? Or do they just have to take it all and keep the populace down until the next, WAY overdue revolution happens when everyone has had enough.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"Can anyone put forward a well-reasoned argument why the Internet should be exempt to sales tax?"
The complexity of current systems of sales tax in the US are so complex that only larger retailers would be able to justify the use of online sales. Smaller retailers would be forced out of the market. In the event of some sort of simplified "internet tax" system, there still is the problem of submitting the taxes to the various states, no small headache.
Because, many of the most interesting, innovative, and creative products offered online are from small businesses, including mom & pop internet retailers, those products would disappear from the internet in the event of internet taxation of the sort mention in the original post.
An example:
I'm very into bass fishing. Fisherman often develop a preference for certain lures that have become their favorites. New lures are introduced to the market, and become the hot bait of that year, season, etc.. It's not uncommon that the new hot lure, or an old favorite will not be available from local tackle shops. Local tackle shops have limited space, indeed even the biggest names in the mail order fishing tackle such as Bass Pro Shops, and Cabela's don't have the space to carry ever model, of lure, in every size, and color. (1k of models, 10 different colors on average, and lets say 5 sizes on average yields 50,000 different lures, and this is a conservative estimate.) Thus, I have on many occasions ordered lures direct from small manufactures, though, I prefer to do business with local tackle shops. Often these manufactures are ran out of a garage, or the shed in the back 40. As such they are quite capable of selling online to anyone in the US give the current tax structure. However, if these small manufactures were to be subjected to the complexity of having to determine, charge, and submit sales taxes to umpteen different taxing authorities in 50 different states the paperwork would overwhelm them. Even under a simplified system they would still have to submit taxes to 50 different states. Thus, in either case they would then only be able to sell wholesale, and/or retail only within their local taxation district.
Not being able to sell to the fisherman directly would deprive such companies of the ability to be profitable, and the consumer of a broader choice of merchandise.
Ergo, the consumer is harmed, and both local economies, and the national economy is diminished.
I would also point out that catalog sales have always been "tax free" as the purchaser was responsible for state, and local taxes. So this sort of tax "problem" has been around for quite a while. I've been ordering from Bass Pro Shops, Cabela's, L.L. Bean etc. since at least 1976. I clearly recall that in the early 80's there were calls for taxing catalog sales. Such calls occurred with a fair amount of frequency for 15 years, or more. With the advent of the internet such calls morphed from "tax catalog sales" to "tax internet sales." This whole thing is nothing new, not unlike the push to prevent music, and video coping. First it was cassette decks, then VCRs, and now it's mp3 etc.. Same song, somewhat different lyrics.
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
*stands on soap box and prepares to shield himself from tomatoes*
I think that taxation of goods on the net is a good thing. I think we need it. Now, let me explain why.
If you buy a good or service on the net there is no tax (usually) that you are forced to pay. Yes, you do end up paying the equivalent of or possibly even more than the cost of tax in shipping.
The biggest problem with taxing products on the internet is the number of tax zones that there are in the US. I forget the number, but it's not 50. It gets down to the county, and then to the city, and then finally down to the actual product sometimes (it is not uncommon for food, or prepared food, to have a different rate of income tax, or for their to be an extra penny tax on certain goods). The problem is with all of these tax zones and the diversity of locations where shoppers and businesses are located is that keeping track of this data tends to be a pain, plus it means that while one person from Maryland may have to pay 30.00 for a product plus 5% tax, the person buying it from Florida might have to pay 7%.
Enter the net tax: What I WOULD be willing to support is a broad, internet-wide sales tax, say, all products bought on the internet have a set tax rate of 4% (or 6%) but something low. This would be divided in some way where each entity (city, county, state) from both the region where the buyer and the region where the seller are located.
Here's WHY I would be willing to support a sales tax on tangebile goods bought on the internet. Think of where that money from sales tax goes. Yes, some of it does go into silly programs, and into the pockets of city and state officials, but most sales tax money is used for programs such as education, fire departments, and other local services that you may use on a daily basis and not even think of. In reality your local city government provides more services to you, and effects you more than the national government in most situations.
I do however REFUSE to support any tax on things such as access, hosting, online payment systems, or other SERVICE related items on the internet. I am STRONGLY against any sort of 'internet access' tax.
In closing, let me say that before you speak violently out against taxes, think about what it would be like without them. Think about how much money could be lost to your city and state if more and more people start purchasing things online, maybe even purchasing online and then being able to pick up at a local retailer. Yes, I hate paying taxes just as much as the next person, I'd like to be able to hold onto as much of my money as I can, but I also am able to see the money being used in the community around me. As long as I can still see that the money is being put to good use, I feel that I can support taxation. If placing a tax on goods purchased on the internet means that I can continue to see this money being used in the community around me and in education, then yes, I'll support it. But in closing, they have to make it easy, if the tax is not just a 'general' tax that you are required to pay (a nation-wide tax that is divided between the different state/local governments) then it will end up being even more of a pain in the neck.
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
Let's throw forward another scenario:
I'm a legal resident of Pinellas County, Florida. I live in Montgomery, Alabama, as a consequence of being stationed at Maxwell Air Force Base. So, can someone tell me why I should owe the state of Florida a use tax on a product that I order from, say, Maryland?
!#@%*)anks for hanging up the phone, dear.