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Internet Taxation May Be Imminent
redfenix writes " Here, there, and everywhere, the words "Internet Tax" are being uttered with intentions of bolstering state budgets. It may be inevitable that products purchased on the net will be taxed someday. The real question is: can the fragile internet economy really help local tax economies now?"
If this happens do you think it would work like English road tax (the older the car the less you pay?) My 1Ghz box should be cheap to tax by then! :)
Just call it Tax#, and everyone will just jump on board!
Neck_of_the_Woods
#/usr/local/surf/glassy/overhead
This "Internet tax", it's not calculated per-packet, is it?
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
"Internet Taxation May Be Imminent"
So... if it may be imminent, then it's not imminent, right? Heh.
Since spammers try to hide who they are, getting them to register for a tax would be difficult at best.
A far better option would be to sell hunting licenses for them.
I know I'd sign up.
Enlarge your penis....
Enlarge THIS! BOOM!
www.eFax.com are spammers
Just getting that out of the way.
We probably should be. The taxes are not charged not because someone feels that you should be exempt from taxes, but rather because it is extremely difficult (i.e. impossible) to figure out the taxes. It is unreasonable to require each retaler to file and keep track of all 50 states rules/laws/tax amounts.
I understand that they have a new device that all the kids are talking about called a "com-pu-ter" that is pretty amazing at keeping track of stuff like this. You match up something like the state's abbreviation and it returns the percentage sales tax. I guess it's pretty useful.
But I guess they're not in widespread use, because there's very few nationwide retail chains who are able to keep track of all those complicated rules. The ones that are nationwide I think are getting smaller, like Wal Mart, Target and Best Buy, primarily due to the business overhead they face trying to keep track of all those state taxes.
They'll never thrive like E-Toys, reach the profitability of Amazon, or any of the other successful internet businesses that don't have to charge state sales taxes. What a help it has been.
Hate to rain on your parade, but remember this place called 'the rest of the world'?
Damned well better not try to charge us sales tax based on ANY of your 5x state laws...