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Evolution Of The Online Tax Debate
rhwalker22 writes "Last November, the Streamlined Sales Tax Project drafted a plan to make it easier for states to cooperate in collecting sales taxes on products sold over the Internet. That plan is now headed to governors and state legislatures for debate.
While that debate begins, the sales tax group is moving into new territory, debating how to apply sales taxes to digital services, like music and software downloads, and IP telephony. Most states participating in the sales tax project have sent representatives to Tampa, Fla., this week to take up this subject, according to a report by washingtonpost.com."
(In America) Profits from the sale of stock are already taxed by the capital gains tax. Likewise, losses on the sale of stock are deductible.
However, any gains by the government are mitigated by the fact that anyone LOSING money on the stock market gets a tax CREDIT.
That's simply not true. You can use capital losses to offset your own capital gains. However you never get a credit.
Two examples:
buy 100 shares of Stock A for $10 sell for $8
buy 100 shares of Stock B for $10 sell for $13
(assume all done in the same year)
you pay capital gains tax on $100
buy 100 shares of Stock A for $10 sell for $7
buy 100 shares of Stock B for $10 sell for $12
(assume all done in the same year)
you pay no capital gain tax (you get no credit)
Because of the import tax? The one you should technically have been paying already, but which isn't normally levied on small packages -- yet? I imagine they'll start enforcing it if and when they implement a domestic sales tax.
Incidentally, here in lovely socialist England I am likely to pay 20% tax plus another 15% or so in tax-like handling charges on every single thing I mail order from the US -- which is a lot, since you can't buy clothes here unless you're a dwarf who loves terrible clothes. Luckily, the money is spent on a worthwhile cause, i.e. huge subsidies to companies that spend it on executive pay, share dividends, and disastrous foreign speculation. The locals love this state of affairs because hey, that's socialism!
(Prepares to lose all his karma to righteously indignant English people who think giving away your economy is morally virtuous and that the world is grateful to them, but heroically does not click the 'anonymous' button!)
Whence? Hence. Whither? Thither.
I am currently living in South Korea, serving a remote tour for the US Air Force. I do not pay taxes on base. When I purchase stuff online and it has to be sent to my APO address I get taxed with the outrageously high California tax, just because my APO address begins there and is then shipped over here. I am not a resident of the state of California, so there for I am not represented by the government there, which leads to the reason this country was founded on "Taxation without representation". Why should I support a state that I have nothing to do with? I have never even visited California, and probably never will until they change thier smoking laws. Of course this is just my uneducated opinion, but I am sure the bureaucrats see it differently and only care about the money coming in.
[n8.r0n] http://petesweb.spymac.net/
We've always paid the same 17.5% sales tax on online sales as we've paid anywhere else.
Didn't stop it taking off.
I live near Detroit. I'm about 15 minutes from the Canadian border and I can tell you that Canada has a similar law -- you buy stuff in Canada and if you save your receipts for items over some base cost, you can send them to the Canadian government and they'll cut you a refund check for the GST taxes (Goods and Services Tax).
My journal has hot
2. FairTax. Flat tax rate. Let the social programs take care of people where they need to, and even keep those below the defined poverty line off of income tax rolls. Fine. But otherwise, despite that it seems like it should be okay to tax the wealthy at a higher tax rate, it violates the American principle of "equal treatment under the laws" that we fight so hard to attain. Do you ever wonder why it's so hard to get that in other aspects of the law? I don't. It's because of all the double standards. If the law isn't absolute, then where's the "law" in it, or isn't it just a theory?