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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."
I'm pretty sure this is what our government is doing with our hard earned tax dollars:
/pub
cd
less tequila
more beer
dd if=/dev/conciousness of=/dev/null
--g33k
(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.
When I went over to London I got told about VAT refunds. If you are a tourist in Britain you can get back most sales tax (Value added tax) if you save the recipts and it is over some base cost. The reason I heard for this is that a visiter recives no benefit for the tax and therefor has no logical reason to pay it. This seems to be the case with internet shopping... I don't live in North Dakota so why should I pay for kids to go to school there while not contributing to my state... now if the tax was being proposed from the originating state it makes a little more sense, but is still a streach. The long and short seems to be that the states are strapped for cash and trying to collect more taxes without making new taxes.
Remove *your pants* to send me email.
how is the tax gonna work for ppl in other countries? (there are other places than the USA you know)
(A)bort, (R)etry, (P)retend this never happened...
Why even tax the internet? After about 5 years of e-commerce being popular, we have seen the market take off. It started off with some bumps, but after the bubble burst, and all of the stupid dot-com companies died out, we were left with many legitimate e-commerce sites that were pulling in a large profit. Rather than law-makers seeing this as a sign that maybe low taxes are good, they see this as an opportunity to tax further. If law-makers truly believe that internet commerce is hindering their states because it is so cheap, then they should lower taxes in their state rather than trying to levy taxes on the internet.
It's kind of like two kids. One is very gifted and one is just regular intelligence. If you want to help the regular kid, you should spend extra time with him and help him. You should not try to force the gifted kid to act dumb.
Ridiculous! What about the US Consititution!?
When state Governors are sworn in they USUALLY take an oathe to uphold the US Constitution and to defend it.
They are not if they keep trying to fight it with ridiculous crap like this. Some states have no sales tax for example like the wonderful state of Washington.
As everyone knows it is unconstitutional to tax interstate commerce or subject levies and tariffs.
The only exception to taxing telephone purchases or internet prurchases between two states is when the company collecting the sales tax HAS PHYSICAL BUSINESS PRESENCE in both states.
I hope people see this at 4:49am EST and put his thread to rest.
The whole idea is UNCONSTITUTIONAL. And ammednig the constitution is a dangerous action, once it starts the constitution is open for modification until closed and ANYTHING can happen during the debate.
This stuff makes me sick. California and New York should be ashamed for their socialist spending practices.
Why buy online and pay tax AND shipping?
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
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)
To keep governments honest in delivering value to their constituents, states should be forced to compete in offering low cost of doing business. If taxes climb too high, then the goverment isn't doing it's job well, businesses leave, the economy suffers, and the people vote the government out of office. This is the best mechanism we have for keeping governments accountable to the people -- just as companies have to offer value to their customers, and to their shareholders.
Taxing across state borders is unjust and just plain stupid. We have enough barriers to trade around the world. Let's not start *within* our own country.
i Agree, at some point we need to pay more TAX because of this financial wizard problem when we start to pay it back is anyones guess, but im worried about the kids now,turning them into wage slaves (working for big corp) to pay our previous excessive dues doesnt seem to be fair somehow
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/
Run that one by me again, will you?
You SAW Episode 1 for free. Having found this a displeasing experience (didn't we all) you then went and PAID to see it AGAIN? What kind of masochist are you?
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
...about this whole thing is the government, especially most of the States, dont spend the money they get wisely in the first place, so we are going to give them MORE money?
For the last 10 years in Oklahoma the population grew at about 6%, government spending grew at about 70%, now there is a budget shortfall and the want to raise taxes!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
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 think they'll just encourage people to use digital cash. The lack of taxes has allowed credit cards and even checks to become the common method of payment online. If the government begins taxing these sales it'll encourage people to use digital cash. If there are people willing to use digital cash there will be people that will supply it. Sure most will suck and the rest will battle but eventually one or a couple will become the new defacto standards.
Why would a company provide the framework of digital cash without charging any fees? Simple! You get people to pay you in real money and you give them digital money. You don't have to offer to convert digital money back into real money if you have enough customers that it is practical to buy and sell everything in digital money. Other people would step in to convert currencies if there was enough demand. Therefore you suddenly have a money funnel filling your own bank accounts. Invest that money in land, gold, precious gems, or whatever is pretty stable and you have a fortune and your fortune makes your digital money more valuable thus creating a nice cycle. Just issue yourself whatever paychecks you want and live like kings.
Think of the EBay/PayPal marriage. If they moved their operation out of the US and issued their own currency that was easy and cheap for everyone on EBay to use and made it available to other sites to use as easy as they already use PayPal.. well you see where that goes. It's not that far fetched.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
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
ANTYTHING that increases the tax burden on the average person has a harm associated with it. It may also have a good, but there IS a harm to it as well. Remember, taxes are moneys taken from you by force if necessary and spent on items that you did not choose to spend it on.
Back when government did as little as possible the harm taxes caused were less than the good they did. That is no longer the case, as government grows larger and starts doing things that are not in the common interest.
It is therefor the duty of every citizen to see to it that the government gets as little tax money as legally possible.
Giving more money to the government because they are having a budget shortfall is like buying an achoholic a drink because his glass is empty - it might seem like a charitable thing to do, but it really is harmful.
NOTA BENE - I am not a "Business is Good/Goverment is Stupid" sort of person. I don't like big business any more than I like big government - I like small businesses and local government, because they tend to be more responsive to the individual. That is why taxing interstate commerce, be it done via the Internet, via the mail, via the telephone, or via carrier pideons is a BAD THING - it discourages local government and benefits larger governmental bodies.
www.eFax.com are spammers
It's amazing how hard people will work... if you let them keep the proceeds. I had a web designer friend who would work until about half-way through October, and then take the rest of the year off FOR NO OTHER REASON than to avoid being put in a higher tax bracket.
Our tax code is fscking horrific. Let's just have a flat sales tax or a flat income tax, and quit the bullshit. Our country would return to incredible prosperity if we could just do that.
...aren't you supposed to get something in return for tax? Taxes should be used for the common good, that's what democracies are about isn't it? You get roads for road tax, social security for income tax and so on. Of course the budgets get shifted around here and there, and 'the state' does get extra income out of it, but you see the point, but what would people get in return for Internet tax? More bandwidth? We're all already getting that. Not to mention that most people are probably *already* paying tax over using the Internet, by means of VAT. Now that the Internet no longer depends on US government funding for its existence, what would the US government offer the people in return to justify the tax?
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Sales tax, on the other hand, just happens when the end-consumer purchases the product. So the product on the shelf for 99 cents ends up costing like $1.07 when you checkout.
Sales taxes vary by state too. Like, Pennsylvania doesn't tax clothing, but some other places do. Delaware charges NO sales tax. Arizona charges a sales tax, but some cities tack on a percent or two so you have differing sales taxes just by driving around in one metro area like Phoenix.
It's a complicated mess, so the real problem is, how does a net business know what tax to charge each user. It's not just a simple case of doing a table lookup of 50 elements and multiplying the sale value by it. There are thousands of different rates, and just as many rules about certain products which are exempt. Then you have the hassle of knowing what locality to remit the revenue to. Whereas a physical store just has one sales tax rate to worry about and one place to submit their receipts.
The answer being floated about is to have online tax clearing houses for the states so when you make an e-commerce purchase, the site connects to the tax site, gets the amount to charge, then submits that value to the tax site. That site (a private company) would keep a portion, and remit the rest each month to all appropriate localities.
A complicated mess, and some companies have noticed the huge potential to score a percent or two off of every net sale, and are eager to provide the service. The states and localities will accept a lower rate after fees because it's better than nothing.
Meanwhile, ailing dot-com online companies will suffer even more. You already have to pay shipping (usually). If you tack on sales tax and the hassle of waiting for the goods to arrive, most people will just as soon run down the street to buy the stuff where it will end up cheaper.
And that is why bricks-and-mortar stores are all for this idea...
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?
Internet sales should be taxed the same as mail-order/catalog sales. They are the same thing for all intents and purposes. The only difference is the media of the catalog and order form, one is on paper and the other on your monitor. Why should mom & pop catalog company have their goods taxed while Amazon and Buy.com get a free ride? If mail orders are taxed, then internet orders should be taxed too. If internet sales are not taxed, then mail orders should be freed of the taxation.