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."

Comments

VAT while across the ocean

[ostone]

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.

Re:VAT while across the ocean

[vrai]

That would be the point. What's wrong with private schools and toll-roads? What's the betting that they'd be both better and cheaper than the current state provisioned systems.

Why tax?

[dytin]

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.

Re:Why fight "Internet" sale tax ?

[weave]

VAT is paid by everyone along the supply chain. Manufacturer buys raw materials, supplier pays VAT. Then when they resell the goods, they deduct the VAT that they paid for the raw materials, and pay VAT on the goods sold to the distributor. The distributor then deducts the VAT paid, adds their markup, and sells it to the retail place, the retail place pays the VAT for the retail price after deducting what they paid for the goods. At least that's what I know about it. So VAT is normally built into the selling price.

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...