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E-commerce Sites to Collect Sales Taxes Nationwide
aengblom writes "An agreement between 38 states and some of the nation's largest retailers is bringing taxes to the net, The Washington Post reports. In return for collecting taxes for all U.S. sales, the retailers would not be held liable for taxes they 'failed' to collect previously. Best quote: 'If we disclose who these companies are, it's like putting a target on their back.' The Post reports that Wal-Mart, Marshall Fields, Target, Toys R Us and Mervyn's have all 'independently' announced plans to collect taxes nation-wide." Internetnews.com has a story about the taxes and an article claiming it won't hurt online sales.
Get ready to pay postage on every e-mail you send out.
That however could be a good thing. Spam will die off very quickly. Unless some bright legislator gets pushed the idea that every e-mail a person receives should be taxed. Kinda like how you pay for cell phone calls whether you make the call or receive it.
I read Slashdot for the
Just wanted to mention that Marshall-Fields, Target and Mervyn's are all the same company - Target Corp (Formerly the Dayton-Hudson Corp until Mark Dayton became a senator).
Also, Target Corp and Toys R Us are working together with Amazon.com for online sales, so really it's only two groups - Target-ToysRUs-Amazon and Wal-Mart.
I welcome sales tax for these merchants as it will probably encourage shopping in the local economy, which is better for small business and lesser municipalities (though perhaps bad for my home city, since Target Corp is based here). I did not design this game/I did not name the stakes/I just happen to like apples/And I am not afraid of snakes
So this means powells.com has a competitive advantage over amazon.com, since Powell's ("the world's largest bookstore") is based in Portland and won't charge you sales tax while Amazon will?
Well, it also means that big companies like Amazon can now build warehouses in California and all the other states and have the competitive advantages of faster and cheaper shipping costs (as well as pick-up possibilities).