Slashdot Mirror
Warming Battle Over Online Taxes
mackertm writes "The NYT (free registration, blah blah) has an interesting story about the fight over Internet taxation. A coalition of states and some big clicks-and-mortar retailers are leading the charge to simplify the process of collecting taxes online. Amazon, Dell, and eBay are the biggest pure e-tailers resisting this movement. It's fun to see Amazon try and talk about how difficult it would be to implement taxes for all states, when it's already doing it for Target and Toys 'R Us."
Go on. It's good for the economy.
use the NYT archive
1 7ECOM.html
http://archive.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/technology/
Can't I just start ordering things from companies based in other countries? Say, a Canadian company? No tax then, right?
The Blaster Master Fighting for Truth, Justice, and Evil Pie since 1979
"Clicks and mortar"? "E-tailers"? That alone was enough to keep me from reading the article.
Who'd want to fight over Online Texas?
Fat people are harder to kidnap.
Texas is finally getting the internet!?
... :)
Wow, I thought this day would never come. I thought all them rednecks would just be sittin' there talking about their "inner net" (inner netting on shorts), for decades
why don't people post non-reg links to these NYT stories? http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/17/technology/17ECO M.html?ex=1046062800&en=a7c25eb86d3b8b8b&ei=5062&p artner=GOOGLE
(I mean, people other than people like me who do it as a reply.. the ones that post the stories, or *cough*edit*cough* them).
I would rather pay the sales tax of the state that the e-tailer is in. Then I can choose if I want taxes to go to my state or to another. If I don't like the current Governer I can shop at buy.com and let my money help their state. Why should a state hand over money when they do not depend on any resources from the state the are giving the money to.
Mike
I didn't use the preview button, so get over it!!!!
Mike
I think the little businesses just starting on the web will be hit bad if all sales were to be taxed. A lot of times, I bet the savings of sales tax is the reason for buying online. This will just reduce online sales and profits for these businesses. Everyone wants a slice of the $$$ pie...
If they ever really start bringing taxes into online purchases you can bet sales will start to drop significantly...
I mean, usually, you have to pay more just because of S&H, then add taxes to the mix and ordering online almost becomes too expensive, especially when making larger purchases.
I'm selling medical equipment online and one of the main reasons customers like to purchase from us is because they avoid paying sales tax.
Amazon claims "it would be too burdensome to collect and dispense them on behalf of so many different jurisdictions", but the major e-commerce engines (e.g ClearCommerce's engine) have a tax table broken down by zip code. This table is updated whenever the tax regulations change. Little companies such as Apple Computer, who is required to charge sales tax on online purchases, depend on this to keep the billing straight. It's all handled in the software, and has been for a looooong time.
I, for one, don't collect taxes when I'm running a garage sale.
--sex
Very popular slashdot journal for adul
Drop the internet sales tax idea completely. Want a package shipped to use? Delivery tax. Road Tax. What to connect to the net? line tax. Connection tax. Why not have all these 'toll roads'? It would make the people who are using the products/services pay for things.
"If you are on fire you can just stop, drop, and roll. If you fall into Lava you are just dead." - my 5yr old daughter
It's a very interesting debate. In my eyes it comes down to lazyness versus saving a 'buck or two'.
Personally, I like the lazyness route. If I can order something and it comes to me, I think it's worth the extra wait. On the flip side, many would prefer going to the store to buy what they want (though paying a few pence extra) so that they can get it now. How much do you enjoy instant gratification?
Another issue how might this affect small companies, like the guy that makes and sells mIRC. Taxes are complicated, and it might make it difficult for people such as him to sell his product w/o having to spend a lot of time and money creating an e-commerce engine (or partnering with someone that does) that customizes the amount of taxes per-state.
Go here for teh [sic] funny.
Lets see.. Federal Income Tax, State Income Tax, Property Tax, Local Tax, Sales Tax, and now, Online Sales Tax.. Did I miss any? (probably missed a few) oh wait, I need to pay rent this month.. wonder if there is any money left from my paycheck.. I love this country very much, but someone needs to learn how to manage their money better and it's not me.. because I'm not the one spending it.. Could be worse I guess.. I could live in Canada.. eh?
Obama = Socialism.
Seeing as many people here rely on Internet jobs of one kind or another, and this could be a rather large nail in the coffin of online sales, it's far from fun.
Amazon and others are part of a growing lobby group and as such their opinions are industry wide, not just for themselves.
These companies already pay a large tax to the country. They exist and employ people who pay taxes and consume goods. I see no point in reducing the effectiveness of their business model thereby hurting all the people below them in the chain.
...my mind read this as "Warming Battle Over Online Texas"
;>
I don't want them online, hell no. The Internet might catch something from them.
due to IP spoofing, Firewalls, etc, there's no real evidence that any transaction occurred in the US, making the taxability dubious. Personally, I think this will get ugly and complicated, due to regs for location of warehouse, customer, shipping address, HQ of retailer, site of retailer's web host, etc. How many states could potentially collect on one transaction?
You are not the customer.
I think it depends on where you put it.
Currently, they're subject to the same tax rule as internet, and as I'd said the last time this came up on Slashdot, they're 4-10X the size of all internet sales.
The recent changes merely clarified that, for instance, BN.com really is Barnes & Noble and subject to the same taxation where they have physical presences, i.e. everywhere.
There's lots of catalog sales out there. If they're not collecting sales tax, I shouldn't either. We collect it for Illinois, where we're based (and even that's fuzzy: my server's in Connecticut).
Always collecting for the 'home' state tax is a bad idea too: It'll just force businesses to incorporate in states such as Alaska without sales tax. But on $130K sales on our little company, a monthly check to 47 states is a huge burden.
Design for Use, not Construction!
So there I was; 15 years old, naive and about to go on my first date where sex was involved. I went to the pharmacy and asked the man for condoms. "Here you go, that will be 5 dollars plus 70 cents for the tax." the pharmacist said. I replied "Tacks? So that's how those things are held on."
Trolling is a art,
Its simple really.
If you live in California & travel to Oregon to visity aunty Jill, you pay Oregan sales tax while there.
So wouldn't the simplest solution be one where you pays salestax in the state you visit vitually, IE the state the etailer resides in.
Sure it might mean some of the big etailers relocating to the state with the lowest salestax, but that sort of thing happens in regards to corporate/ business taxes anyway, so so what.
I (and possibly others) buy more things online partially on the basis that it usually isnt taxed. I buy more things online than I should (as many many others do too) more-so on the basis that I can get more for my money. I definately would purchase less if I knew I was going to be taxed. Whats the incentive to buy online (when taxes are involved)? Prices are sometimes lower than retail stores, but when I buy a $1500 laptop at Fry's ELectronics and pay $125 in tax, thats a HUGE incentive to buy from someone online from out of state!!! If the internet plans on being taxed, I would seriously have to reconsider buying expensive items online, in the long run it would put many online retails out of business, for the sole purpose of funding the Gov't. Does anyone else feel this way???
I'm lost.
/. where I saw many good arguments about states trying to tax internet/mail order sales.
There was a recent article on this on
I am still at a loss to understand why the state I'm sitting in has a right to tax something I purchased elsewhere. Is it solely the fact that I'm sitting in their jurisdiction? Really, then, they're after me, and they're using the retailer as a collector for their tax. How can my state tell some company in another state they must comply with tax laws where I sit? Doesn't this interfere with interstate commerce, the domain of the federal government?
I saw an argument that resources provided by my state are used in the transaction (things like the roads the UPS truck drives on and so forth). I just don't buy that. What am I (or the merchant) paying for shipping? We're paying a fee to a company that operates in my state which pays taxes based on its revenue which should be used to pay for those state services.
This whole internet tax thing just feels like a big attempt to get some budget revenue for states in budget crises. It's the big juicy target of today they're all hoping to nail. It seems to me they should be laying off state workers (just like so many of us were laid off from the private industry) instead of trying to cover their lack of financial prudence.
I understood this sentence at the first "it".
It was a little vague by the second "it".
By the third "it" I was confused.
At the fourth "it" in it it was a little confusing what part of it "it" was referring to
Of course big "brick n mortar" retailers support it - they sell more junk at their "local" stores where tax is mandatory. So by supporting Internet taxes they would be one up over "e-tailers" - there would be no advantage to buy something over Internet 2,000 miles away and STILL pay local taxes. People would mostly shop at brick 'n click stores if this comes to pass - at least you would be able to return stuff locally, even if you purchased it through their "portal" :) You can't return the merchandise after you "try it out" and most people are STILL embarrassed to shop at their local purveyors of pornography and sexual aides :)
This would NOT affect "specialty" on-line stores...like sextoyszone
So now, I have to pay shipping and tax on items online, wait days to get it, and have an even hard time returning it or getting a refund if it was a defective item? No thanks.
Sure, I'm all for taxes, I understand what taxes do. But I also see a suffering economy with low consumer confidence, low consumer spending, and now the government is finding ways to increase the average cost of living with no direct benefit to the consumer? Online businesses have just as much if not more expenses than an average brick and mortar store. How many Wal-Marts do you know of that get millions of customers a day who merely walk in, take up space and never purchase anything? There are a number, but it's no where near the amount of people that log into a website, browse, and never buy. Where as that store never has to pay a metered fee for someone who walks into the store, online companies do. Heck, just today I've been to 10 online stores browsing and never purchased an item. I've been to maybe 3 regular stores, and purchased an item from 2.
I don't think it's very unfair to not require online consumers to pay taxes in the originating state. It's going to drive away people from purchasing online, driving up the cost of ecommerce sites, causes more ecommerce sites to go out of business, more layoffs, lower consumer confidence, all because Uncle Sam wants to make change right now. Why not wait 5 or 6 years after the economy has recovered to do this?...
*watches all the green eyes blink*
..There's a-dooin's a-transpirin'
Not sure how it is in other states, but on KY's state tax form, there is a question to the effect of, "What is the dollar amount of items purchased online where you didn't pay tax?".
The state then wants to claim the 6% state sales tax. I believe it also even applies to instances where you paid a lesser sales tax, for example, if I went to another state and paid 4%... KY would want the other 2%.
You actually can get a tax refund for any taxes paid in the state of Oregon while you are visiting as long as you then pay the Use tax in California. You will also notice that if you buy something like furniture the store will ask you what state you live in so that they charge you the proper sales tax. I recently bought a dining room set in Connecticut but they charged me NY taxes.
"To calculate your sales tax, press OK noooooowwwwww."
"..."
"..."
"...Why don't you just tell me what your sales tax is?!?!"
--"It's Bradford Company, slash your last name, dot your first name"
And whether it's still moving on its own.
Yup...
;)
And Oregon has no sales tax.
-- derby
while i sympathize with local and state governments having trouble balancing their books, doing so through value added and use taxes are the worst way to go about it.
value added taxes are favored by (wealthy) tax theorists because they tax consumption and therefore cannot be avoided. however, they are highly subject to the condition of the economy. any economic slowdown and sales taxes drop along with consumer spending. also, they are popular with the wealthy because the tax is paid only when you spend money, and not on income.
which is their biggest problem. low income taxpayers are disproportionately taxed compared to wealthy. for someone making a hundred grand a year, the value added tax on a computer is nothing. but for someone making 20 grand a year or less, that tax becomes significant. because they are a tax on consumption, value added taxes are a direct drain on the economy - they slow down and reduce consumption and reduce the total number of transactions that can take place in an economy.
if states and local governments really have a problem with colecting value added taxes, then the true answer is to drop the value added taxes completely, rely on income and/or property taxes, and build up the infrastructure that will encourage internet and mail order businesses to set up shop in their own state.
when religion is no longer the opiate of the masses, governments will resort to real opiates.
Personally I have no problem with companies collecting taxes on internet purchases as long as it follows the same gneral rule as mail order(which isn't bying something off a web site just another mail order venue)...in otherwords taxes are collected if you live in the same state as the business in question (where are Amazon's servers, well that state pays taxes) or any state the business has business presence in...does amazon have office sin MA, well then I would except to pay 5% ales tax on my purchase. I just don't understand why this is such a confusing issue when businesses have been doing this for years.
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
Also, this was true the last time I checked, in my previous city, cable internet came with a "franchise fee" - a tax to fund the government oversight of the service. The cable company charged sales tax on that.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
If you live in California & travel to Oregon to visity aunty Jill, you pay Oregan sales tax while there.
And yet, if you live in Oregon or Montana, and travel to Washington, you make a royal pain in the ass of yourself by trying to present your driver's license to every store you buy $2 worth of goods from, as a get-out-of-tax-free card. And then bitch about how long it takes the poor sales people to figure out how the fsck to write up a tax-free sale for your stupid ass. Disclaimer: I am a "customer service representitive" (aka min. wage retail slave) in the state of WA.
there is a significant difference between the tax setup when you have a physical presence in a given state (as Toys R Us do in just about every state) and when you do not.
the proposed tax system would honor existing tax jurisdiction boundaries based on customer location. these jurisdictions do not follow zip code or any other boundary that can be discerned from existing customer info. to support this properly requires a set of a "tax jurisdiction" IDs and the user has to supply one when placing the order.
The stated purpose of "use tax" is to tax the "use" of items not purchased in the state. But, since that tax isn't levied against in-state purchases in addition to sales tax, isn't that simply an underhanded attempt to regulate interstate commerce? I'm surprised these laws were not struck down by the SCOTUS in the past.
[ home ]
If you live in California & travel to Oregon to visity aunty Jill, you pay Oregan sales tax while there.
Technically you don't usually have to pay sales tax when in a state you don't reside in. You can get a form from the state in question and get the taxes refunded. But the state in which you do reside generally expects you to pay a "use" tax even on things you bought outside of the state.
Most garage sales are exempt from sales taxes. Each state has its own rules, but in general if your sale is temporary and under some dollar amount, you are exempt.
The problem at eBay is that many of the sellers are businesses doing it year round for significant revenue. They aren't exempt, except that they are doing business in states where they have no physical presence.
Also, EVERYTHING I sell is used. Taxes cannot be charged on used goods. Taxes were ALREADY paid. I have heard of some states trying to come down on flea markets and yard salers in some states. If they are selling new, it's one thing. If selling used, again, taxes have already been paid.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
What living bipedal organisms would ask for the government to put taxes on services rendered, that have already been taxed?
Obviously, we are not dealing with living bipedal organisms...
This is also an issue of TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. What services are offered for paying such a "tax", why do they not recognize the contractual relationship as this "tax" being formed as an "optional" service, and who recognizes that the internet is composed of private communications networks that can't legally be taxed?
This "tax" is a violation all the way, up and down, my Constitution; me being a sovereign State.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Seriously, Chicken is bad. AS BAD as red meat.
Never mind the added hassles of having to fill out forms and calculations for one purchase from Indiana, one from Iowa, 3 from Florida, 4 from different tax areas of California, every month. It will definitely hurt the little guy.
Do the states that are pushing for sales tax collection really expect all of these small-scale sellers to set aside and remit taxes to the hundreds of separate jurisdictions in the USA? Or, do they expect Amazon to collect the tax based on where the 3rd party seller says they are located?
-- Dave Aiello
One thing that people have been saying is that online taxes are imminent. Yes and no - walmart.com, for example, has been in violation of the law for a long time if they haven't been collecting. Amazon.com hasn't been in violation. So this is a clear example of places like Walmart saying "If I get screwed, screw everybody else too." Nice.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Internet mail order is no different than phone or mail based mail order.
If they want to enforce sales tax on those sales, fine. But call it what it is.
Or will they actually tax mail order orders ordered over the web, but not the same orders from the same customer to the same vendor using phone??
That would be so stupid that it may just happen...
No, where it will hit the small time operator hardest is in implimentation costs.
Toys Be Us and Shit already *has* a presence in all states, and accounting services to deal with it. For them paying online taxes, while costly, isn't really as big a deal as it might appear. It's more a question of how to put it into reasonable practice.
But for the little guy it means setting up tax accounts in every state before he can even do a lick of business, and the cost of maintaining them properly may well exceed his profit margin.
It's already hard enough to deal with the paperwork and compliance issues in *one* state. Having to do it in all 50 will be enough to force many of the moms and pops of the world into tending the fryer istead of being independent business people.
Think about that for a minute and think about why the big boys might be very, very, VERY much in favor of paying all these taxes.
KFG
They are trying to tax bits of information that have already been purchased(aka contracted) and secured. If this tax is activated, it would be equally true that after I buy my groceries I am taxed as eating a separate meal with every spork-full serving of food that I insert into my mouth.
1
10101010
01011110
11001110
11011011
1111111
01111011
11111111
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Well, if Oregon _had_ a sales tax (one of the few states in the US that doesn't), then this would apply. The politicians are desperately trying to figure out a way to convince voters to pass the constitutional amendment required to allow a sales tax in Oregon, but even with its current state budget crisis, it'll be a cold day in hell before its voters decide to allow a sales tax to be implemented. There is absolutely zero trust by the public that allowing a sales tax won't be abused by the legislature.
The only way I can imagine that the public might allow a sales tax is if the legislature simultaneously _completely_ eliminated the income tax in Oregon, but I highly doubt this will happen.
And Oregon has no sales tax. ;) [state.or.us]
Is there a such thing as US Sales tax? I've never heard of a sales tax existing on a federal level.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
And Oregon has no sales tax. ;)
:-)
heh. That's why my company has it's "head quarters" based in Delaware...
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
Living a bachelor who went to the grocery store at most once a month, every six months I traded customer loyalty discount cards with a friend who has a family of three ravenous boys. Let the marketing weenies figure that one out.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
Bad analogy, Oregon has an income tax and no sales tax.
Could I be a little more dense? I read the slashdot address info as State or US instead of as a URL. I'm just exhausted from shoveling a few feet or snow yesterday. I'll banish myself to AOL for a week as punishment.
ich muß mehr Kuhglocke haben
If any mod sees this could you please help me. See I did a silly thing a while back: I tested how low my karma could go by posting dumb crap. Found out that -50 is the lowest you can get. Anyway I like my uid of fish500 - I use it everywhere. I'd like to start participating in /. again but I can only post at 0 so no one sees me. If any mod has any pity and some extra karma to throw my way it would be great to see if I could get back up to 0 karma. I know I could just create a new user but I'm sorta trying this method as a little experiment.
Thank you for your time.
"It's all right, it's ok. There's something to live for" - Uncle Bill
you need to readjust the lenses on your perspective goggles.
Apple is a *huge* comapany with a world wide presence and sales in the billions of dollars.
"Small" business is generally considered to be one with gross annual sales of 3 million or less. Even that's really pretty big.
A *little* company is my mom trying to broaden the market for her handmade jewelry by offering it online. Having to handle sales taxes for every jurisdiction would simply kill that. Dead.
KFG
This idea would be a nightmare to enfore for people like eBay and amazon. Not only do you have to deal with the 50 different sales taxes in each state you have to deal with international people as well. And who is going to be responsible for collecting the sales tax? The online retailer or in the case of eBay the seller of the item? This would require a significant change in infrastructure for all companies and would be a major pain in the ass. I hate sales tax anways and don't think it should be applied to online sales, it's way too much of a hassle.
Hold up, wait a minute, let me put some pimpin in it
your clients are doing. In most states you have to keep track of nontaxed purchases and pay a use-tax at the end of the year. If you are not you are illegally avoiding taxes and will likely never be caught (which is why the "no-tax" internet is a myth).
The thing that pisses me off is if an internet retailer charges me a "tax" they are not a government entity and if they are not paying my use-tax legally I'm still liable, thus have been lied to and essentially charged an extra fee instead of a tax. BTW who the fuck do these companies pay this tax to? the fed? doubtful. Sounds like a way for them to drum up more cash and less work.
The sales tax is a tax on the sale, not on the item.
Otherwise I wouldn't have to pay taxes on a used car
Also, if you ship to a state that has no sales tax (Like Oregon and Delware) how are taxes to be calculated then?
Ok, vegetardian. Whatever you say, you hemp-wearing hippie scumbag. EAT THIS!
Besides, anything with that many antibiotics in it can't be that bad for you.
But if you go buy a "used" car, won't you still get charged for TTL (tax, title, & license)??
It's smoking.
Yep, another thing to blame on the smokers.
See, states have been taxing cigarettes like mad. New York, for example. Some retailers in other states were doing a rather brisk business selling cigarettes online: no tax.
They all thought the government would clamp down on internet taxing before too long, and they were right. Not only do they get to claim they're protecting the world from smokers, but they grab some extra cash for the here and now. Never mind that sales taxes always have a chilling effect on spending. Technically, though, it's just the companies that are doing bad right now. Joe Six-pack has been spending his little heart out, and the economy hasn't budged.
So is it the state's fault for raising taxes on cigarettes, or the online retailers "cheating" the states out of the money they've already spent that was supposed to come out of smoke taxes?
I don't smoke, but think it's none of the government's business.
...
As seen here: http://www.grimmels.com/taxstory.htm
The Comptroller of Maryland was planning on cracking down on people who buy expensive goods in Delaware (where there is no sales tax) and bring them back into Maryland.
He got made fun of so much for it (mostly in the Sun's letter page) that I think he eventually backed down, but the point remains that Maryland could have collected taxes on those goods.
Retailers have broken the law, and simply pocketed the sales taxes that they collect.
Why trust on-line companies? Seems its even easier to scam states over the internet.
Enron anyone?
I don't know who is saying you don't have to pay the state sales tax. My state demands that I
do, in fact. After computing the out of state sales tax on my state-income taxes last year, it came to $1 over the refund I was due. Seemed perfectedly fair to me, the state had withheld extra-money over the tax year, hence the refund, and I did not pay the sales tax due the state until tax-time so it all more or less evened out.
Make it very clear -- that Toys B Us only has to pay for the overhead of accounting for the tax. The customer pays the tax quite directly. Even the overhead is paid for by the customers indirectly but it is vanishingly small. In fact a little creative accounting can make a "pretty penny" in accumulating rounding on taxes.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
Folks, if a bunch of states get together and legally levy a new tax on Internet sales where a resident of one state begins, through whatever means to owe and pay taxes in another state, it's time to pack up and call it a day.
First of all, the very concept of states organizing outside the auspices of Congress is both bizarre and of some concern.
But more importantly, this country is roundly screwed if anything resembling this is passed and upheld. It will make a complete mockery of the Constitution, and it will once and for all remove all semblance of dignity from the citizens.
This must be opposed, not only because it is a new tax, but because it is expressly prohibited in the Constitution. There can be no taxation by one state upon the citizens of another state, PERIOD. The reason for this is that those so taxed have no representation in the taxing state. That's it. Game over. No amount of political double-speak bullshit is going to change this fact.
But, we all know in the era of the 95-year copyright, that interpretation of the Constitution is often stretched beyond the absurd.
So, if these states do form the United States of Tax, would the last taxpayer to leave please bring the flag?
I think it makes lots of sense to do it that way. Although I can see a lot of companies suddenly moving to New Hampshire (no sales tax).
As an online retailer why should I spend my resources to act as a tax collector for another state of which I use no services or even visit.
This is an issue between the State's tax agency and the citizen of the that State, leave be the hell of of it.
And what if I don't. If I do not have any presence in that State of question can they really do anything. Can Florida AG enforce compliance in Idaho?
Target and Toys 'R Us should have been collecting sales tax all along. Since they have stores nation-wide, they have nexus in all of the states. By 'agreeing' to collect sales tax, they're just agreeing to start doing what they should have been doing already.
Behind the scenes, they probably made a deal to agree to these taxes in exchange for the states not going after them for past taxes on their Internet business.
The spin that the stores have put on this is pretty clever. By agreeing to the tax, they put pressure on Internet sites without nexus (like Amazon and eBay) to pay sales taxes on their business. They know full well that Amazon and eBay (without a network of stores) will have a difficult time figuring out how to collect all these taxes. Target and Toys 'R Us already have it figured out. This gives the chains with physical locations an advantage.
Also, this is just the beginning. Once sales tax is collected on online purchases (which won't add up to much money), what to stop a whole new wave of taxes on online sales? It's going to get expensive and complex very quickly.
Worse of all, big sites like Amazon and eBay will find a way to cope, but Mom 'n Pop Internet stores likely won't survive. Less competition, higher prices, less innovation. As is the case with most taxes, the consumer loses in the end...
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and left untried. -G.K. Chesterton
It's fun to see Amazon try and talk about how difficult it would be to implement taxes for all states, when it's already doing it for Target and Toys 'R Us."
Well, that may be, but we ought to be thankful Amazon is fighting for free commerce. Complex taxation would tilt the playing field in favor of the big players. So in a sense they're doing the rest of us a favor, which they don't have to. Amazon can afford all this extra software and programming, and/or services that provide the tax tables. The mom and pop clicks and mortar stores might not be able to. This stupid intestate taxation and the complexity it brings will only decrease the number of players and reduce competition in the ecommerce business. The ultimate sad result might be that no one but huge players can afford to compete, and small players will be forced to become Amazon or Yahoo Store "partners."
and it be charged on evryting.
Ever buy tires? They're all tax. I work for a nonproft in a state that forgives these taxes. A set of 4 nice snow skins - Goodyear UltraGrip for a large van - retail to the drones for about $450. Nonprofits get them for $200 and the GSA buys them for $90.
It all be taxes, bunky. You have no idear what tax bracket you really be jivin.
I'm a little sick of all of the "I buy my laptop online because it's $125 cheaper without taxes" argument.
Yes, you're right, it's cheaper to do that, but that's primarily because you're breaking the law. Just because you don't pay taxes at the time of purchase does not mean that your laptop is tax exempt. You should be filling out the appropriate "use tax" form for your state and sending the money to them.
I realize that hardly anyone actually obeys the use tax laws, but that doesn't make your argument any more valid. It's basically the equivilent of saying "Laptops would cost more if they stopped letting me steal money from banks!"
So, would this tax enforcement at the time of purchase hurt online sales? Maybe. But, please realize it's not a new tax, it's just forcing you to pay one you're already supposed to be paying.
Why should we discriminate against bricks-and-mortar retailers? Why should it only be their customers, who support their local economy, who are penalized?
Granted, implementation of sales taxes for all fifty states plus potentially scores of international jurisdictions is a nontrivial endeavour (understatement), but it's part of the cost of doing business. Look on the bright side--online retailers get to save a lot of money on mortar.
If the only added value an online retailer can offer is "I can offer marginally lower prices because I skirt tax laws"--do they deserve to be in business?
~Idarubicin
Why not institute a 5% flat tax? Winners would learn to advertise prices "including tax" as they do in other parts of the world.
Of course, sales tax should be a flat rate nation wide also...
But that would make sense to the general public. And we all know legislators don't like that (think USA tax codes).
The company purchasing the equipment would most likely want to claim it as a business expense, and once it does that it has created an auditable item that can be checked up on. For example, and auditor could say "Gee, he expensed this $2k heart monitor, but never submitted it as an item on his use-tax declaration -- I wonder if we should send a nastygram demanding the use tax due along with interest and penalties..."
I vaguely remember NJ nailing a bunch of dentists in the late 1980's in a similar situation (buying from PA, not paying taxes).
Not quite.
In South Carolina, we are required to pay "use tax" on things bought out of state. This is equal to the sales tax we would have paid had we bought it in state.
However, if we pay sales tax to other states, we can write it off.
For example: I buy something in N.C. (6% tax). I must pay 5% use tax to S.C. However, I get a 6% refund for paying out of state sales taxes. (Not quite mathematically accurate, but you get the idea)
Of course, very few people actually document everything that accurately.
Amazon has my full support to use all the doubletalk they want if it saves me from paying taxes.
I don't care about the state government.
I worked for a company who was "incorporated" in Delaware but to the best of my knowledge had no operations in the state. I assume it was for this kind of purpose.
I just found out there's no such thing as the real world. It's just a lie you've got to rise above. - John Mayer
I made the following comment recently in another thead, I think it applies here as well:
I'm assuming that the majority of Slashdot folk are in favor of keeping the Internet tax-free -- at least for the time being. (IMO, new regulations forced on the internet sector for online sales and Internet access would have a horrible affect on an already hard-hit portion of our economy... but then again, I'm biased... but aren't we all.)
As mentioned in the article, legislation has been introduced in both the House and the Senate that will extend the current moratorium on new taxes for Internet access and e-commerce activity.
Contact your members of Congress and voice your support for House Bill H.R. 49 and Senate Bill S.52
Contact Congress concerning H.R.49 Here
Contact Congress concerning S.52 Here
Polite emails (and/or snail-mailed letters, as they carry the most weight) simply stating your support for these bills will suffice.
Illegal but usually not criminal as in punative. In most states, I'm pretty sure you have to show willful violation of the tax code. iow, they would have to not list them for the exact purpose of not paying the taxes, not because they thought they didn't have to.
Also, some people find that, on principal, taxes are a form of interstate commerce regulation. You have to pay double duty on trade that occurred principally outside the state. They believe it to be unconstitutional, regardless of what the statutory or case law requires.
Very, Very annoying.
I have managed to learn during this whole process, (or rather, make that, I have been 'informed' by my auditor), that Canada had participated in an international symposium on e-business and the problem of tax-collection this past summer and that this was part of an international 'crack-down'.
Essentially, all the industrialized governments of the world are dancing in a fit of greed-inspired agony over the perception that PEOPLE ARE ENGAGING IN TRADE WITHOUT INVOLVING GOVERNMENT!!!!! --And by golly, Big Brother wants his cut. Up front and right now.
I recently started using Paypal, and I swear, two weeks later, I got a call from the government demanding that I give them my access codes so that they could pick over my records. Wow. I mean, Wow.
And this is the auditing department. In today's virtually cashless society, if they decide that you are being uncooperative, they can freeze your accounts. No money in, no money out. How many employers will pay you in cash? Exactly.
And to all those of you who thought, "Wow! Cashless society! Cool!" Thanks guys. --I know personally three unrelated people who have had their lives put on hold, one for several weeks, one for the whole last year, and another for going on five years, because the Government in all its red-tape glory, saw fit to punch the 'Hold' switch at their banks, preventing them from depositing or withdrawing money in any form. --And these people are not assholes or anything. They're smart and capable. But they also committed the crime of being out of work and unable to make student loan payments. --And one of them is still in school! (Ah, red, red tape. .
--Now they live hand to mouth on kindness, bent rules and what little cash remains circulating outside the digital system. Gee, I sure love the government. You think this stuff doesn't happen? Think it can't happen to you? Stick around. The steam roller is just shifting into drive. .
So. .
Faced with this threat, I pretty had to do what I was told by my Auditor. Thankfully, he seems to be a fairly un-corrupted individual; I don't see him asking for bribes or such, which is nice. But he's also a fairly bland civil servant without any imagination. Indeed, he actually told me that taxes were fair and normal and that people who complained were selfish.
I told him that he'd been duped, and we got into a long, albeit fruitless conversation. --He was surprised to learn that Income Tax had been a WWII war measures act which was supposed to exist for the duration of hostiliies only, but which somehow, just seemed to linger 'till today. He didn't know this! He seemed to think that Income Tax had been around forever and that it was normal and right. And when he did learn that it was a relatively new phenomenon, he just shrugged. "Oh well. It's here now. Nothing we can do about it."
Yeah, except ratchet up the pressure on Tom, Dick & Harry making sales over Ebay. There was a time when you could buy something off a friend and not even think about taxation. That'll end really soon, kids!
This world has gone insane. Microsoft pays no tax and the private citizen is being bled dry. Insane.
Not convinced?
Let me share the story of another friend of mine; She's an artist. She paints and draws cartoons and illustrations for magazines and children's books. --That's where all her income comes from, and she lives a frugal, but otherwise happy life. Well, anyway, she has a small following and recently she decided to start selling some of her original paintings. When tax time came around last year, she dutifully declared the extra income. Well, guess what? She got audited. (A lot of that going around these days, it seems! Control. Control. . . Big Brother is watching you.)
Well, when the government learned that she had sold some of her paintings, the auditing department declared that she no longer qualified under tax law as an artist; that she now had to be considered differently. --That is, they came and they fucking counted all her paintings, (several hundred), made an assessment of the value of them all based on what she had made through her recent sales, and then handed her a bill for the tax she now owed on all the unsold paintings she had in 'stock'.
See, when it comes to manufacturing, the government demands tax payment up front on all goods produced, before they go to market. Ever wonder why there are end of year liquidation sales? This is why. --If you sell everything off or DESTROY goods, (as some manufacturers do), then you don't get to reclaim the tax you paid on them at the end of the year.
My friend is currently fighting this insanity, but guess what? She's making installment payments anyway on the thousands of dollars she suddenly 'owes' the government because the threat of having all her accounts frozen and assets siezed was too much for her.
I can't wait until this whole bullshit parade of a society, which punishes its teachers and its artitst, burns to the ground. There are going to be a lot of greedy morons running around in panic and grief of their own making because suddenly all the money and material wealth they have spent their lives accumulating will be worth zip. None of this shit will be important soon.
Soon. Soon. .
When those trade towers fell, I was enraged because the people who died were honest custodial workers and support staff. If the towers had collapsed around 2:30 P.M., I would have been MUCH more content. I think this was perhaps the biggest indicator of who was REALLY responsible for that stage-production 'terrorist' act.
Reichstag, Reichstag. .
-Fantastic Lad
Good luck!
Personally I don't object to taxes that pay for what we've spent. Sounds pretty reasonable. But I don't like complicated taxes that cost time and money and headaches to comply with, and which let some people cheat. Plenty of people have said the same thing probably ever since taxes were thought of in the first place.
The biggest problem with these multiple taxes is the inefficiency they create. Each tax has to be assess and remitted separately. Exemptions and such have to be accounted for. In some cases, entirely new agencies are formed. (In California, a friend who is an accountant for a restaurant had to endure an unfounded audit by the Franchise Tax Board -- and that was just over SALES TAX!)
I think these multiple taxes evolve because taxpayers naturally resist raising taxes, but are less sensitive to novel taxes on items they figure affect someone else. Few add up all the taxes they pay to assess the total burden. I can tell you my state tax rate, but the total rate? Where do I start? Sales+gasoline+utilities+....
The taxes can also be used to pay for related projects or shape behavior, which is a little more credible. For example, gasoline taxes might be raised to pay for increased road repairs (common). Or they might be raised just to encourage less driving and greater use of or subsidy of public transit, so fewer roads need be built. Or to persuade people to buy more efficient cars so that air pollution goals can be met. Sometimes they turn it around and offer a tax credit. Sales taxes are believed to discourage consumption and encourage savings -- that's just a rationale, I think they're usually imposed just to raise more money.
This internet tax thing will not go away, but is an opportunity to try to harmonize the laws of the different states and provide mechanisms to make compliance easier. There should be a deduction that would simply zero out the liability for many small retailers, for whom the mechanics of collecting and paying the tax would cost more than the tax itself is worth to the gov't. The big players, well, it's just a cost of doing business, one that is diluted by the volume they handle. I guess it's a hallucination that states might equal out their sales tax rates? It could be a variation on the European VAT. Getting rid of sales tax altogether would of course be nicer, but the lost income will have to be compensated somehow.
And what a total waste, all these transaction expenses! Absolute waste, and though I suppose it creates a few jobs, those same folks could be doing something constructive, providing services people actually like.
Make it very clear -- that Toys B Us only has to pay for the overhead of accounting for the tax. The customer pays the tax quite directly. Even the overhead is paid for by the customers indirectly but it is vanishingly small.
The problem is that the overhead of knowing precisely what to collect for every little jurisdiction in the US, knowing where to send the payment, and then actually doing sending those checks is only vanishingly small if you do lots of business. To Toys'R'Us it's not a big problem... they do lots of business in lots of places, and knowing what the tax rules there is easily taken care of by their revenue. But that overhead will be much bigger for a company that didn't have $2billion in revenue last quarter.
- I understood this sentence at the first "it".
Don't say the word!- It was a little vague by the second "it".
Ahhh!!! He said the word!!!- By the third "it" I was confused.
Please, I beg you, stop, STOP!!!- At the fourth "it" in it it was a little confusing what part of it "it" was referring to
AAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!!!!Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
The states haven't gone far enough with this proposal. So now there is only *one* tax rate per state. Big deal. That leaves:
50 different definitions of taxable goods and services. Is a download taxable in Kansas? What about fruit in South Dakota?
50 different sets of paperwork. Don't forget that it is form QERK-1044 in Utah and form 234-1 in Texas.
50 different submission schedules. Submit quarterly for California, yearly for Colorado, and daily for Alaska.
50 different auditing bodies. The auditor from New York will be here Tuesday, Florida on Wednesday, and Georgia on Thursday. And out-of-state audits don't piss off local voters.
And to top it all off all off they require the use of a certified tax package. And suprise, suprise they all cost 10's of thousands of dollars. The States couldn't even get their hand picked test cases to implement them correctly.
What do the internet merchants get in return? A lousy percent of the tax proceeds that doesn't even cover the amount that the credit card companies take out of the tax amount. In most cases the merchants will actually submit *more* money to the States than they received after the credit card fees.
If they want this to work there needs to be ONE list of taxable goods and services, ONE auditing body at the Federal level, ONE body to submit receipts to, an exemption for small merchants, and a percentage cut that is above the merchant account fees.
The government must (they don't always do it) provide tangible results for taxes. In other words, "This tax is used to pay for (fill in the blank)"
Taxes on used cars are slightly different. The taxes are paid on a yearly basis, and have to be paid by the owner. They are paid "supposedly" for wear and tear you do to the tax base with that car (road, environment, congestion/cross gaurd/cop direction, power bill for red lights, sign costs) For items such as computers, walkmans, clothes, etc - the taxes are paid once.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Obviously that was an unintentional negation. --If you sell off or destroy stock by year's end, you DO get to claim back the tax you paid up front upon the creation of the goods in question. --Not that it does an artist much good, but that's what round holes and square pegs are all about! One size DOES fit all, or something is maybe wrong with you citizen! Are you criticizing Amerika? Let me see your papers, please!
Tax law is insane. --But it has no lack of proponants and logical arguments. (Not that they mean squat; you can use 'logic' to argue from any stupid position on the map!)
I actually had an accountant and his civil servant friend engage me in debate on this very subject. They were both frothing at the mouth by the end of it. The stupid really do believe that it's okay to tax small people into the ground while corporations and the already wealthy should go scott free. Just goes to show that mixing a bit of propaganda into the educational system goes a long, long way!
-Fantastic Lad
Sales tax on a vehicle is paid everytime that vehicle is sold, not every year. This sales tax is also called a use tax.
A bit more advanced is the "clanarchy" article a few links down.
The fundamental problem is "capital welfare" extracting purchasing power from the markets and giving it to the capitalists free of charge. The government provides the service of protecting holders of assets free of charge to them by retaining the option of calling up men on conscription while taxing things other than net assets.
Conscription is a form of taxation but more importantly retaining the right to call up on conscription is a form of "retainer" which is another, hidden, form of taxation. It is that hidden form of taxation that forms the real bulk of the need for a personal exemption on the order of a house and personal business assets (tools, inventor-owned patents, subsistence farm land, etc.) -- the things typically covered by bankruptcy protection.
These are the fault-lines that are created in capitalist countries -- that forms then the potential for revolution.
Seastead this.
The federal gov wants to lower taxes so you will have more money to buy more things and hopefully jump start the bad economy. The states want to start collecting taxes to collect more revenue because the economy is bad and they are in the red. Which way is actually better? Funny how each feels completely different on this.
People only have so much money to spend. Obviously something the entertainment industy is having a hard time coming to terms with also.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Adzoox: Also, EVERYTHING I sell is used. Taxes cannot be charged on used goods. Taxes were ALREADY paid.
Um, wrong. The tax is on the sale, not the item. The tax is on the transaction, if you will.
That's why the buyer of your used car pays you sales tax (that you are supposed to remit to the state).
If you trade in your old car, the sales tax you pay on your new one is reduced by the amount of tax the buyer (the dealer, in this case) pays on your old one. You simply subtract the sale price of the old car from the new one and calculate the tax you pay.
OK, so I made it sound complicated...
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
While Amazon and Dell are the loudest complainers, they will be laughing all the way to the bank when the aftershock is over.
Small Businesses which sell online will be killed by this as I understand (which I may not) it's present form. Small one or two people web stores just don't have the resources to collect and pay sales tax to all 50 states. It's hard enough to do for the one they are in. For example, some states don't charge tax on clothes while some do. I know in my state certain types of groceries are taxed while others are not. With all the differences, not to mention the actual payments to each state, the overhead of maintaining this is huge.
I am sure this could run many small web sites out of business. Amazon at least should welcome that.
-Pete
Soccer Goal Plans
No, it isn't. You're just too much of a squeamish queefpussy to be able to eat something you know used to be alive and walking around.
Humanity has been eating meat for the entirety of its existence. It will continue to do so, regardless of the desires of genitalia like yourself. Get used to it.
Yes... there is *ALSO* a property tax, ALONG with a sales tax. In Indiana at least.
Theorectically you could sell a car 365 times in a year, and if it was for the same dollar amount, the sales tax on each sale would be 6% of that sale price. So, it's a tax on the sale, and not the item.
As one post pointed out, two staes (I Think there are others) don't even charge sales tax. IT IS NOT fair to those staes to pay tax to a state they don't even live in and had no chance to vote in.
I pay taxes to get what I want done. I vote for people to vote for the thing I want done. I don't want this tax. If it paases anyway, in a state that starts charging ME sales tax (where I have to collect it or even if eBay collects it and pays it) Any buyer paying tax that is NOT DIRECTLY distributed to that buyer's state is getting "taxation without representation"
This was a forseeable caveat of eBay buying Paypal. Since most people pay via Paypal, I expect eBay will soon just "add the tax" into the Paypal bill to the buyer. Before the merger, it would have taken a competitive war with Billpoint and paypal. paypal might have stuck up for MY rights!
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
Actually for many companies the taxes have relatively little to do with it, other then to the extent that DE's tax code is flexible and not terribly punitive to corporations that choose to incorporate in DE but do a majority of business outside of it. A DE based corporation still pays a large amount of taxes regardless to federal, other states, and for income generated in DE. A great deal of the motivation for incorporationg in DE has to do with their very well developed legal system for corporate governance, both in terms of adjudicating disputes (e.g., bankruptsy, shareholder lawsuits, etc) and in terms of the corporate law itself. It is relatively flexible, predictable, and speedy--all very important issues for any sizable company.
We have the same, but opposite, situation here in Washington. The legislators want to institute a state income tax to go along with the state sales tax. Where I live, sales tax is currently 8.5%. In Seattle, I think it's as high as 8.9% now. Just what we need - another income tax on top of that, right?
As far as the internet/interstate sales issue. If we would just abolish the damned federal income tax, I'd be fine with paying a federal sales tax instead. Change the IRS code to make them responsible for collecting sales taxes and let me keep the money I make until I decide to spend it. Where and how I spend it won't matter - it would still be subject to federal sales tax. This way the federal government can collect their tax at a reasonable rate. Oh wait, I used the word 'reasonable' in the same paragraph as 'federal government'. Sorry - my bad...
"Michael, I did nothing. I did absolutely nothing - and it was everything that I thought it could be."
It seems to me that this has already been covered by catalog shops. IIRC the Supreme Court ruled that out of state catalog orders were not subject to sales tax. If I order something online from another state, how is that different from ordering from a catalog from another state.
Or, is this law trying to overturn the previous court ruling. If so, I'd imagine that all the catalog (and magazine) lobbys would be working overtime.
=Shreak
Either my brain or the "T" on my keyboard is sticking. Funny, since were are disscussing Taxes.
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
"Why should we discriminate against bricks-and-mortar retailers? Why should it only be their customers, who support their local economy, who are penalized?"
Maybe the states should start enforcing their own use taxes with their own citizens!
Why should I as a small, online retailer (catalog mail order for 20 years before that) be expected to pay something like $10,000 a year for software or services to distribute the taxes? That or spend my whole day researching jurisdictions, doing the bookeeping, and filling out tax forms by hand.
If I have to collect sales tax for states other than my own, it will put my very small business out of business. We already pay $800 a year (the minimum) just to be a corporation. Then we dutifully collect sales tax on in state sales and send it in, once a year. We also pay our use taxes and our state and federal income taxes. We do our share. Why should we bear the burden for being the tax collection service for 49 states other than our own? It is not our job to police our customers and make sure that they are honest citizens of their own states.
The brick-and-mortar retailers who are screaming "unfair" aren't even in competition with us. We have a unique, niche following. We only do enough business to sustain our business if we can reach a large market (we do international sales, too). We do that via our Web site and online catalog, which is today more effective and economical than mailing paper catalogs.
If we have to collect multiple sales taxes, our business and product will simply cease to exist because the cost of doing business will be higher than we can afford. This small business currently supports 2 people. Now just where are we going to get jobs with a decent income to pay the taxes that we are paying individually and corporately right now?
Multiply our small business by a lot of small businesses and you will see why this is a bad idea. Ever heard of cottage industry? You will quickly kill any that is being conducted via mail-order.
I think that you must simply be clueless because you just can't be so totally stupid!
It is a shrouded way to kill the little online merchant who specializes in XYZ, and your big-time companies don't like it. The easiest way? Kill them with sales taxes. If sales taxes are implimented, I will have to close my own operations that involve a small niche market and a small amount of sales each month. It's enough to have some fun and give me spending money each month, but if I were forced to collect sales tax for every bloody state/city/county/province/whatever in existence, I could NEVER sell on the Internet.
I do a good bit of shopping via Ebay and other very small online retailers... They wouldn't exist if it were mandatory for them to collect sales taxes.... Death to the small companies that don't have the money to lobby, I suppose.....
I thought it was illegal for a state to collect taxes on behalf of another government entity. Hence, oregon retailers don't charge WA residents sales tax, because they are not allowed to. The customer is "supposed" to report the sale back to WA, and pay the necessary taxes.
This is also why when a WA resident buys a car in OR, the dealer does not give you WA plates. Instead, they give you the paperwork to get the plates yourself with two options. 1) They charge you sales tax, and then cut you a check for the tax amount to give to the DMV 2) You write your own check to pay the sales tax. Either way, the state of WA is collecting the tax, not the OR dealer.
From what I remember, retailers can only collect taxes in states that they have a presence in....
...early this morning (~2 AM CST) I saw a commercial aired by my state, Louisiana, claiming that sales tax on purchases over the Internet has already been on the law books and is to be paid (along with other miscellaneous fees) and listed on some kind of form (income tax form?). The entire group of taxes supposedly falls under the heading of "consumer use" taxes.
The entire commercial left me with the impression that there isn't much backing up the Internet sales tax claim, as of now; the official-type woman-lady urged viewers that not filing such tax cheats the good people of Louisiana who do pay this tax. Also, there were no threats against not paying. It seems they're only trying, at this point, to get money for nothing.
On the other hand: Is there anyone who could confirm this? After all...
<dramatic music>
02/18/03: a term-paper-induced delirium has descended upon me... yay...
I saw an argument that resources provided by my state are used in the transaction (things like the roads the UPS truck drives on and so forth).
Isn't that what GAS TAX is for? Besides, isn't that what the SHIPPING COSTS are supposed to reflect? I mean, UPS isn't stupid. They aren't going to eat the cost of fuel, licensing, insurance, tolls, etc etc etc.
Speaking of consuming services. Why the hell do WA residents who work in OR have to pay OR income tax, when WA residents qualify for 0% of the services that the tax they are paying pays for?
Having just engaged in a spree of online shopping I noticed that it's not as great a deal as once thought. Sure, the price for my O'Reilly book is less than what I'd pay at the local B&N or Borders, or even from O'Reilly.com, but unless I "qualify" for free shipping, the cost of shipping negates the savings. Now with tax the savings are even less. So aside, from being able to find virtually anything I might be interested in buying in one place (the screen on my desk), what are the virtues of shopping online? Not only does it cost nearly the same, but I get to wait a few days to receive it.
Short of finding those rare collectibles and first editions on eBay or the like, I guess I'll start shopping locally.
My state has no such box. So go bother someone else.
This is the situation today but I don't fear that it won't be long before other jurisdictions start crying. So while I will say that I don't think you are not correct today, once the taxers get some momentum worked up after breaking loose from many years of the status quo, who knows how far they will be allowed to go.
PS: St. Louis? I am on the KS side of KC and also a developer.
All my previous sigs now look like this one, I wish they were permanetly recorded when used.
Nothing is certain but Death in Texas!
federal sales tax is called Federal Excise Tax, and it's turned in with your 941, along with withheld payroll taxes.
And it's huge, on tires, tobacco, fuel, hair brushes!, and whatnot.
Do you pay yearly tax on clothes? Do you collect tax for your state when you have a yard sale? Do you pay tax at a flea market? (Do you think you should?) No, you have already paid the tax, and the use of that item does not infringe or place wear and tear on another tax payer's property.
A car places wear and tear on the rest of your state's taxpayer property (roads, signs, streetlights belong to the taxpayer)
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
While smaller localities have their own sales taxes these are bundled into state returns. The state then redistributes the relevat revenues to those who have earned them.
So there's only one return to file, but the return gets more and more complicated the more counties and cities you have sales in.
KFG
In addition to PayPal, start accepting e-Gold (www.e-gold.com). Instead of Federal Reserve Notes backed by the faith of the masses, e-Gold funds are certified as backed by actual gold (you know, something that means something).
In my understanding, e-Gold operates in a less tax friendly jurisdiction wherein some of these bullshit greedy taxmen your being assaulted by do not exist.
The more people that start to legitimately operate outside The Voluntary Tax System (at least, in the US it's voluntary) through legal means such as e-Gold, the more common place such exchange systems become.
It's at least worth investigating. They have competitors, as well. Why? Because millions of people agree with you that we ought to be able to conduct affairs amongst ourselves without being raped by the government at every twist and turn.
Start accepting e-Gold... and I (along with countless others) will begin buying from you.
So, the states want to get together and make on-line consumers cough up taxes for out-of-state mail order (online) purchaes.
When do the counties and municipalities get in on the act? Growing up in Atlanta, not an election cycle went by without a local option sales tax initiative. Those are special additional sales taxes that are used to prop up some poorly-managed thing like MARTA that costs more than ridership will pay for.
Nobody outside the MARTA service area pays that sales tax.
Are these internet retailers going to have to keep track of the local options as well as the state taxes? If not, is there any compelling reason why not that would not also be a compelling reason NOT to track the state sales taxes?
Okay, I was being unfair. Some local option sales taxes are used to pay for needed and worthwhile endveours. I just grew up in Atlanta and became more than a little cynical when they'd increase the MARTA sales tax AND the fares in the same year.
As an example of over-taxation, I'll use my sole bad vice I have on hand right now - That being smoking cigarettes. I smoke Marlboros. Here in FL, I can purchase a carton for $23.99 + 6% sales tax, total of $25.43 (rounding, blah, blah, blah..) When I travelled to NY for business, The price was an astounding $47.99 for a carton. I forget the tax rate. Yet, I can go online and order cartons for as low as $14.70. Why so cheaply? You guessed it, no (or severely reduced) taxes. I don't exactly know how the pending institution of online taxes will affect that, as the cigarettes are shipped from Switzerland (Same ones we get here, just different packaging) but I have a feeling it would increase the price quite a bit. For the curious among you, yes since they are shipped from Switzerland it takes a while to get them (28-30 days) but the shipping is free, and if I order one month in advance, I'm set. I have to wonder what would happen if every smoker in the US quit smoking for one year (or one day, or one month, etc..) - I bet the US economy would take a massive, possibly killing blow due to the absence of all that revenue. Having said my piece, please do keep in mind that this post was simply to show the excesses of over-taxation, and not an invitation for people to tell me I should quit smokng, as I already know that.
That's fine. If your state has no use or sales tax, then it won't have any online sales tax either.
Wow. You have to go through all of the hardship of paying sales tax yearly? I pay it monthly. I also pay rent, employees, power, telephone, advertising, signage, I sponsor events (donations). I had to fix up my store at the outset. Like the parent said, if you're only competing based on the ability to get around taxes, you shouldn't be in existence. You should collect sales tax because you sell to customers in those states. It's a cost of doing business. One little piece of software vs. a real store? There's no comparison.
However, what does pose a problem is the backoffice end of charging taxes. Bricks 'n' Morter retailers are often internally organized by state, or by region. One of the main reasons they do this is so that they can keep track, from an accounting standpoint, of the money they're earning, where they're earning it, and where they owe sales tax. Almost all major retailers have a geographical component to their corporate heirarchy, thus the administrative infrastructure for collecting sales taxes is basically present from the get-go.
Amazon has no such infrastructure in place; in fact, one of the reasons they can be so cheap is the thoroughly streamlined infrastructure. While Amazon could probably write scripts of some sort to automate much of the work, taxes still must be filed by a human being (even if filed electronically), resulting in much more administrative overhead than Amazon probably wants to get into.
The administrative cost of taxing online orders will eventually be passed on to the consumer. Catalogs have been going untaxed since the glory days of Sears-Roebuck. In an ideal situtation, it would be great to keep the status quo -- but the Federal Government is resistant to raising state aid and state governments are suffering from unprecedented fiscal crises, and thus they are looking for new ways of raising revenue. Taxing e-commerce looks like a plump fruit ripe for the picking.
Statistically speaking, there's a 99.998% chance that my IQ is higher than yours. Get over it.
Ok, I know that was pretty incoherent - the problem is economically interfacing the virtual with the real (ie, e-cash may not feed you). I wonder if anybody realizes what this is going to do to the internet if it catches on - small businesses would be hit hard (unless a cheap service provider steps up to fill the gap), leaving online large, online retailers to fill the gap, which nobody will shop at, because it would be cheaper to go to the b&m version in town (no shipping, etc). So, their online arms would close down eventually - then little to no "local" (to America, that is) online retailers (maybe that is a good thing, internet pre-1995 or so). Perhaps people will simply start doing more foreign shopping (will be fun to see how they will tax that) - though if you thought shipping was high now, well...
I also agree with the argument of the "taxation w/o representation" of taxing sales outside the state, and use-tax crap - ugh.
What really galls me is they should have seen this coming - and not split out online and mail order sales in their accounting (which I am sure threw up big flags in government), then maybe the use-tax argument (ie, the customers aren't bothering to pay it, bother them, not us) would have come up (ie, it would seem like all sales were catalog sales, which in reality they were). Of course, then they would be wanting purchase history lists, customer names and addresses - to audit all of America (that would have been a big wake up call, though).
How long are we going to take this taxing crap? I have no problem paying taxes, but I *do* have a problem with paying taxes multiple times on the same money - first income tax, then sales tax, etc. This is supposed to be unlawful, but it continues, nobody says enough - gah!
Yeah, this tax thing is a small thing - but it seems like not a day goes by where I don't here about another "small thing" that takes a bit of my liberty and freedom away, and decreases my quality of life (and yeah, I realize as an American it is pretty damn high compared to the rest of the world) - sooner or later the people won't have anything left, and the government will *still* continue to ask (no! make that DEMAND, under penalty of prison) more - more, more, MORE!!!
Something has to break, and it will probably break soon - when it does, it is going to be VERY UGLY...
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Right. But then there is still a tax when you sell it, and that tax is labeled sales tax. As well as an excise tax when you register it.
I'd rather that they switched all the state sales taxes to income tax. It's a pain trying to figure out how much each purchase is with tax, and you never really know how much you pay. With an income tax, you only need to calculate it once a year - and you know exactly how much of your paycheck goes to the Government.
Since most internet shoppers don't mind paying taxes..lol"Ken Cassar, an analyst with Jupiter Research, agreed, noting that in a recent Jupiter survey, 82 percent of consumers said taxes had no effect on their online shopping.", then why is it the retailers collecting taxes are so eager to "level the playing field by making everyone collect tax?.."That is why traditional retailers, seeking to level the playing field, have tended to take sides with the states in efforts to create the same tax rules for all Internet merchants."
The article speaks out of both sides of their mouth and is misleading, obivosely, the retailers who do a large amount in internet sales, do not collect tax{outside their state of presense}, and those who do little business online collect taxes. So somebody is lying, I'd bet it's the "research groups", since taxing businesses any way you cut it, hurts sales online or offline, period.Living in Washington State, I have to pay sales tax at Amazon. And so, I frequently browse their site to make purchasing decisions (thanks to the good interface and often useful customer reviews) and then go to an out-of-state competitor to dodge the sales tax, which is usually higher than the price difference even if you get the free shipping Amazon bonus.
If I had to pay sales tax in other states, I'd do this less - but for some purchases, start buying internationally to save money. It just seems wrong that such a thing would work.
It does make me miss living in Oregon, the land without sales tax at all. (But not really, given that WA has no state income tax.)
-- Kate
Don't tax value added activity! We want to encourage it as much as possible -- we want everyone who sees an opportunity to add value to be able to just do it! That *is* the economy! Don't destroy it!
Guess what my fellow slashdotters? You can read the article online WITHOUT REGISTERING with the NYT! Click below...
Bypass those thugs!
$DEITY bless $NATION
If the phone order sales will not be taxed, it is all moot.
It is easy to avoid the "online sales" trap
by creating "personalized sets of merchandise" online, receiving a one-time unique number, then actually ordering that "personalized set" by phone via an 800 number. The transaction was authorized BY PHONE!!! Period.
Secret to good health is maintaining proper body pH.
When you get too acidic, you set the stage for disease.
no animals or animal products.
nothing acidic if it is sweet or sweetened.
e.g., orange juice=bad; grapefruit=good
no alcohol or ANYTHING fermeneted.
80% of your diet should be raw, whole foods.
if you drink soy milk make sure it's unsweetened.
We're not taking the job away from another oregonian. I used to live in oregon, but the local property taxes are rediculous, not to mention they don't allow you to pump your own gas and don't have quality control laws for gasoline. Just because we choose to live in WA, doesn't mean than we "chose" to pay income tax, like some would argue. Some could argue we are doing oregon a service, by not clogging their local infrastructure, cuz over 200,000 people in clark county work in OR. I don't think the local area would survive, if all 200,000 people decided to live in OR. The roads/public trans suck as it is, no need to put more people in there.
You would have to file tax returns for every state, have tax licenses in every state, and handle the bureaucracy for every state at once.
That isn't really acceptable- but there has to be a way for the states to catch up too.
Worth thinking about...
What we call folk wisdom is often no more than a kind of expedient stupidity.-Edward Abbey
I keep reading this headline as "Warming Battle Over Online Texas." Can't wait till it's off the main page.
--it is illegal. I was reading the whole thread to see if anyone noticed that, glad someone else did. Good for you!
But the bummer reality is, we have a plethora of bloated governments run more or less like criminal gangs. The vast amount of collected taxes go to pay for interest on already owed money from past boondoggles, then to administrative labor costs of just shuffling the papers around. The department of redundancy department in other words. The bulk of the rest of the money, once it actually gets spent on anything remotely useful, goes to inflated cronysim, whether it's the carlysle group or halliburton or general killdynamics at the federal level, or commissioner joe bob's brother in law who runs a construction company and always seems to get the county's road projects.
I wouldn't worry about it. The US is so far in debt it's unfixable. It's unfixable. People are in denial over it, while they watch millions of jobs leave the nation or just cease to exist. Denial.
The rest of the planet is tired of accepting our money for their real stuff, as they have tumbled to the scam of it being printed up crap that exists now from inertia. This dollar we use is called the petro dollar, and once all the islamic nations insist on either the partially gold backed euro for payments or insist on the full gold back dinar, well, the jig is up then.
The corporate pension system is bankrupt. The major banks are bankrupt, just their derivatives are enough. Insurance companies are only exisiting from owning government paper which is bankrupt, and stocks, which are over valued to the extreme in most cases and not likely to really be profitable any time the next decade or so. Social security, bankrupt. I could go on but the word bankrupt would be in everyexample, so I'll make it short. Credit is not wealth. Credit that has been used and spent already and is now gone forever is REALLY not wealth. We in the US telling ourselves we can just keep printing up funny money dollars and upping this credit we graciously advance to ourselves is not going to keep working. Foreigners who used to buy the bulk of our government paper that made this possible (and were subsidising us) are not doing so now, and are quietly but firmly getting out of the US piece of paper investment model, along with de-investing in our stocks (more or less) and getting out of our real estate. Where they used to buy our exports, the US has become hell bent on nothaving anything much more than weapons to export, we destroyed our manufacturing on purpose. We are close to destroying our agriculture next. I am broadly speaking but all this info is on various economic oriented sites to decipher once you cut through the stock shilling noise. It has nothing to do with the newest video card, and you won't find the info on tom's hardware or at the onion or at any porn or mp3 sites. I'm onlysaying that ot indicate that this POV has greeat validity. I am not hearing happy noises from any of the millionaires I know, the ones who actually are students of economy and really are looking at global events. They know full well what is coming down. The upper middle class people I know who are still working DON'T see this, well, mostly they don't but they are thinking about it a little but it hasn't really grabbed them yet.
There's two choices in the US, complete collapse leading to a saner reorganization of our society (what needs to happen, IMO) or do what they did in the roman empire when they went bankrupt and warfare became their economy, predatory expansionist styled warfare. And if we continue to do that, the rest of the world will get annoyed and destroy us.
It's kinda sad when you realise you are rooting for complete collapse as the better of the options. I'm posting ac on this so won't follow the replies, but I will affirm there are only two options. The good old days are over, smart money is on serious belt tightening and getting real on personal priorities.
I'm from California, and people complained about how high the sales tax is at over 8%. I went to Massachusetts and it was only 5%. Then I came to the UK, and it's a whopping 17.5%! I guess I don't think of that 8% as so much any more. Of course, I get free health coverage here.... :P
If you want to fund a service, bill for it. Taxes are one way to do that, but they're a poor way, because they grossly lengthen the feedback paths between supply and demand, introducing huge amounts of noise that swamp the signal. This creates huge distortions in the system.
Internet taxes totally decouple the supplied service from the buyer. They're just a legal way to steal.
In the US, sales taxes are onsidered 'regressive' in that they consume a largest portion of the poorest incomes.
Sales takes are most often applied to 'sin' and 'tourist' items (alchohol, tobacco, gasoline, restaurants, hotels) and are often excempt on neccessities (depending on the state, food, pharmaceuticals, even clothing).
Because of the federal vs state vs local system, sales taxes are a means by which states and villages can raise funds without begging for a federal handout.
And from what I hear from our neighbors in the frozen north, the GSAT and PSAT there are so oppressive as to make buying most things ridiculously expensive compared to in the US.
Design for Use, not Construction!
Corporations, companies, vendors, do not, never have, and never will PAY taxes. Anything you have ever heard to the contrary is a bald faced lie.
All of these entities only COLLECT taxes for thier customers and pass them on to the government. If you "raise taxes" on a company thier incremental cost per item goes up by the amount of the tax, plus the cost of calculating and processing the new tax, and the price you pay as a consumer of that product goes up by that much. The companies profits don't go down, they don't magically print money in the basement, they don't lay-off workers or dock thier pay to pay the new tax, so where else did you think the money was coming from.
All these idiots out there saying to tax corporations higher are laughable. I would much rather the government just increase the final sales tax by the amount they are expecting to raise.
We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is
whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling
is that it is not crazy enough.
-- Niels Bohr
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