States Push for Net Sales Taxes

Marnhinn writes "Lawmakers in several states are asking Congress for the right to begin collecting sales tax on interstate internet purchases. CNN has the scoop."

Comments

State arguments

[andyring]

I hope people see this for what it is: states experiencing financial hardships are looking for new cash cows to balance their budgets, thanks to years of overspending during the false and short-lived economic boom of the late 90s, that is now coming back to bite them. They will say that it is "lost" revenue. Something cannot be lost if it never existed in the first place!

I find it interesting that when a business experiences tight finances, they must improve efficiency and trim costs in order to stay afloat. Heaven forbid a government entity have to do the same thing! Cut one penny from a bloated government program (or even cut the rate of growth!), and suddenly the headlines scream about no school lunches and seniors losing social security.

Sickening.

Re:And what about mail-order?

[ComputerSlicer23]

No, they haven't avoided those taxes. It is the responsiblity of the purchaser to pay the sales tax in their home state. It is not a liability of the business. A friend of mine's step father worked in the State gov't for the tax collections. At least in a the state of Nebraska, you are supposed to drive down to the local tax collector (possible it's only in the state capital), and file the mail order items value, and pay the sales taxes on it. I also believe that according the the current law, internet sales aren't taxed even when the buyer and the seller are in the same state.

He said his Mom always paid the taxes, just to avoid a scandal because it was her husband's job to enforce that law. In the end, they end up collecting what is given to them, but the prospect of collecting that money is more expensive most of the time, then the total value of the money collected.

I've got not issues with the gov't collecting taxes. No real issues with the gov't collecting taxes on Internet sales. I've got some issues with them attempting to regulate VoIP. I think that's wrong on so many levels (if you are going to do that, tax by the byte/packet, it's just data at that point VoIP isn't special on the internet, however, that's for a different rant).

When money moves around, the gov't wants a piece of it (they figure if you are spending money, you can afford to give some of it to the gov't, and generally they try and not tax neccessities, hence no taxes on food). The gov't has to aquire revenue to provide the services it does. The gov't doesn't need to provide a lot of things it does. So I don't think they truly need the revenue. However, if they decided to tax it, I've got no problem with that in particular. I do have a problem with them never cutting back services during lean years, and never saving money during the boom years. When they expand gov't services during the boom years, and then try continue will all the same services during the lean years, that's a problem. They needed to be either, returning the money to the citizens, or they needed to be saving it away.

I'm curious to see what will happen if the real estate market ever collapses, that'll directly affect revenue of the state gov't, in property taxes. That'll be a serious problem around here.

Kirby