Slashdot Mirror
New U.S. Sales Tax Regime For Internet Sellers?
morganew writes "As reported last week on Slashdot, States are pushing for new sales tax rules that would force Internet sellers to collect taxes for up to 7500 jurisdictions. Legislation has been introduced. The House Judiciary Committee held hearings today; here's CNet news on the bill, and here's a report (PDF link) on what it could mean to internet sellers."
This is a pet peeve:
"This will wreck havoc "
wreak, goddamnit, it is WREAK FUCKING HAVOC
No Republicrat or Demican will support the legalization of drugs. Join the Libertarian party, legalize and taxing drugs and a whole host of other "victimless crimes" would create a Tax Boom like one never seen before.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
"No Tax or Duty shall be laid on Articles exported from any State."
That about wraps it up.
I asked about this in the previous thread, but got no explanation, so I'll try again... how can such a law be reconciled with what is explicitly specified in the U.S. Constitution?
"No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state." (Article I, Section 9.5)
That is, after all, exactly what these laws mandate, for merchants to collect a tax on some State's behalf on goods that they are exporting out of the state. How is this legal?
AnotherBlackHat also pointed out another relevant provision:
"No State shall, without the Consent of the Congress, lay any Imposts or Duties on Imports or Exports, except what may be absolutely necessary for executing it's inspection Laws: and the net Produce of all Duties and Imposts, laid by any State on Imports or Exports, shall be for the Use of the Treasury of the United States; and all such Laws shall be subject to the Revision and Controul of the Congress." (Article I, Section 10.2)
I am genuinely bewindered as to how proponents of such a law can think it would pass Constitutional muster. If anyone could explain the legal rationale behind such legislation, I'd really appreciate it.
I know this is ./, but geesh!
The bill doesn't talk about taxing internet sales, it talks about taxing remote sales. Sales includes mail order, phone order, internet order, any order.
The bill only applies to states that agree on a unified, simplified tax system. The same items will be taxed in every state that agrees.
Let's see. I have a computer. I input the zip code of the person who has placed the order and it tells me the tax. Hasn't anyone reading slashdot heard of computers? They sometimes can be used to do computations for people.
Once a quarter, I fill out at most 50 forms and send 50 checks. A burden? Yes, but not that great. If the system is truly simplified, my computer should be able to fill out the 50 identical forms for me for the 50 different states.
The bill as introduced only applies to those with more that $5,000,000 in "gross remote taxable sales." Note it does not include local sales or sales of non-taxable items.
I don't know about your mom and pop, but mine don't take in more than $5,000,000.
Unless I'm smoking some bad crack, (and I could be ;) , I read that the unified tax system was nothing more than a set of guidelines defining how things get taxed, not if things get taxed.
For example, Orange Juice gets taxed as a beverage as opposed to fruit. But that doesn't say anything about if food items are exempt or not. In some jurisdictions it just plain depends. For example, oregon has no sales tax, but in southern oregon, there is a fast-food tax.
I know when I lived in LA, LA county and Orange county had different tax rates. I've seen some municipalities where zipcodes are used to differentiate tax rates, even if multiple zipcodes are in the same city.
I also remember a while back, it was posted that in Colorodo, some items are only taxable at certain times of the year. I think there was some special holiday where that particular class of item was not taxable or something like that.
All of this really makes it a pain for the seller to keep track of. That's why I think its natural that a seller only be obligated to charge sales tax according to their LOCATION(s).
actualy it's not a new tax, most states have a sales/use tax and if you buy something where the sales/use tax isn't collected for you by the bussiness, your supposed to pay them yourself, usualy on your state income tax form. Nobody of course does it unless they have to be squeaky clean, or its a very well advertised purchase. I think the i remember that the CEO of Tyco got in trouble for not paying the sales/use taxes on a painting he bought from $20M or something like that.
what is new is that a bussiness couldn't be forced to collect the sales/use taxes for a state that they had no physical presence in such as if I had a Michigan sales tax license, California couldn't force me to collect tax for shipments to california.
Apocalypse Cancelled, Sorry, No Ticket Refunds
Canadian incomes are, on average, 30% lower. Because of that, many items are priced less in Canada.
Another factor is that direct consumer advertising is illegal in Canada. (US is one of the few countries where it is legal). So the marketing is done only to doctors and gov't beaurocrats, not consumers.
As for cost shifting, Medicare/Medicaid only pay for 50-70% of the actual cost. The other 30-50% is paid for by higher rates for paying (insured) people. There's no explicit tax raising the cost of pills.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
In a word: Yes. Taxes suck. Many trees die. Having to do them under 50 sets of state rules would be a nightnmare. I frequently purchase things for a University Organization. At those retailers located only in North Dakota, I have an easy time of it. I just have to tell them my tax ID number, I buy things tax exempt. The larger retailers (Walmart, Target) are much more complicated. Walmart requires I have a card with me every time. The target cashiers interrogate me and enter all the information into the register, then make me fill out about 10 feet of paper tape.
Calculating the amounts isn't the problem, filling out and filing the paper work on an quarterly basis is. Not to mention what happens when all the localities with their own sales taxes inevitably get into the mix...
Why?
No state sales tax in Alaska, or Montana.
You've obviously never shopped locally in California. It'll still be worth paying the shipping on from the east coast then to pay the prices they want here. There is more than just taxes that drive up the prices in this State. All the mandator social BS is driving companies out of the area left and right with minimum wage hikes and outrageous workers comp/unemployment insurance requirements.
wooohoo! And we make up for it in cost of living, property taxes, and income taxes, amongst other sources. :(
ALaskans get the best bet. The gov't pays them for just being alive, thousands a year!