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."

Comments

International orders?

[grub]

Will this put US online sellers at a disadvantage to, say, Canadian ones for importing? For example an amazon.com order plus the taxes verses an amazon.ca order with shipping and the exchange rate differences?

Re:Death of eCommerce

[stratjakt]

The convenience, and ability to comparison shop by seeing prices from a few dozen retailers side by side for that new video card, is still there.

It still beats living in a town that has only Best Buy and a ridiculously overpriced little shop that sells second rate chinese hardware.

Even with tax and shipping I can get that Radeon 9800 almost 100 bucks cheaper online.

Instead abolish sales tax for everyone

[bizcoach]

Traditional brick-and-mortar retailers also have their eyes on lost money. They said they stand to lose money as shoppers turn to tax-free Internet purchases.

In a globalized economy, taxing e-commerce isn't going to work well. For the sake of fairness, traditional brick-and-mortar retailers shouldn't have to suffer from sales tax either. Time to move to a totally different tax system; I'd propose to tax energy consumption and nothing else (not even income tax); calibrate it so that the total tax burden remains unchanged.

Printable order form

[MacDork]

So what is to stop internet sellers from simply putting up a printable order form? If you have to snail mail in your order, it is mail ordered and exempt. No different from the situation now, but it takes a little longer. Certainly worth the effort on bigger ticket items.

But how is it that mail order would be exempt and internet sales would not be exempt in the first place? I'd love to know how they are going to just explain away

"No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state."

"No preference shall be given by any regulation of commerce or revenue to the ports of one state over those of another: nor shall vessels bound to, or from, one state, be obliged to enter, clear or pay duties in another." (Article I, Section 9 of the US Constitution)

I think that speaks for itself, or shall we have the revisionist telling us that 'vessels' meant spaceships, just like 'the people' means the National Guard in the Second Amendment? Maybe some of our fine lawmakers should have taken the time to read our Constitution at it's recent unveiling.

You can't always figure out the sales tax rate

[eric76]

You can't always figure out the sales tax rate based on the zip code.

Many of those who do charge sales taxes depend on the zip code to determine how much to charge. I hate having to argue with them every time I buy something.

For example, the Texas sales tax rate at my office is 8.25%. But at home, it is 6.25%. Both are in the same zip code, but my office is in town and I live 20 miles out in the country.

The odd thing is that if Fed Ex drops off my package at the office because they don't have the foggiest idea how to get to the house, the sales tax rate is still 6.25% since the official delivery destination has no local sales tax component.