Slashdot Mirror
Ohio Wants eBayers to Post $50k Bond
MacDork writes "CNNMoney posted a short article this morning about new Ohio regulations set to become effective May 2 this year. If you are in the state and selling on eBay, you will need to pay $200 for a license and post a $50,000 bond or face possible fines and jail time. Getting the license also requires a one-year apprenticeship. When asked to which eBay users this bill applied, the bill's author, Larry Mumper responded with these very specific guidelines.... "It certainly will not apply to the casual seller on eBay, but might apply to anyone who sells a lot.""
Will this do anything to stop scammers?
No.
Will this be a HUGE burden and inconvienence on the honest?
Yes.
Governments so often believe they can wave a piece of paper and behavior stops. Just like gun control, this will never stop a scammer but will punish the honest.
Corporatism != Free Market
Something about the Interstate Commerce Clause might get congress, or at least the judcial branch involved. How long until the first lawsuit to stop, or at least clarify, the law?
In TFA it says that it is not intended that the law apply to individuals, but to businesses.
That said, I can't see how this is anything other than a money-grubbing attempt by politicians keen to enhance their reputation by being on the "cutting edge".
Some politicians just cant cope with the fact that people can manage to run their lives without state intervention.
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
Nothing like driving your productive citizens and businesses out of state with higher taxes.
Did you read the summary?
Have you lived in the US long?
Any source of revenue a city/state/federal tax can draw on, it eventually will.
If the law doesn't very specifically exempt anyone that sells under, say, $10k per year on eBay, you can expect to hear about this getting badly abused about six months from now.
Or do you really consider your typical neighborhood pot dealer; eight year olds who throw a temper tantrum in school; or people who write zombie fiction - All terrorists?
People worry about the "slippery slope" of bad laws because they can and will get applied as broadly as The Powers That Be can apply them.
Insightful right up to the last sentence maybe.
Damn, I'll even burn some karma to say this.
I don't think many people are questioning the licensing-- you are right, if it's a real business, Ohio has the right to license the business and tax any income.
That's not at issue. What *is* at issue is the $50k and possible "apprenticeship" that goes along with it. Ohio doesn't do that to other retailers or direct sellers; why is it singling out ebay sellers?
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
You didn't read the article. It's actually more a law for Auctioneers and not buyers and sellers. In fact, I have read the law and don't see how it can apply at ALL to eBay users. I think the reason the quote was spoken was due to the law's author not knowing the impact of the law and fully understanding how eBay and eBayers do business.
You'll have that sometimes...
My impression is that there some new legislation regulating auctioneers in Ohio (not unreasonable), someone decided it might affect eBay sellers, the sponsor basically says he has no idea how eBay works, and guesses it might affect heavy users, and by the time it hits Slashdot, it's "Stoopid politishun regulates eBay, does'nt know how computars work!!!"
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
First there ARE ordinances to stop people from setting up garages sales as full time businesses. Most cites, townships, etc, have ordinances which limit how often you can have garage sales. If you want an exemption from the ordinance you have to set up a legitimate business our of your home and get a license.
Applying your analogy to Ebay, once again, if you turn selling stuff on Ebay into a full time business, which MANY people do, Ohio has a right to license those people.
Ohio is not going to go after ever Tom, Dick, and Harry how uses Ebay. Only those who set up business on Ebay.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
That may not be the intent but could the law really be applied in that manner if they so chose? The law should be clearly written so that there is no ambiguity about it. Vague laws are dangerous.
Actually, most people can't run their own lives without state intervention. You'd never survive if the state didn't take care of you in some manner. That's the point of the state. You get a group of people together who are supposed to do things for the greater good of the people (that 'greater good' theoretically being indirectly defined by the people in our type of government) because it's easier to pool resources and centralize certain things like defense and transportation than to try and have everyone do their own private thing.
...the government's just trying to protect you. Right?
The problem, of course, is that the government doesn't want to stay small because being in government gives you certain powers to act. For a good long while people kept this in check by paying attention to what was going on. Post-WWII, however, this country became a haven for drug-addled, overprotected retards because "The Greatest Generation" didn't want their children growing up with the hardships they had to face down.
Now, sixty years later, we have a country full of emotional trainwrecks who think the world is theirs for the taking because every authority figure they've ever known has either
a) been nothing more than an overbearing, rigid authority figure worthy of little more than angry rebellious backlash
or, more likely,
b) been a wet piece of toilet paper that always wanted to make sure they felt good and were never "hurt" by things like, for example, valedectorians reminding them that some people are just smarter than others.
Now the place is filled up with characterless assholes who don't have the balls to stand up to their government and don't care enough about what it's doing to shut down the corrupt portions. So you get stupid shit like this because some asshole in Congress decided he was going to flex his political muscle and go for a money-grab. 90% of the people this affects aren't going to know until it's too late, 9% aren't going to care, and the remaining 1% will be scoffed at for speaking up against it because, after all...
And we'll see whether or not Congressman Asshole fixes his bill. I'm betting he sends an amendment to the floor that never goes anywhere or eventually dies in committee because nobody cares enough about it to do anything more than create the amendment to try and silence the critics. Even then, if the critics come back, the blame for the bill's death is so spread around that the suits can just point fingers at each other until the critics get so frustrated they give up.
And this is how American politics (don't) work.
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
Simply put, this (from the article) is Bad Law;
"Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam. Failure to get a license could result in the seller being fined up to $1,000 and jailed for a maximum of 90 days."
Perhaps intentional, but nowhere in the article do I find one iota of purpose, let alone legitimate purpose, for this law. Presumably this is some warped view of Consumer Protection(tm). But it seems that this is more of a regulatory program for the State to bring in reveues where it thinks it is getting screwed. Pay close attention to the fact that they don't call this a 'tax'. Taxes are bad and Americans hate them. Hence a $200 fee and a $50,000 interest free loan is provided for the government.
If this works out (e.g. the State thinks it's successful) you can damn well expect an eBay Lite law, which does the same thing less the requirement for certifications for ordinary people who sell their one used iPod or other junk. The objective here is the bond and the license. The Lite version of the law would most likely entail a license only at a reduced price of $25 or some silly amount to start with.
Then other states follow. So write your politicians now (especially if you are in OH or a surrounding state). That'll allow them to bear in mind your thoughts when this sort of stuff comes to the table, rather than trying to convince them after they're already interested in the potential revenue stream.
Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think. -Ayn Rand
eBay is not an auction, it does not use methods used at a real auction. I will guess that most people here are familiar with the phrase "going once, going twice, sold to the...."
eBay is a swoop and grab. It's the only way to "win". You stake out your desired item and hold off on bidding till the last possible seconds and hope your bid gets applied and is the highest.
I'm sure that if this is enforced on anyone it will be decided VERY quickly that eBay, like uBid, where the "auctions" are timed, are not really auctions and therefore not covered by this law.
--JLockard - "Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps." - Emo Phillips
Actually Gibbens vs. Ogden was an example of an industry which was already regulated by the federal government.
Actually, the fact that it was already regulated is immaterial, because the Constitution clearly states in Section 8 of Article I:
"The Congress shall have power...To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"
Notice there is no mention of "but it must already be federally regulated" in there. Nope, if it goes between the states, it's federal territory.
-py
-py
This is just another group of Politicians seeing a pile of money and wanting to get some.
Create some fee,tax,commission, etc and you have a pile of money to graft & spent.
Free trade is a concept, but regulated & taexed trade is the goal.
I think there are few things the US government does does in the free trade area that do NOT ultimately hurt US consumers & business.
Protectionism,tariffs and such are drastic measures and should be used sparingly.
Competition is generally a good thing.
After all, selling something and not delivering, intentionally misleading, etc online auction scams are already crimes.
But the international & anonymous aspects of the internet scare the Politicians because it extends beyond their borders.
So tax & grab power is their answer.
Limit the US Government budget to less than 5% of the GNP.
It worked for the majority of this countries history.
This is my opinion based on what little I know and understand of the rumors and lies Thanks, Randal
Because how can you trust people, who write such shitty laws? If they can't think in advance about how this law applies to eBay, how can you trust them to modify it properly?
Future Wiki -- If you don't think about the future, you cannot have one.
This bill will likely turn out to have been offered up at the behest of professional auctioneere. It is typical of the sort of business regulation whose primary purpose is to protect those already in business.
It appears to me as if eBay is the auctioneer here; since when do property owners have to be licensed auctioneers to have something auctioned?
It's like saying that you have to be a doctor or a nurse to go to the hospital.
Also, the person who sells on ebay is not an auctioneer. He is the owner of a product that has been taken to ebay to be auctioned off. EBAY is the auctioneer and probably the only entity covered by this law. Again, however, as laws get put on the books, their unintended audience will be found if it means that some fee can be extracted.
my mistake. If they did tax it, sell licences to deal, imagine the money they'd make.
Could you really imagine a world where corporations were allowed to market and sell devastatingly mind-altering drugs to anyone who wants to use them, even those that don't?
Oh, wait, we have that already. So in fact, its not difficult to 'imagine the money they would make', because drug-pimps are making trillions, annually.. legally, even.
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
...is by far more literate than the average US Joe.
AND they KEEP the damn assault gun AT HOME!
You US Joes want to carry the guns when you walk through a park in a Sunday afternoon (just in case a group of people decides to beat you), and THAT results in bloodbaths every single day in yankeeland.
I just don't want to see untrained people bearing guns at the amusement park. If you carry a gun, and you aren't in law enforcement, I prefer seeing you disarmed and driven to a precinct, instead of having a hard time trying to decide wich side of the law you are to see if I run or not.
Remember: GUNS KILL PEOPLE. Idiots and sons of bitches usually manage to have them kill the wrong people. But it's ALWAYS the gun that does it.
Cheers
I just read
Scenario 1: Armed thug, by definition a lawbreaker, meets you in an alley. You pull your gun in defense. Two guns. Fair chance.
Scenario 2: Armed thug, by definition a lawbreaker, meets you in an alley. You have no weapon for defense. One gun. You are robbed and perhaps harmed, maybe even killed.
Explain to me how fewer guns, or legislation aimed at same, "is always a good thing" again? I see a glaring flaw in your reasoning.
You can't control "guns" with legislation; you can only attempt to control people. Which people will attempt to flout the laws? The ones most likely to hurt someone else by doing so. Which people will most likely obey? The decent person who will be left defenseless as a result. There's a reason Colt had a model named Peacemaker that many called the Equalizer. (Think about it.) One has to look no further than the District of High Murder Rate, ahem, Columbia, to see how well gun control works.
I know that gun control supporters are mostly well-intentioned people. But they're naively idealistic, too. You may desire a criminal-disarmament law, but be realistic - gun control laws only disarm innocent victims. The average hard-working joe has too much to lose by being caught with an illegal item, so he will comply, to his own disadvantage. The average no-good crook has too much to gain by not having a gun, so he will not comply, to his (increased) advantage (since everyone else is now disarmed).
Also, the most important reason for an armed citizenry is to keep government in check. Far more people were killed by government actions (often by their own government) during the 20th century than by crime. Any tyrant will seek to remove the means of effective revolt from his subjects. Learn from history or you'll be doomed to repeat its mistakes.
Constitutionally Correct
Quoted from:http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/weaver/040 420
Some of America's most sagacious and influential Founders warned repeatedly in so many words that American liberty and prosperity would be doomed once the people learned that they could vote largess out of the public treasury. The contemporary concept of domestic policy has become a veritable free-for-all among individuals, groups, organizations, corporations, universities, and state and local governments to see who can get the biggest check from the federal treasury.
The term "domestic policy" did not enter the American vernacular until after Franklin D. Roosevelt "broke the line" that James Madison spoke about in 1794. As reported by the Philadelphia Gazette and Universal Daily Advertiser in January of that year:
"Mr. Madison...was afraid of establishing a dangerous precedent, which might hereafter be perverted to the countenance of purposes, very different from those of charity. He acknowledged, for his own part, that he could not undertake to lay his finger on that Article in the Federal Constitution, which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents. And if once they broke the line laid down before them, for the direction of their conduct, it was impossible to say, to what lengths they might go, or to what extremities this practice might be carried."
Remember, James Madison was not only a Federalist; he was the Chief Architect of the U.S. Constitution!
So it expanded the rights of the citizens without causing any change in the outcomes. Sounds like a win to me.
Good grief...stop watching so much TV. I've lived 31 years in "yankeeland" and have never been within 500 miles of one of your supposed daily park bloodbaths. They don't exist. What does exist, though never reported in the mainstream press, is the many many defensive uses of guns - many of which involve only the brandishing (not firing) of the weapon. Bloodbaths are "good news" - scaring off a two-legged predator isn't.
And people kill people. People have been killing other people long before guns existed, and if guns are ever completely eliminated from the planet they will continue killing others. A person serious about killing someone else will simply pick the best tool for doing so, which is most often a gun these days. But you know the best thing about guns? They're easy for anyone to use, including the smaller and weaker members of the population. They don't have to be the most likely victims any longer. Women don't have to live in fear of rapists. The elderly/infirm don't have to live in fear of thieves. Gays don't have to live in fear of bashers. Jews don't have to live in fear of anti-semites. I'd say a society that can make the weak innocent victims as powerful as the strong merciless aggressors is a very enlightened one!
Constitutionally Correct
How reassuring to the individual seller! It's good to know that Ohio is indulging in "statistical enforcement" where it is "VERY unlikely" you will suddenly be charged with avoiding a $200 fee and $50K bond. Heck, I'm gonna get online TONIGHT and roll the dice on those odds, bay-bee!
...". I shouldn't have to worry: All I have to do is read the law and see CLEARLY where I stand.
No law should be passed or obeyed when the legislaturalists have to say "don't worry, we won't target YOU with this
[You have a stable society when some nut guns down a schoolyard and the law doesn't change.]
It may have already passed, but the second this comes up before a federal court, it will be struck down. The constitution forbids the states from interfering in inter-state comerce.
Since 9 times out of 10 you won't be selling to someone inside the state...
Zapman
Given the apprenticeship requirements, how much you want to bet the companies behind this are the auction houses. Sounds a lot like other market entry constraints put into place by businesses wanting to keep a greater market share. Similar contraints are put into place in just about every job market that has historically been around for a long time. Look at the Legal, Accounting, and trade fields and all the hoops professionals in those fields have to jump through to be successful.
Yeah...you know, I'm sure there are some kids out there that are ADD...but, I'm really of a mind that most of them are just aflicted with what we used to refer to 'back in the day'...as being a KID. Seems like they want to medicate everyone these days. Most every kid I knew growing up, had wild spurts...getting into some trouble (nothing bad)...it was called being a boy. Now...if a kid is anything but comatose...they seem to want to drug them...
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
No, you educate yourself. The fact is that gun control does not work in any place that's even remotely like the US. The vast majority -- over 80% -- of US gun crime consists of gangs killing other gangs over drugs. Want to do something about that? Well, ending the WoD would be a good start...
...-.-
At one time I knew the man on a first name basis. He appears to have developed a taste for public money.
It appears he's become fee hungry, like the rest of Ohio's Republicans. With Ohio Republicans, like our lame duck Governor Taft -- who stands a snowball's chance in Hell of moving on to the U.S. Senate, we know him too well to advance him -- we get the worst of both worlds. Not only do we get the spend-thrift tendencies for which Republicans have historically been known, we get the urge to tax that is usually attributed to Democrats.
Basically with our current Ohio-brand Republican government in place, Ohio taxpayers get screwed, and we don't even get held close and kissed.
Get off my virtual lawn, you damned virtual kids!
I did RTFA, and what I see is that some technologically-challenged type mistakes eBay for a meatspace auction -- the requirements as stated are exactly those I'd expect for licensing of a meatspace auctioneer.
What on earth does bid-calling have to do with selling stuff on eBay, where you never see or hear the buyers' spoken or gestured responses, but only a final high bid as determined by a computer?? That alone tells me that whoever thinks this applies to eBay sellers is weak on the concept. In fact, eBay ITSELF is the "auctioneer" here, and the seller is essentially the same as someone who is *consigning* items to a meatspace auction.
I agree that it smells strongly of "let's find another point to extract money from our constituents' wallets". It won't impact scammers one bit.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
I do not believe in double taxation. I think its a bunch of bull.
I think the entire concept of "double taxation" is a meaningless distinction tossed around by people who think they're entitled to freebies.
Would you be happier if, rather than taxing you 10 times at 5% your government taxed you 1 time at 50%? I'll assume the answer to that question is no. Perhaps it might be a better use of funds and streamline the taxation process, but taxes are broken down and doubled up because Americans have the bizarre notion that taxes are money wasted.
Taxes are not money wasted. They are the dues you pay to live in a civilized society. Education, Defense, Crime Prevention, Transportation, Infrastructure, these are all programs and benefits funded by your tax dollar.
This is exactly what the founders of this nation were against - all these freaking taxes!
It's good to know that you didn't pay attention in American History or Civics. The founders of the United States were, at least in word, against the concept of governance without representation. They were irritated that a bunch of people who didn't represent them were making laws about how they should live their lives and taking their money to do things that they never benefited from.
They weren't against taxes. Even the Articles of Confederation, the document most against the concept of taxation in the legal history of the United States allows the Congress "to ascertain the necessary sums of money to be raised for the service of the United States, and to appropriate and apply the same for defraying the public expenses."
The government can tax you on whatever it needs to tax you on. It's your government. You get to vote and decide what needs to be done. At least, that was the plan. There is a whole mess about campaign finance reform, but we'll touch on that later.
Fundamentally, it is a meaningless distinction as to how the government gets your money. Taxing your car or taxing your income, it's all the same thing. About the only difference is how taxes impact different portions of the population, but you seem unconcerned about that.
I suspect that your key issue is not how the government gets your money, but that it gets it at all. I suspect you are of the opinion that you shouldn't have to pay taxes because you don't like social programs like Welfare, Medicaid, etc.
Personally, I don't benefit from any of those social programs. I hope I never have to. That said, things might not always be a rosy for me as they are right now. Things can get bad, really bad really fast. I want those government programs in place so that, should catastrophe strike, my family and myself are taken care of.
I think it's a crime that in the leading agricultural producing nation on earth, children are hungry.
I think it's a crime that, in the richest nation on earth, families can't afford to send their children to college.
I think it's a crime that the US spends more money on porn than foreign aid. That we spend more money per capita on coffee than the per capita income of more than 2 Billion people.
The United States has taken a culture of independence and turned it into a culture of materialistic consumerism. We've gone from "I don't need your help" to "You can't have my help."
I can understand not liking income tax forms, not liking to fill out all the paperwork, not liking to deal with the red tape that comes from doing business with the government. That said, taxes are necessary to create government and, well, you get what you pay for. No taxes means no government.
As Thomas Hobbes once famously wrote, Without government, "the life of man [is] solitary, poore, nasty, brutish, and short".
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Ohio is historical for things like this. One other item is they want you to pay a use tax on anything you buy over the internet or even by just driving over the border (common for cig smokers since Ohio raised their Cig Tax). They collect this when you fill a income tax form, yet they dont tell you how they know you bought that laptop in Kentucky or over the internet. The thing is, they can't. It's a pointless law.
One other stupid thing they are doing here in OH is they want to charge parking at State Parks. 5 per day or a pass for 25 that let's you park at any park. I believe they charge out of staters more. Yep....just make people NOT want to come to your little used State Park.
Ohio's governor is so bad for you politically if your a republican, that GW did not want to even be seen with him.
Gorkman
I'm pretty sure RICO makes it illegal to do anything that any particular law enforcement officer doesn't happen to like.
I wish I was joking.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Actually, yes. It makes the big picture clear, so the public knows the real price of government. When nickel-and-dimed to death, the public often fails to do the math and acquiesces to what it otherwise wouldn't.
They count on this, of course.
$0.02,
ptd
I'm an animal lover -- they're delicious!
This does not look like it is only about taxes, but also a protectionist bill for existing auctioneers.
"Besides costing $200 and posting a $50,000 bond, the license requires a one-year apprenticeship to a licensed auctioneer, acting as a bid-caller in 12 auctions, attending an approved auction school, passing a written and oral exam."
If it was just taxes, I'd think that they woulnd't bother with the apprenticeship, test, etc.
ebay is interstate commerece.
The FTC regulates that. This law would
give Ohio power that the Federal government
has. So IMHO (IANAL) this would be un-constitutional. Whay say ye, supreme court?
I suppose the reason that so many typical gun owners cough up routinely-used statistics and anecdotes is that they're weary of trying the rhetorical approach in the face of opponents that are not themselves addressing the underlying principles. It's tedious, speaking to the would-be confiscators, who themselves use the "fewer gun owners means fewer crimes" lines, as if this were all about (dubious) statistics, and not fundamentally about liberty and personal responsibility. It is indeed lazy to produce anecodotes and NRA re-treads as arguments, but it's intellectually lazy and paralyzed-by-emotion people we're up against, and a lengthy discussion of causal relationships just gets, well, lengthy.
The argument that you say works for you (that of personal responsibility trumping someone else's mis-use) doesn't fly with people who see danger everywhere. Well, they see danger in things that "look mean," and ignore dangers (like distracted soccer moms with minivans full of kids) that are just as likely to cause injury, but which fit within their understanding of risk in the world. That Hummer is no more dangerous than a loaded church van, but guess which one is "alarming" to the same people that we're talking about here? They're a muddleheaded audience when it comes to the basic principles, here, and probably have never hung out with sport shooters, hunters, etc - often some of the nicest, sanest, and safest people you'll ever meet (and the most demonized, for no reason).
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.