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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
Why would you have to apprentice as an auctioneer to sell something where the auction portion is run by someone else. This seems akin to making people on the Antiques Roadshow take auction classes and an apprenticeship before they can have Sotheby's auction their items. Is this really a way to back into a tax?
FTA: 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.
and a school to become a licensed seller?
what if i go on a spree, and say, sell like 30 items that i've found in my basement over christmas break? does that constitute as someone who sells more than 'casually'?
sig: Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not
Read the article:
In other words, the lawmakers are NOT attempting to target eBay/eBay users with this law. The law is there only to make sure auctioneers are obeying other Ohio laws regarding auctions. eBay already attempts to enforce the law by shutting down illegal auctions or whatever, so it is VERY unlikely that Ohio lawmakers will need to empose this law onto eBay sellers.
Would this law make it illegal to have an auctioneer auction off some of your property for you? NO! This would only affect someone acting as an auctioneer.
It will, however, be interesting to see if they try to apply this law to ebay, as they (their software) does act as an auctioneer. A $50,000 bond would be a drop in the bucket for ebay, but I'm not sure if the $200 is per auction or a one-time fee for the license.... That could be interesting.
- Think for yourself, question authority.-
Fucking Christ on a snack cracker, people.
Didn't they sell one of those on eBay for $20,000?
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FTFA:
The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported that the law, signed by Gov. Robert Taft on Feb. 1
This
Go after the legit guys, the gun makers, instead of the guys who are already intending to break the law.
So, you're also cool with going after "legit" guys like Ford or General Motors? After all, convicted drunk drivers who aren't supposed to drive can still pick up keys and drive anyway... so we'd better deprive everyone of cars, just in case. Especially since more people are killed with cars than with guns. Oh: and don't forget baseball bats, kitchen knives, etc. There are all sorts of people out there "intending to break the law" with those tools, too.
Oh, wait: here's a thought. The vast majority of people who kill with guns are recidivist, repeat criminals. Maybe they shouldn't be walking around in your neighborhood in the first place?
By the way, what's your angle on going after the manufacturer of a legal product than can only hurt someone when someone picks it and deliberately uses it in that way? Check in with places like Africa and Central America, where gangs there routinely kill people with machetes, knives, and bottles of gasoline. Do you think that people intent on that sort of terrorizing care, at all, what you think about their chosen tools? I can tell you one thing they do care about: not knowing which business or household may be able to defend itself. In states like Florida, the right to carry has reduced violent crime. In places like Australia, where they've confiscated everyone's guns, violent crime has gone up, as criminals can act with impunity. The exact opposite of what the gun control people wanted (no matter how many times they're told that's what's going to happen).
If guns in personal possesion are such a problem, how do places like Switzerland, where there are more guns per household than in the US manage to have less violent crime? Not by regulating hardware, but by improving software: they have a real educational system with actual standards, they don't tolerate crime, and their culture doesn't celebrate thuggishness as a fashion. And, of course, violent criminals there know that there is a strong possibility of getting shot down like a dog while being a violent criminal: that has a wonderful impact on career choice.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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 has EVERY right to do this.
States do not have the right to impose arbitrary licensing laws. E.g. Arbitrary licensing laws on hairbraiders, casket sellers, and jitney drivers have been struck down.
The first question to ask when a new licensing scheme is proposed is whether its true motivation is rent seeking rather than consumer protection. I'd be interested to see whether Mr Mumper's has received any recent contributions the from brick and mortar antique seller's lobby.
"Give a man a fish and he will ask for tartar sauce and French fries!"