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States Push to Collect Online Sales Tax

Posted by Zonk on from the but-i-like-my-bulk-cheerios-on-the-cheap dept.

Carl Bialik from the WSJ writes "On Saturday, 18 states will implement the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, which will make it easier to collect local and state sales taxes on purchases made over the Internet while offering amnesty on uncollected taxes. In their longstanding opposition to collect sales tax, many online retailers 'have cited a 1992 Supreme Court ruling that said that it would be too onerous for e-tailers to calculate all the permutations of differing state and local tax rates,' the Wall Street Journal reports. 'One goal of the project was to remove the ruling as a key defense for online merchants.' Is your state involved? 'The states that have signed on are Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Jersey, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota and West Virginia. Five more -- Arkansas, Ohio, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming -- are in the process of finalizing the requirements needed to join, while Washington, Texas and Nevada are in earlier stages.'"

4 of 395 comments (clear)

  1. Entice. by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Funny
    > The states will also entice online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes by offering amnesty on taxes the retailers haven't collected in the years since the Internet retail boom began.

    A guy named Guido broke my leg last week. He said that if I paid this year's protection money, he wouldn't break it three more times for the last three years I've been in business. In other words, rather than threatening or extorting, Guido enticed me into paying my protection money.

    Entice. They keep using that word. I do not think that word means what they think it means.

  2. Awesome! by soulsteal · · Score: 3, Funny

    Here's to being from Mississippi, where they aren't smart enough to know to tax this here Inter-Net. ;)

  3. How do you define a conservative? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Of life's two inevitabilities, they would prefer death to taxes.

  4. Hey now... by modi123 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hey now.... We Nebraskan's have a few things going for us. First off, we are a "red state" (both in politics and in football). Next we elected a college football coach to Congress. Third we were featured in SouthPark a few seasons back (when Ike was shipped off to our State by his Kyle because Ike wasn't his adopted brother). Fourth... ahm.. well.. *breaking down* *crying* Oh we got nothing. It really sucks being trapped in this hole. Over a hundred in the summer, below zero in the winter... Not to mention the exodus of young, educated people from the state to cooler states. *sniffle* Well at least our school boards didn't ban evolution from public schools - I am looking at you Kansas.