States Push to Collect Online Sales Tax

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.'"

Comments

Wait just a darned minute

[$RANDOMLUSER]

Mail order (catalog or phone) items which cross state lines have never been subject to sales tax; only if the shipper and reveiver were in the same state was sales tax charged.

How is ordering over the Internet different?

Entice.

[Tackhead]

> 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.

Goodbye free lunch

[tnk1]

Well, it sucks that they are getting around to figuring out how to tax online purchases. However, I can't really fault them for doing it. As more and more sales go online, there is a real issue with decreasing tax revenues. It probably won't be a critical issue for decades, but the fact is that governments need taxes to operate and I've always tended to prefer sales taxes over income taxes.

Re:It is only a matter of time

[EmagGeek]

I don't see how any of this gets around the fact that no State has the right to tax interstate commerce. Call it whatever kind of tax you want to; Sales, Use, Excise, whatever, it is still a tax on interstate commerce and a State has no right to collect it.

Re:It is only a matter of time

[zippthorne]

Yet, many states have already been doing exactly this. My home state of RI argues that sales tax is a tax on its citizens (and visitors i guess). therefore, they have a right to tax (last I was there 7%) your purchases regardless of where you bought them.

Since the state is so small, anyone in the state could (and often did) drive an hour and a half to Massachusetts and buy things like cars, appliances, etc. for only 5% sales tax. (ah the boon of living in small state country) You're supposed to declare what you've purchased and pay the difference to RI. Of course, nobody did, so the clever legislature monkeys (who had recently voted themselves a salary increase from $300 to $10k) made "deals" with large-ticket businesses just across the border to report you even if you don't.

This has been challenged many times and upheld on the grounds that the tax is applied equally to both in-state and out-of-state purchases. and so isn't an interstate tax at all.

Tricky lawyering no doubt, but then if they can argue about the definition of the word 'is' they can argue pretty much anything.

Hey now...

[modi123]

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.

Quit taxing our hard-earned wealth!

[tbone1]

They tax you when you make it, they tax you when you save it, they tax you when you spend it, they tax you when you win it, they tax you when you invest it, they tax you when you inherit it, they tax you when you buy food, they tax you when you buy clothing, they tax you when you buy shelter, they tax you when you do anything. In short, we are taxed for living until we are taxed to death.

When is enough enough? I know we need taxes for things like policmen, firemen, the military, the courts, roads, etc, but fer cryin' out loud, when I have to work until July 1 just to pay my income, property, sales, gas, ticket, etc etc etc taxes, I'm ready to spend the winter at Valley Forge. If a politican and bureaucrat are getting less of our money to waste because there is no on-line sales tax, and they complain about it, then I for one am against any internet tax.

*sigh* Sorry, I'll go cheer myself up by reading some Thomas Payne and James Madison ... until the government tries to ban those books.