Slashdot Mirror
Newegg Defies New York Sales Tax Law
JagsLive informs us that the electronics retailer Newegg.com is defying New York lawmakers; it has suddenly stopped collecting sales tax from New York online shoppers. The "Amazon tax," which went into effect June 1, requires online merchants to collect sales tax if they have any affiliates in the state. Amazon is complying but has sued the state on constitutional grounds. Overstock.com dropped all of its New York affiliates and then joined the Amazon lawsuit. Newegg started out complying with the law on June 1, but stopped collecting taxes for New York on August 21. From Newegg's letter to its customers: "After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008," reads an email the company tossed at customers late last week, including at least one loyal Reg reader. "This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
Thats what we NY'ers are. Newegg is now back on the top of my to purchase list.
Could someone explain, isn't it required by (most) states' laws that individuals pay sales tax on goods purchased? I mean, people like "neglecting" to pay it, because it's easy to avoid, but ideally doesn't the New York law just shift the burden from the taxpayer at tax time to the retailer at time of purchase?
I guess what I'm asking is: is this whole problem arising from the retailers' desire not to be burdened with the logistics of collecting tax, and the consumers' desire to evade the tax? Or is there something else I'm missing here?
If I had a nickel for every time I had a nickel, I'd be richcursive!
Interesting to see that part of the article summary is a direct copy and paste from theregister.co.uk and not a link back to the original article?
"After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that we have stopped collecting New York sales tax, effective August 21, 2008," reads an email the company tossed at customers late last week, including at least one loyal Reg reader. "This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
New York estimates that the provision will generate $50 million in revenue for the state in the fiscal year. Tax experts look to other cash-strapped states to adopt similar measures if the New York law holds up in court.
Boy, I wish I could raise $50 million without providing any additional benefits to anyone. Is there anyway to donate to Amazon/Newegg's legal defense team? : )
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
"This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued customers."
This is obviously just a publicity statement. There is no way in the world a large corporation would assume the massive risk of defying a law like this on the advice of its customers. Something else precipitated this.
Most likely, the law department in the company examined the law, and then the risk management division (or whoever it is: I have no idea how Newegg is managed) decided that the risk was worth taking. PR, seeing an opportunity for, well, PR, made up a fluff statement about how the dear customers were the reason.
Not that I'm complaining.
GeekNights!
Late Night Radio for Geeks!
Just because they're not collecting it doesn't mean that NY isn't still getting their cut from Newegg. I wonder if Newegg has enough of a markup to pay 8% (or whatever) out of pocket and still make a profit. If not, guess who's actually paying NY taxes? That's right. You are.
Over there, it makes a news on Slashdot. Here in India, we've been doing this for years.
RutSum.com
YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO BE PAYING TAXES ON ON-LINE PURCHASES. THEY'RE CALLED USE TAXES.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax
Here is the deal:
- If you don't pay them, your state can send you nasty grams in the mail saying "We see you have filed zero dollars in use taxes, please pay them." These notices are fairly common. IOW, the state tax departments are saying "Look, we aren't stupid, you're buying stuff on line, pay your tax". Now who here wants to keep records of the crap they buy JUST so you can pay use tax at the end of the year?
- With a mandated sales tax, it means YOU don't have to keep records for paying end-of-year taxes. They just add it on to your purchase like any other state(if your state has a sales tax). I don't know about you but I'd much rather pay the friggin tax up front then worry about the stupid EOY paperwork.
One thing to make life easier for consumers AND businesses: only allow one tax rate per state. example: Wisconsin has a moronic tax system where every county can charge differing rates something up to like 1/2% on top of whatever the state charges. Some counties are 5%, some are 5.5%, or like 5.25%. So to make it easier on on-line retailers, just legislate single tax rates per state for those that have a sales tax. End this moronic madness now.
[quote]Overstock.com dropped all of its New York affiliates[/quote]
This measure was supposed to boost local businesses and lower unemployment. Do you think if Amazon and NewEgg drop theirs, the $50m in revenue will be paid out in unemployment?
I am disgusted by the government of my state. I moved from PA to NY for a better job, but literally everything is higher taxed and more expensive. The taxes don't make any sense either. I live near Rochester, NY. Depending on the locality you're in, you can pay 6% (Henrietta) to 10% (Greece) taxes on a variety of things but if you send a letter it's all Rochester, NY. And then there is the paper store, I mean government agencies. Everything needs a permit, paper, registration or a tax. You can't get a single piece of paper without paying at least $10 for it.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
If consumers, for that matter income earners, had a true understanding of their tax load they would be up in arms. It is one thing to ask for this, that, and the other thing, from your government when you don't know the cost.
So governments do what they do best, they hide the tax. What is the number way to hide the real tax from the taxpayer? Embed it. This means hide it in the cost of goods and services. Lets use an oil company like Exxon for fun, after all its accused of having WINFALL profits. In 2006, Exxon's EBT (earnings before tax) was $67.4 billion, it paid $27.9 billion in taxes (41.4% tax rate), and its NIAT (net income after tax), or profit, was $39.5 billion. So, where does that 27.9 BILLION dollars come from. The taxpayer. Exxon merely wrote the check for all the dollars it collected from you and me to pay it.
The politicians win on every front here, they can hide the true cost of the tax load on the American worker and vilify any corporation that makes big numbers as being against the poor, downtrodden, hungry, or my favorite "children".
Ignorance and envy are the two greatest weapons the politicians employ and from watching the current elections it really pays off
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
You cheer when a tax is avoided, then want to go out and vote for someone who wants to slap a huge regressive tax on a basic necessity: gasoline.
WTF?
After careful review and consideration, we are pleased to inform you that I have decided to stop paying my Federal and State tax, effective August 27, 2008.
This decision was driven by your direct and candid feedback and our continued commitment to you as our valued collection agency.
Crap, I ordered a lot of stuff right in that time period and I'm in NYC.
But yeah Newegg ! Tax resistance rocks.
\u262D = \u5350
Don't ship to other countries :[
Guess it's a question of who benefits from New York resources? NewEgg really doesn't use any State Resources so they shouldn't be taxed. New York customers benefit from buying from NewEgg so they should be taxed. Customers don't want to pay, so now what? Basically NewEgg should send a record of NY customers who have bought from them for the fiscal year and the state bills the customers directly. Moving the problem of enforcement and collection were it should be...on the states.
How ironic it is, that, we hear a bunch of liberals bitching about those terrible people on Wall Street, in New York, and it turns out those terrible people on Wall Street took such a beating that the state is looking at a nearly billion dollar tax short fall. Thus, in New York we learn the ultimately failing of progressive taxation, just as we have learned nationally. If the rich do not make any money, the government is screwed.
I'm sick of hearing everyone try and talk about increasing taxes as "providing revenue". It's an insult to compare the activities of government to the activities of the private sector. Government is basically a collection of pie in the sky power mongers that use the power of the gun, cops directed by the legislature, to impose their financial will on people. By contrast, all a private company do is offer a good or a service in return, and thus they are compelled to offer something back.
New York, in particular, is disgusting. They have a tax policy that reflects decades of liberal orthodoxy and the stupidity of the results just staggers the mind. I mean, they raise taxes on cigarettes, and are suddenly horrified to find that people do not buy cigarettes in New York. Now, what do you think the enlightened liberals do up there? Do you think they set the tax at a more reasonable level? No... they call out the cops and pass even -more- laws designed to try and ban people from cigarettes from out of state.
Now, of course, they reach out and are suing, again, with the barrel of the legislative gun, trying to sue someone outside of the state, like a crab or a cancer spreading and grasping desperately for any piece of loot that it can steal.... and they call this revenue.
This is my sig.
http://forum.abestweb.com/showthread.php?t=108986
"A few months ago, New York State made changes to its tax law which potentially require out-of-state internet retailers to collect and remit sales taxes to New York State.
Since then, New York State has issused a memorandum indicating that an internet retailer would be presumed not to need to collect New York sales tax as long as: (1) its contracts with its New York-based affiliates prohibit the affiliates from engaging in solicitation activities which refer New York customers to the retailer, and (2) the New York-based affiliates sign an annual statement confirming that they have not solicited New York customers for the retailer. ..."
Its not called the Empire state for nothing!
Then it will go to Congress and they will pass new laws allowing these taxes. The current Congress never met a tax it didn't like.
separate state, federal, regional taxes and shit are causing a lot of problems with ecommerce software, wasting valuable development hours, for both developers and their ecommerce clients. tax goddamn income on a reasonable level, and get rid of all conditional/regional taxes, and make both commerce and accounting/taxing processes easier dammit.
Read radical news here
I live in NJ and NewEgg has been charging me sales tax (since they have a warehouse in Edison) for years now.
-subtraho
Are they really trying to change consumer purchases tax law to take the burden from the seller and place it on the buyer? It would seem that it would be painful if NY's attitude became the norm. Could you imagine this being the last thing you see while waiting for your credit card to process at an online retailer:
"Using the provided Address and zip code, it was determined that the tax agency responsible for collecting taxes on this purchase is (county, state). A copy of this transaction has been forwarded to (county, state). Have a nice day."
At least for me, it would become convenient to start shopping at brick and mortar stores again.
Windows has more viruses because linux has more virus coders.
Vendors must collect and report NY Sales tax for the state, counties, local jurisdictions and sometimes special projects based on physical location. Sounds simple? Consider the fact that the mailing (delivery) address is based on proximity to a local post office--not the actual location of the address. So address "A" may appear to be in jurisdiction "X" but don't count on it. You have to look it up using a system hosted by NY (which works most of the time). The pesky sales tax auditors will penalize you (in dollars) for not getting it right.
Check this out: http://www8.nystax.gov/STLR/stlrHome
Why aren't more of these large internet companies located in a state like New Hampshire where there's no sales tax? The current status quo is that you only have to collect sales tax from the customers in the state where you reside. So in a sales tax free state, you wouldn't have to collect anything at all.
As a NewEgg customer and a New Yorker, I'm glad they finally quit playing along with our rogue Attorney General.
This is the same attorney general that convinced major ISPs to block access to newsgroups because they might be used to transmit child pornography.
I can't wait until he's up for election, personally.
The customers do. The business should be held responsible to declare the taxes owed as a condition of their license or corporate charter. And the only fair tax is the VAT. It's the simplest and requires the least paperwork, much to the bureaucrats' chagrin. And since bureaucrats make the rules, it will never happen and explains why the states constantly invent new ways to collect more taxes and lay the paperwork on us.
What?
Welcome to NY!
That'll be $10 please.
This measure was supposed to boost local businesses and lower unemployment.
If people were paying their Use Tax, then this measure would be unnecessary. If people paid their Use Tax, then the tax paid on an item built in New York would be the same as one built in California, and the only competition would be based on efficiency of the business. As it stands now, every other state has an unfair advantage over New York in the amount of the New York tax rate simply because the buyers do not pay Use Tax.
If the foreign companies charge sales tax for New York, that also evens the playing field, however, New York has no jurisdiction to require out-of-state vendors to charge sales tax. So they are pretty much stuck with the Use Tax. Also, the Use Tax does not violate interstate commerce laws. It merely makes the playing field level for in-state versus out-of-state.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I live in upstate NY as well and I see the tremendous issues NY has with attracting good paying jobs. NY is unable to attract new business' therefore they look to supplement their revenue by taxing the business' they can't attract here even if said business has no physical presence in the state. NY government has this view that they are entitled to a piece of the action. They are not. If they can't attract the business here they lose and should lose. The NY government is what is getting in the way of business' coming into NY and entrepreneurs starting new business'. I'm afraid you will see more of what Overstock did and thus hurt the NY economy even more. We in NY have politicians completely out of touch with the reality of the business world.
I find it amazing that when a government raises taxes they think the rich will pay it. The rich will just raise the cost of the goods they are selling accordingly in most cases.
Meanwhile, downtown Rochester is about to begin a huge parking crunch with the closure of Midtown, and various levels of gov't are chipping in for Ferry Pt. 2 (the Paetec building - even with questions about the company being in existence when it comes time to move in) and Ferry Pt. 3 (Ren Square).
At least with the ferry, they could sell off the boat & recover some of the costs.
I works downtown, park in Midtown, and will start having to go to shady Mortimer St. next week to park. I'm not looking forward to the extra 15-20 minutes of commuting that change will cause, nor the extra personal & property safety risks. Which reminds me, I have to strip my car of anything valuable this weekend before someone else decides to "help" me with it.
sort of...
I do know that if you buy a car in a state with a sales tax of, say 3%. And move to NY a year or so later. They're going to want the difference (4%) when you go to register your car. So when you think your registration's going to cost $100* and it ends up costing $1000, it's a bit of a shock.
*Not sure what a registration costs these days. I've been living in Europe for the past 6 years. w00t!
Oz
...
You know when I first heard about NYS trying to play with the definition of physical presence my first thought was, "well just drop all affiliates in NYS, problem solved". that way no real money flows to NYS AND they don't get any taxes. It doesn't hurt the online retailer any, just NYS. They actually, overall, loose money from the state when enacting this law, if all the online retailers do as Overstock.com has done.
why does not one single politician sit down and think, "if this goes through are there any really easy ways around it? if so do these simple work arounds hurt us more than help?". If but one person thought this and said something to all the others, I can't help but think that this law would have never passed
This measure was supposed to boost local businesses and lower unemployment.
AKA state-level protectionism. And we know how well protectionism has worked in the past...
but look on the bright side...you don't live in PA anymore!
Know what I like about atheists? I've yet to meet one that believes God is on their side.
Unfortunately they still seem to be perfectly happy to collect NJ sales tax. They need to move their NJ warehouse to a state like Delaware.
Hasn't Reganomics been pretty firmly debunked by now?
Reaganomics has been adopted world wide and as such has produced the largest wave of economic expansion, on the planet, in human history. There's two problems with the USA right now. One is short term and the other long. The short term problem is admittedly part of some fiscal stupidity by President Bush, but the long term problem is by fiscal stupidity of liberals.
The long term and fundamental economic problem faced by most governments is that they have exploding costs for entitlements. In the USA this is social security and medicare and medicaid and the various state programs that compliment them. The liberal mistake here, is that they built these entitlements based on the idea that the population would rapidly expand, which is fine because everything worked when the population was expanding. But, then, liberals started passing out birth control and embarked on a program of women's rights, which is a good thing for women, for sure... but, its just, if you don't have a bigger generation coming in, you can't afford to spend lavishly on the previous one.
That's really our problem. We can choose between a lavish entitlements system, or women's rights, but we can't fiscally afford to pick both. To put it another way, if it costs $500 a day to put grammy in a nursing home for a month to get over a flu, then, you know, a single child simply cannot afford that at all... and, even if you did try and plug the gap by taxing the wealthy at exhorbitant rates, all you'd have is a country in total economic free fall because there would be nothing left to invest in the current generation or its children.
Extremely high taxes for the rich also aren't going to prevent them from getting wealthier. Sure, it makes them grumble, but even if you take a whopping 50% off of a $2 million paycheck, you're still left with a hell of a lot of dough
So basically, what you are saying is, that someone who works through college, grad school, works extra hours and gets ahead, or starts a business, now, has to carry the people that just smoked pot in high school and graduated through social promotion. Boy, that's not right. Why not cut some of the slackers on the bottom end loose?
The thing is too, is that, you have this notion that most people like this get a "paycheck". The paycheck they get is related to an investment and that investment has a return. If the return is really low, they aren't even going to bother. To put it another way, if someone has to spend 1.95 million to get the 2 million paycheck, and you just took have that paycheck, you've just killed the investment side and the jobs that went with it.
On the other hand, if your tax cuts for the wealthy really do cause them to spend considerably more, this could in turn induce a wave of inflation, which would absolutely devastate the middle and lower classes.
Actually, in this country, tax cuts for everyone has lead to an increase in the manufacturing capacity of the United States. Right now, USA exports are -higher- than they have ever been.
This is my sig.
What part of EMBEDDED don't people understand.
WE THE PEOPLE ARE NOT THE GOVERNMENT.
We stopped being the government when we allowed ourselves to be divided among petty lines with cute little labels like Democrat and Republican.
That money coming out of Exxon which you claim is coming back to the people CAME FROM THE DAMN PEOPLE. What, does Exxon just magically print dollars it gives to the government? Is there some kind of money fairy in your world?
Any dollar, ANY, that Exxon paid in taxes came out of THE PEOPLE'S pocket. There is no other source. The people earn incomes, which are taxed, and buy services, which are taxed, and buy products, which are taxed. Do you understand now?
Dollars are earned by individuals. They are from direct work, investment, sale of capital, etc. They are taxed. The remains are the people's to spend as they see fit. However hidden from the ignorant is that for everything they buy there are more taxes embedded.
I know, there are evil rich people who pay 35% and you pay 28% but its not fair they still have more dollars. What has this country come to if we are so filled with spite and envy that we begrudge anyone doing better than us or set limits on how well any one person is allowed to do?
Don't go off track and vilify a corporation. They are owned by people; either directly or indirectly; and they employ people. They are nothing more than a giant shell that the government loves to exploit by using them to collect money from the people's paycheck (because too many are only concerned with what they take home and not what they actually earned) and they can collect yet again when the remains are spent to buy stuff.
Damn.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
If the state wants a level playing field, then they should be cutting their sales tax, not trying to illegally tax up other products in a discriminating manner.
Benford's Corollary to Clarke's Law: "Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced."
Yeah, Wall Street never does poorly in a nationwide recession...
The thing is, the recession isn't nationwide. It's actually concentrated in the financial services and media sectors, so, for reporters, its a lot worse than it really is. The media sector is taking a beating because of tech change.. basically, the media is obsolete. The financial sector is taking a beating because the whole idea of paying someone to carefully manage your stocks and other investments to get a higher rate of return is ridiculous when basic commodities, as it turns out, are the thing that has the most intrinsic value. I mean, there's plenty of labor on the planet to shape a piece of steel into a car, so, ultimately, making cars is, from an investment point of view, almost valueless. But if I've got that piece of steel, coal, iron, or oil, well, that's something.
Most of this generation is used to the ideas of commodities being free, and what we call a recession, is really, well, just an adjustment to commodities -not- being free. Indeed, the whole fiscal idea behind enviro-taxes is to actually make commodities have a price so that we don't waste them. But now, commodities are being priced more of what they are worth, and so, those incentives will naturally follow.
So, yeah, wall street is taking a beating and equities might well take a beating forever. But, if I owned a mine or a farm, I'd probably be making out ok. In fact, you can see that some companies are making money hand over fist - railroads are doing really well, as are all of your farming and mining and drilling concerns.
Commodities cost something. Get used to it.
This is my sig.
Correction : After careful consideration of how much how much our sales have dropped since the Amazon Tax, we have decided to stop collecting NYS taxes.
" Personally, I think we should also do away with "withholding" as well, and make everyone actually cough up $10-30k every April 15th"
http://www.stopwithholding.com/
As it stands now, every other state has an unfair advantage over New York in the amount of the New York tax rate simply because the buyers do not pay Use Tax.
By that logic doesn't a New York company have an unfair advantage in the other 49 states?
I do not think that word means what you think it means. In the context of taxes, it's not a meaningless epithet; the sales tax is not progressive, it is flat
Actually the sales tax is regressive.. but that's another story. I was really thinking more about how income taxes tend to be shifted to the rich. What happens now is that, because the taxes are stacked so much on the wealthy, the revenue stream for the government is wildly unstable.
The thing is, about Republican politics, is that, they haven't honestly told the whole story about how taxation is supposed to work. Really, to get the lowest overall rate, everyone has to pay -some- taxes. But what's happened over the years is that this has been translated into the idea of tax cuts and for the wealthy to get tax cuts, thus, the middle class has to get them, and right now, poor people aren't paying any taxes at all.
If you really wanted to maximize both the size and the stability of the tax stream against all other goals - in other words, without being "nice about it", you should probably have a federal sales tax to tax the poor and criminal classes and enough of one to also be an effective tax increase on the middle class, and then lower the tax rates on the rich so that effectively, everyone is paying the same overall rate. That minimizes the risk to the tax collection portfolio.. oh christ, there I go using that "revenue" term that i just flamed about, by spreading it to the most people.
Then, if taxes are too high for people, then you cut them, but you also have to decide what out of government you don't want. Realistically, at the federal level, this is going to mean BOTH a capping of the entitlements AND a cut to the size of the defense budget.
In the face of that, when you look at the candidates, you can see that both are pretty much retarded. Obama wants to raise taxes on the rich and then tease with a middle class tax cut and take the poor off the roles altogether, completely destabalizing the payment stream. McCain wants to lock in Bush's taxes, which is ok, but he also needs to think about a national sales tax, to hit the poor with. Both sides need to chop spending. In Obama's case, that means saying by by to his big social programs, and in McCain's case, it means that the army shouldn't get Future Combat System and the Navy might need just build more normal ships, and the air force might need to choose one kind of fighter rather than two.
This is my sig.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
New York resident here. In the past 5 years or so New York has added a couple of lines to the state income tax form, they read something like:
How much did you spend on out of state purchases in the past year?
$1000 ...
$1001- $10000
$10001 -
and for each of those gradations there is an amount of money to send in.
If you misstate the amount spent you are committing tax fraud (although I'm not sure how they can verify). The amount is low enough that it's worthwhile to answer honestly and send in the use tax.
Actually, the "lazies" you're talking about are the "Red States", which all get more money back from the Federal government than they send it in Federal taxes. The "Blue States" like New York pay to prop up those Welfare States by sending more taxes to DC than we get back.
There are a few notable exceptions. New Mexico is the poorest state, with the most tribal population, and lots of large Federal military bases and labs, so its welfare goes mainly to big Federal contractors who don't spread it around the state much. Hawaii is another state with a lot of poor people, many of them tribal, and lots of large Federal military bases. Maine gets a little more than it pays, but again is overall pretty poor. Texas, that "Republican Paradise", is taxed and feeladen every which way, in a giant ripoff, getting just a little less than it pays. Florida is right near the breakeven, but at least it's paying to prop up a system it was #1 in ushering in with its 2000 election. New Hampshire somehow gets screwed, too.
But other than that, the other 44 states all demonstrate that voting Democratic does get you taxed to redistribute your wealth to the rest of the country - even when the redistributors are a Republican controlled Federal government. The list also demonstrates the myth that "the West is independent": other than NM and TX, all those Western states are subsidized by the rest of the country, as they have been since they were colonized.
That list represents the most valuable wealth redistribution programme ever undertaken. Run by Republicans, at the peak of their power. Even as those Republicans cut Federal taxes while running up the Federal expenses, both in record amounts. But evidently spreading the benefits along more or less strict Party lines.
--
make install -not war
Since we are firing the political Liberal and conservative cannons, allow me to fire back.
Reaganomics has been adopted world wide and as such has produced the largest wave of economic expansion, on the planet, in human history. There's two problems with the USA right now. One is short term and the other long. The short term problem is admittedly part of some fiscal stupidity by President Bush, but the long term problem is by fiscal stupidity of liberals.
Just like conservatives, to concentrate on the big wave of expansion, and forget the little guy. Reaganomics has led to very very large corporations with tons of power, and ever steadily increasing inflation. That inflation is outpacing growth in wages, and business an politicians continue to say that they can't afford to increase the minimum wage, but no single person can live on minimum wage! On top of that, the middle class is eroding, while the money continues to be concentrated in the upper one percent.
When the middle and lower class stop being able to buy, the economy slows. People get frustrated. Those who can't find a decent job have a higher and higher tendency to turn to illicit means to surviving, and we blame those people for not "working hard enough" to be able to support themselves, when there is no evidence that those who are in the most elite of the rich ever truly actually work that hard or that they are any smarter than the rest of the populace, but they certainly have a leg up. Let's see Carl Icahn or The Donald try to survive by flipping burgers for a year for once.
Plus, I saw only one real wave of economic expansion. It happened when the internet took off in the 90s. Reagan actually did a few things important to help the economy recover from the 70s, but most of his policies were stupid, because they lead to exactly what we experience now... unregulated bubbles where businesses make huge profits then suddenly explode and the taxpayer bails them out.
And what proof do you have that the rest of the world has adopted Reaganomics? Many Europeans have national health care, and support labor unions and quality of life policies. Reagan destroyed unions in this country, and the common man has suffered. The common man has no money, so he can't spend it on the economy, and the economy slows. Trickle down doesn't work!!
The long term and fundamental economic problem faced by most governments is that they have exploding costs for entitlements. The liberal mistake here, is that they built these entitlements based on the idea that the population would rapidly expand, which is fine because everything worked when the population was expanding.
This is just horseshit for one very good reason... the population is expanding! It may not be expanding at the same rate but it continues to do so. Changes in the rate are to be expected. The problem with our entitlements is that the money that's supposed to be for them have been raided by democrats and republicans alike. They are running out of money because politicians take money out inappropriately and don't put it back. You blame liberals, but I blame all politicians. We've run deficits for years. Reagan and bushes are responsible for those deficits. Ironically enough, we had balanced budgets under Clinton, a liberal. Yet people, including yourself, think Fiscal responsibility is the domain of "conservatives." I'm all for fiscal responsibility, it's just that we aren't willing to allocate the money. There are plenty of stupid projects we can cut (hello bridge to nowhere?) as well as crack down on wasteful government contracts that include too many kick backs. Plus perhaps we should not be fighting wars that put us deeper into debt but don't improve our standing in the world.
So basically, what you are saying is, that someone who works through college, grad school, works extra hours and gets ahead, or starts a business, now, has to carry the people that just smoked pot in high school and graduated through social promotion. Boy, t
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
If your state has a sales tax, then you are required by law to pay that tax when you buy goods from out of state.
It's called a 'Use Tax' look it up before opening your yap.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax
There are exceptions. For example if you purchased them out of state and used them out of state for a period of time(6 months usually) you don't need to pay a use tax. Of course you should be paying the tax in the state it's used.
That exception may vary from state to state.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Personally, I wish all online retailers would collect the sales or use tax, assuming it's constitutional for them to do so. It's a nuisance to have to keep a notebook of all internet purchases, and then to have to annually add it all up, fill out a use tax return, and send it with a check to the state. Moreover, it's annoying vis-a-vis the monthly budget to have to estimate use taxes.
In 2006, Exxon's EBT (earnings before tax) was $67.4 billion, it paid $27.9 billion in taxes (41.4% tax rate), and its NIAT (net income after tax), or profit, was $39.5 billion. So, where does that 27.9 BILLION dollars come from. The taxpayer.
So basically, tax money comes from tax-payers...
By definition, I think...
Bow-ties are cool.
Reaganomics has been adopted world wide and as such has produced the largest wave of economic expansion, on the planet, in human history. There's two problems with the USA right now. No it hasn't. Two decades of cheap oil has produced economic expansion in the 1980s and 1990s. In the 2000s, there has been very little economic expansion. I'm so sick of "conservatives" claiming that "liberal" policies are to blame for this or that evil when it's perfectly fucking clear that conservatives in this country would have us all learning that the world was created 6000 years ago and all fucking bankrupt due to their insistence on cutting taxes while increasing spending. Reagan did it, he left a $155 billion budget deficit to Bush, Sr., TWICE what Carter left. Bush, Sr. did it, he left a deficit to Clinton. Bush, Jr. is doing it too. Who didn't do it? Clinton. That's right. Bill Clinton, the man conservatives love to hate, was more fiscally responsible than any modern "conservative" president.
Gentlemen! You can't fight in here, this is the war room!
Isn't Benford's Corrolary just the contrapositive of Clarke's Second Law?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Sweet, so glad they made this decision! I live in NY, and was refusing to order from my favorite online retailer Newegg, until they stopped charging me sales tax.
Wouldn't it be easier (ok, not easier, but less legally contentious) to require NewEgg et al to provide NYS with a list of everybody from NYS who bought stuff and what they bought? Then NYS can go after the folks who are violating the use tax laws as they see fit.
I know this is a lot more work for NYS, but the whole "charge sales tax even though you're out of state" thing seems invalid on its face, and likely to be thrown out of court. This way NYS can go after the biggest violators, at least.
First off, its not conservatives that -insist- on capping spending. That's Democrats. Every year you keep putting more and more into medicare and social security until they've gone from consuming 5% of the federal budget to close to %50, with projections to grow all the way until they consume everything.
It's you stupid liberals that can't do basic math. You can't hand 9 people a federal entitlement out of the dole off of the efforts of one man, and that's what you would do. At some point, families have to pay for their own health care, their own retirement, and their own dying, and THAT, my friend, is a lesson that every civilization has known for 6000 years.
Clinton wasn't too bad, fiscal wise, but don't forget that he had a Republican congress that voted no to nearly every single one of his proposals.
Reagan would have been great, if the Dems had shut down the Dept of Education and trimmed entitlements, like he proposed. His tax cuts though, produced a giant increase to the federal treasury.
Bush Jr would have been great, if HIS plans to trim entitlements would have been acted upon. But of course, Democrats just want the entitlements to grow unchecked until the whole wealth of the nation is consumed into a socialist state, which is of course, exactly what they want. Democrats DON'T WANT PEOPLE TO SUCCEED, because, if someone succeeds, that means, to them, that someone else didn't.
This is my sig.
I live in NY and fuck new york if they think im going to pay taxes on shit i buy out of state these asshole politicians can suck my fuckin balls.
Actually, NewEgg seems to count a warehouse as a physical presence. They have a big distribution center in Memphis, and they charge Tenn. sales tax on shipments to Tenn. addresses.
Reaganomics never worked, and never will, because all it does is put more money in the hands of the rich and fucks the poor.
What poor has Reaganomics fucked, prey tell? The poor that now have at least one family car? The poor that have TV's, designer shoes, new clothes, food so much that they are fat, a higher home ownership rate than ever before, playstations, xboxes, ipods, cell phones... do you mean those poor?
America's poor are in some ways arguably richer than the middle class of America was 30 years ago. They have more stuff, and in fact, they have so much more stuff, not only in America, but in every place where capitalism has been put into place, that the biggest complaint from the left wing these days is that the poor actually have too much stuff. When you distill away all the crap and lies about saving the planet, at the very heart of the idea of environmental movement is to make poor people have -less- stuff, not more.
This is just horseshit for one very good reason... the population is expanding! It may not be expanding at the same rate but it continues to do so. Changes in the rate are to be expected. The problem with our entitlements is that the money that's supposed to be for them have been raided by democrats and republicans alike. They are running out of money because politicians take money out inappropriately and don't put it back
The population is not expanding enough, relative to the amount of money being blown on entitlements. And the other thing is, people are living longer and medical care is more exotic and more expensive. It simply isn't.
Let's look at one thing, a heart bypass. That will set you back anywhere from 50k to 200k, depending on what's involved. That's at least a car, if not a house. Now, let's toss in a few months at nursing home for grandma, maybe mom does a year long cancer battle, and you can pretty much see that there's just no way people can afford to pay for all of this.
Your simplistic answer is to just claim, "oh, inequality", and keep going on about national health care... but you lie to the American people and you don't admit that what national health care is, is rationing. Health care will get cheaper, because the government is going to flat out say no to the bypass, no to the exotic drugs, just so everyone can get some care.
This is my sig.
Do you think they will stay dropped if this tax is allowed? of course not. Overstock.com wants revenue from the state.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
NY has the single most corrupt state government in the Union, bar none.
The elections are rigged, the Constitution gets paid lip service every once in a while, and that formal system of checks and balances is a joke. Government is nothing but a protection racket once you strip away the fripperies and bullshit.
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Which reminds me of a quote often attributed to Max Stirner: "The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime."
I write sci-fi for metalheads
The problem isn't taxing smoking per se. The problem is that when you add a tax on something like smoking the state now spends that new revenue. What happens when people stop smoking because the tax is so high? What do you do when you lose that revenue that you've become accustomed to spending (and we all know that the goal of government is to spend every penny it receives)?
Speed up the timer on traffic lights and install light/speeding cameras? Is this a trick question?
Once you start despising the jerks, you become one.
I bought some items from Buy.com this summer, completely forgetting about the "Amazon tax". When I received the items I reviewed the taxes and ran the numbers myself. Lo & Behold! They charged me the wrong tax rate for my county! 9.5% instead of 8.625%. Several emails and a phone call later and Buy.com offered to refund an amount that was lower than the original, but still not the correct rate. I accepted. The difference was minimal, but still pissed me off.
I then called the NYS Department of Taxation & Finance to see if they knew about this.
They did. Not only did they acknowledge the practice of companies charging too much, but they had a solution! You simply fill out a form showing the overcharge and they would refund the overtax. Brilliant.
Way to go, NYS. Can't wait to leave ya!
tom
WWSJD? (What Would Samurai Jack Do?)
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The point is! Since the goods were not purchased in New York State , sales or use taxes should not have to be paid. The Amazon suit is right on target constitutionally. Lets not be shedding any tears for Albany and their tax everything including the air we breathe mentality. It is the law makers in NYS that have destroyed the state and put its taxpayers under the heaviest tax burden of all 50 states.
Steven G. Poyzer
(No account, but I'm not an anonymous coward either)
As it stands now, every other state has an unfair advantage over New York in the amount of the New York tax rate simply because the buyers do not pay Use Tax.
By that logic doesn't a New York company have an unfair advantage in the other 49 states?
In fact it does. But it is not very efficient for every state's businesses to have an unfair advantage in other states. If anything, the businesses should have an unfair advantage in their own states. Of course that would possibly run afoul of the interstate commerce act, but maybe not. There are plenty of tax breaks given to local businesses that don't seem to cause problems.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
I've stopped buying so much stuff. I'm serious. I try to barter whenever I can. I buy on the resale market (gently used things that the last owner got bored with quickly, this is especially good for musical gear.) Slightly older computer stuff (your obsession is my gain.) I'm not going to pay a "use tax" on my stuff until they come in with a warrant.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
We spend about $10,000 per student per year! Washington DC spends twice that. What the hell would you consider adequate funding? And where do you get the idea that urban areas have less trouble with people 'getting along?' Have you looked at the violent crime rates in big Democrat cities? If you're so worried about the transfer of wealth from blue to red states then oppose federal social programs.
Not all of us live in a state that has sales/use taxes.
:)
My state gets a healthy chunk of business by allowing out of state residents to come here, set up a shell corporation, and buy RVs under that corporation. It saves most people $15k-$30k in taxes and fees on their new motor home. California hates us for it
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/sep/25/local/me-taxdodge25
As I recall, the last time I purchased something from newegg, I payed the TN sales tax. What's so special about the cheeky fuckers in the northeast? Why don't you do me a favor and stop charging *me* tax Newegg?
You know folks, the current economic situation is not all the fault of liberals or all the fault of conservatives or even mostly the fault of either of the two supposed ideologies. It is both of their and it is your fault. Yes, you. You who stopped looking at the issues for what they were in favor of being part of some team that doesn't even really exist. You who go about blaming all the worlds problems on the other team that also doesn't really exist. You who insist on disregarding good judgment in favor of cheaper and easier emotions.
All of this partisan nonsense makes me sick. This is supposed to be website viewed by well educated people who should be above this sort of thing. Falsely placing the blame on one group will never lead to any good. People on slashdot like to complain about how stupid other people are and then they go and behave in the exact same ways. Enough is enough. Stop trying to categorize yourself as a liberal or a conservative when neither really fit. Accept being the individual that you are and put an end to the pointless bickering.
$.05M (your profit) would be $50,000, not $500K
You used "et. al [sic]" where you intended "et al." (see here, under "et alii").
Warning: typing "et al." hundreds or thousands of times (as in graduate school) may cause permanent brain damage.
Misery loves company. Online misery loves unsuspecting random strangers.
Actually, what NewEgg did is ask all its NY-based affiliates to agree not to promote NewEgg to NY residents. Therefore, NewEgg should not be paying commissions on sales made to New York residents through NY affiliates, which means they don't have NY presence in the way NY state govt was implying and thus don't need to collect NY state sales tax.
Now if NY residents do promote NewEgg to NY customers they are doing this against NewEgg's affiliate agreement and thus NewEgg is not responsible.
The whole "having affiliates gives you presence" sounded like a loophole, and what NewEgg did sounds like a loophole around that loophole. Their legal team must be proud :)
You meant that oil is one of the most inelastic products in existence...otherwise demand would strongly anti-correlate with price (demand has gone down a bit, but there's only so much cutting back consumers can easily due).
So it seems like you don't come out ahead by reporting, you actually lose money...
You come out ahead until you get caught, in which case you're looking at having to pay the tax, interest and penalties on pain of tax evasion charges.
I was setting that issue aside for the moment. Yes, I know that it's tax evasion. That's not the point.
I was just contesting the idea put forth in the grandparent post that by not paying the use tax, and as a result losing the tax deduction you'd get from paying it, you're effectively losing the money anyway. You don't gain as much from the deduction as you lose from paying the tax - you're not getting a free ride, basically.
Bow-ties are cool.
That's it, I'm going to stop buying matches in NY altogether in protest. Gonna buy all my matches in my home state from now on. Thanks for the tip!
I used to go to Boy Scout camp in NY state, and we'd stop on the way to buy matches, because Strike-Anywhere matches were legal in NY but illegal in NJ. They're much handier for wilderness survival trips!
Ah, heck, they've probably outlawed them by now. Fortunately I moved to NH.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
If you're so worried about the transfer of wealth from blue to red states then oppose federal social programs.
Like farm subsidies, the military, and military contracters, and drug laws. Get those leeches off of the public tit first and we'll see tremendous improvements eliminating much of the need for social welfare caused by that massive corporate welfare.
Let's use some more precise words.
Remember, Conservatives want a big Federal government
anti-federalists (yeah, confusing term)
huge military
anti-constitutionalists
and constant wars
imperialists (or military industrialists)
and unchecked illegal immigration
slavers
1) the religious Conservatives see U.S. imperialism as a Holy War, and that we need to be Christianizing all the other countries
crusaders
2) not-as-religious Conservatives really believe that millions of Muslims want to hop on a boat, come over here, and invade somehow, and that our actions in the mideast are preventing complete takeover of our country by them
bullies (irrational cowards who impose preemptive force)
3) Conservative business owners like the low/nonexistent corporate taxes
this isn't true, so we'll skip it - e.g. Daimler-Chrysler moved its HQ to Germany for lower corporate taxes
generous corporate welfare (like subsidies for oil companies)
syndicalists
The question is: are these people really "Conservative"? That depends on your definition of the word. Whereas it meant something much more like libertarianism 30-50 years ago, it seems to have mutated into the above in the past 10-20 years.
Naw, these are green people calling themselves purple. If we re-define purple to mean green because green people are calling themselves purple, then we've lost the ability to describe both green and purple.
Conservatives are basically those resistant to change. In the case of the US that means they're closest to originalists, as they would oppose changes, both historical and present. So, Ron Paul is actually a conservative - his ideals are close to Madisonian. I disagree with him on some points as I'm more Jeffersonian, but there's enough common ground for me to support him. The design of the United States scares the hell out of all of the above types.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I work in NYS but a neighboring state is less than fifteen miles from work. When I save enough $$$ to buy a house - at my age which will be the house I retire in - I will NOT be buying in NYS.
Try Florida, unless you're going to freak out when a hurricane comes along, it's a good state to retire to. There's no income tax, though there is a tax on non-real property such as stocks. Otherwise the only taxes are property tax and a sales tax of 4.5%, I believe that that's what it was when I lived there but I moved 10 years ago.
Me, I've thought about moving to New Hampshire and joining the Free State Project.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I have no problem with 86'ing the farm subsidies and drug laws...
Just to add, we already KNOW capital markets are inefficient. It is an expected outcome because of non-perfect information for all participants. (ie: you know about a better price than your neighbor)
Of course "inefficiencies in the marketplace" occur at lots of places. But again, we know and expect this.
Evidence of an inefficient market doesn't tell us anything. We already expect that. The closest you can come to a perfect market is the US Equity markets. In terms of "efficiency", it is ruthlessly efficient (even when we don't want it to be)
Buying online probably is not tax free. It may be sales tax free but it's not tax free. First the business pays income and property tax itself, plus all of the taxes related to employment. The business also pays for shipments, well some retailers include the cost of shipping so the buyer can see it, and shippers pay an assortment of taxes.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
There's been a big issue with rising property taxes in Florida. Part of it is due to some counties overspending on their budgets (and thus raising the tax rate), the other part was the rising cost in home values. There's an article about the crisis here
Thanks for the link. I noticed it funding education was part of the problem. I was in student government in college when the lottery came up. At first I supported the lottery but after reading the bill I came out against it. The lottery was meant to supplement education but the bill authorizing Lotto didn't guaranty the lottery money would go to supplementing education.
So the tax rates being tied to (at the time) rising property values, compounded with rising hurricane insurance premiums have sadly made things a bit tougher in Fl.
While hurricane insurance has increased, I think that's because builders are building, and buyers buying, where buildings shouldn't be built or are built inappropriately. For instance you don't bulldoze wetlands then hope houses built there won't get flooded. Nor do you build on the beach and hope sand won't be washed away. Or build a seawall and not have the same happen.
People move there then they want government to take care of them. I used to crack up when I read an article about how someone who had recently bought a new home in a new development freaked out when they found an alligator in their swimming pool. Many move there because "nature is so beautiful" but get upset when nature gets on their property.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Ah, you moved to the Free State Project state.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
They were all whining about how that because we don't have instant runoff voting (or similar improved system) that they will be forced again this year to vote for the lesser of two evils.
They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
They expect retailers to collect the tax so it is a tax on commerce.
It is a state imposing a tax on its citizens...
A use tax they are demanding retailers collect.
which is well within the constitution.
This creates more paperwork and expense for the retailer so it is a the breach of interstate commerce clause.
You may not agree but that's the way I see it.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I think the efficiency would depend just as much on what you are buying as it would on where you are buying it.
How would the purchase of a commodity be more efficient if I buy it locally as opposed to out of state? All of the products I see on Newegg are exactly the same as the ones I can see on the shelves of the local Micro Center, or Best Buy. Unless Micro Center and Best Buy are also manufacturing the items locally the product comes from the same manufacturing place as the items from Newegg, the only differences I can think of are which warehouses it sits in before I buy it
This is ridiculous. Why don't I have to pay a sales tax if I buy out-of-state? I bet the U.S. is the only country in the world that allows this nonsense. It is totally unfair to local stores. Level the playing field and impose sales tax no matter where I buy stuff. (the online stores still have the advantage of not paying for retail space and more streamlined operations). I just want to see a more level playing field among retailers.
why didn't Ron Paul get much support in the primaries? Several reasons for that, but I think the main ones are that he opposed the war
Many others opposed the war as well.
and opposed the nannystate
Many others oppose the nannystate as well.
and alienated the theocons.
Many also opposes the theocons. Put it all together many oppose the war, the nannystate, and the theocons. If every state had open primaries, so everybody could vote for the best person, Ron Paul would have gotten more votes. If my state had had an open primary I would have voted for Ron Paul myself, but because I am registered No Party Preference I was not able to vote in the primary.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Like everyone else they hold their nose and vote for the lesser. Though Bush the Lesser
In 2000 I specifically voted against Bush by checking off Gore. Instead of voting for the person I wanted as president I voted for what I thought was the lesser bad. Afterwards I sweared never to do that again.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I wondered that as well. I know Jeffersonian Democracy states for liberty and small government but not what the Madisonian Model was. They are almost the same though the Madisonian model focuses specifically on the presidency.
I found it interesting the Madisonian Model article lists Jimmy Carter as a Madisonian President.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
nobody with half a brain thinks that Barack Obama is the most liberal member of the Senate.
Only if Barak Obama was a Liberal. I'd vote for him then, but I won't support him now because of his choice of Biden as his running mate.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
This is a way to close a loophole the online retailers are using to give themselves a leg up over brick and mortar stores.
What leg up does an online retailer have over a brick and mortar store? Whereas a physical store can build the cost of shipping into the price of an item many online store add shipping costs to the order. And shipping costs may be more than the sales tax.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Live free or Die...and pay what the price tag says, not a cent more...That's the New Hampshire Way.
we also don't have a state income tax...which makes for an interesting situation when out of staters (read Massholes) want to move right across the border to be closer to the cheap liquor and demand crazy things like police protection from deer, and seat belt laws. Then get mad when there property taxes shoot go through the roof.
Then it will go to Congress and they will pass new laws allowing these taxes
They would need a constitutional amendment, not merely a "new law."
Use taxes have already been taken to the US Supreme Court and the court ruled they were constitutional. Use taxes couldn't be discriminatory, ie sales tax and use tax had to be the same, but they are constitutional.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
..and enforces property rights. You want the deed to your house to mean something, you need the government that issued it to be funded. That means taxes.
That means property tax not sales tax.
The government also builds roads and other vital infrastructure.
Roads should be paid for by taxes on vehicles and user fees on fuel. The only other infrastructure government should be involved in, other than Right of Ways or easments, is water and sewage. And those should be paid for by the users. Also they may want parks or other open spaces but those shouldn't cost much.
Is government too intrusive? Verily. Can we get rid of it? Not before Universal Enlightement.
Some of the USA's Founding Fathers were believers in the Age of Enlightenment.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
My brother is a pilot, and used to work for a Beechcraft dealer in a sales tax state. New aircraft sales agreements were signed at the airport coffee shop in a neighboring non-taxing state, and the aircraft remained there for 91 days. Then the aircraft was returned to, and placed in service in, the taxing state. Result? No sales/use tax was incurred.
...Lorenzo / I'm into kinky crustaceans. I just discovered internet praWn.
There's a lot that I disagreed with Clinton on, but, I have to say that I absolutely loved the way he handled the budget.
If the Laffer curve inflection point were to the left of the US taxation rate increasing taxes in Europe would reduce revenue. Hasn't happened. Nor has Bush's tax cuts increased US revenues.
But Bush's tax cuts have -increased- revenues. However, I do agree with this.
People get tied up in all of these side shows and forget the fundamental principle of capitalism - investment of capital increases the productivity of workers and the economy as a whole. When a government borrows money it competes with private sector companies who wish to invest capital. This competition drives up the cost of capital making projects have to have higher returns to be attractive. This reduces economic growth.
This, I agree with entirely. I actually -really- liked the way Clinton managed the federal budget. I'm a big deficit hawk and I read his book in 1992, and I crossed party lines to vote for him twice because he mapped out how he was going to balance the budget, and did it. Pretty much, as much as Clinton gets tagged for being a self serving liar, he actually kept his promise of balancing the budget, and did so pretty much the way he said he was going to do.
I would have, given the choice, preferred a Bush pay off of the national debt than a tax cut. With that said, Bush's tax cuts did do the supply thing of increasing revenue. However, Bush spent all of that and then some, really, in an attempt to do the Rove thing of pulling the party to the left.
Here's the stupidity of the Democrats. If Hillary had won the nomination, she would have had my vote IF she said she was going to follow Rubinomics and balance the budget and kept her mouth shut on guns.
Obama flat out doesn't care about the deficit and he's doing the classic big liberal spending, wheras the Clintons were always doing tiny programs to show that they care but without breaking the bank, and I could live with that.
Now McCain does claim to want to balance the budget by the end of his first term. He can do this if he lets the Bush tax cuts lapse, lowers the cost of the war, and just holds the line on entitlements slightly. I know he talks about tax cuts and extending Bush's tax cuts, but I think its bullshit, quite honestly. Quite honestly, this time around, I'd rather have the USA pay off the national debt than have another tax cut.
This is my sig.
I save it for trips south. Bermuda is perfect. :)
D you mean the Bahamas? Bermuda is a lot more east than south of New England. In the Caribbean the Caymans is among the best diving. Of course that's subjective.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
I think you must be thinking of a different set of Republican candidates than I am
But many people opposed the war.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
D you mean the Bahamas? Bermuda is a lot more east than south of New England. In the Caribbean the Caymans is among the best diving. Of course that's subjective.
I like diving in Bermuda. It's east of the Carolinas, but in the Gulf Stream. Closest landfall is Rhode Island, but that doesn't mean much for its climate.
Diving off Grand Cayman was more spectacular, but I didn't enjoy visiting the rest of the island nearly as much as Bermuda, and I only get to do a little diving as the rest of my family doesn't (yet!). That said, there's more to see inside the barrier reef than out, and the surge outside can be pretty impressive (e.g. on wreck dives), so it's not the best destination for a dedicated diving trip. I understand Bonaire and Curaçao are ideal for that.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I like diving in Bermuda. It's east of the Carolinas, but in the Gulf Stream. Closest landfall is Rhode Island, but that doesn't mean much for its climate.
Yea, the Gulf Stream makes Bermuda seem tropical.
Diving off Grand Cayman was more spectacular, but I didn't enjoy visiting the rest of the island nearly as much as Bermuda,
Did you checkout the caves and canyons? There are some good caves or c-notes to dive in in the interior. Of course they aren't great if you're claustrophobic.
I only get to do a little diving as the rest of my family doesn't (yet!).
After growing up in Florida my sister finally got her dive certification in her 30s. The following year she moved to Minnesota, where the closest open water is Lake Michigan. And that's something like 100+ miles away. At least she has her cert though, although I've scuba dived I don't have mine. I came close but didn't get it, in college I took a scuba diving class but I wasn't able to get to the open water checkout dive, a couple of hundred miles away. At the tyme I didn't have a vehicle, my transportation was my bike. And I didn't arrange a ride with someone else in the class in tyme.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Unless it's a keyword for "ineffectual", which was the only connection I could make from it.
Seeing as James Madison pretty much wrote the Constitution of the USA, which btw was based on the Iroquois Confederacy, I'd say he was pretty effectual.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
The transaction should be taxed at the point of sale, rather than the point of delivery, meaning states with mail order business would benefit, states with high sales tax would lose. And retailers would collect tax at a single rate and pay it to a single state, keeping the cost down to small businesses.
It's not only more time efficient, but also more fuel efficient to drive at times other than rush our. Rush hour traffic tends to involve more acceleration and deceleration.
I don't recall who did it but I think the "Economist" published an article on a study on the efficiency of traveling between Washington DC and NYC, it studied flying, driving a car, taking a bus, and taking a train. The most fuel efficient mode was train whereas flying used the most fuel per passenger mile. I don't recall for sure but I think taking the bus was more efficient than driving.
I was driving home (downstate IL) from a Chicago suburb when I was rear-ended in stop and go rush hour traffic on an Interstate highway. The accident totaled my car, sent me to the emergency room, cost me two days of lost work, left me in pain for months
Sorry about your accident. Almost 10 years ago I had a bad accident myself though I was riding my bike not driving. I was in college at the tyme, without health insurance, and was riding my bike after classes. I don't recall how long but I was in a coma for some days. While in the coma the docs told my family it would be a miracle if I lived. Well, I lived but I would argue with those docs about it being a miracle. Instead my life has been more of a living hell. Anyway, I was in the hospital a few weeks then moved into a rehabilitation, rehab, house where I lived for about a month. I now have a permanent disability, a Traumatic Brain Injury or TBI and all together I spent more than a year in therapy.
and stuck me with an insurance deductible because the deadbeat had no insurance of his own.
My family was lucky, financially. My medical bills were over $120,000. However the person who hit me was at fault. Witnesses to the accident said the driver was weaving all over the road. And witnesses had to chance him down and force him to stop. He was working while driving his employer's vehicle, it was a moving van like Apartment Movers. It came out later he was a diabetic and they say he had a diabetic seizer. Never having heard of diabetic seizers I asked a friend in college who's an insulin dependent diabetic, she was born with it, about seizers. She said it's not seizers they have but they can pass out and lose consciousness. Anyway the driver had a history of causing accidents and had been admitted to hospitals because he didn't take care of his diabetes. He also fled the state he lived in and moved to mine because his state issued a warrant for his arrest.
So because of the driver's record his employer decided to settle after my family hired a lawyer. And the medical bills were paid for out of the settlement.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
Who earned the money that was taxed to buy the stocks and bonds?
Ce depend, it depends. Someone may of worked to earn the money whereas others inherit the money or investments.
Why not make investments in stock and bonds tax deductible when they are bought just like buying business equipment and go ahead and tax the profits?
There wouldn't be any tax when stocks and bonds were bought if people didn't have to pay income tax, on earned income. I don't believe a person should be taxed on what they work to earn. Corporations though should be taxed. Now this is something I disagree with other libertarians, some don't believe corporations should be taxed. I believe they should though because corporations grant their stockholders limited liability. Take two businesses, one is a Sole proprietorship and the other's a corporation granted a corporate charter. If those businesses are ever sued for whatever reason the most a stockholder can lose is the amount they spent buying stocks in the corporation. The sole proprietorship owner though can lose everything they own, the business as well as their house and any other property of value.
Actually that why corporations were created, granted a corporate charter. The first two corporations granted charters were the Honourable East India Company in 1600 and the Dutch East India Company in 1602. Both businesses were shipping companies shipping goods between India, and the Netherlands in the case of Dutch East India Company, or Great Britain in the case of Honourable East India Company. Shipping was a risky business. For whatever reason if a ship's cargo was lost, whether because of weather it sunk or because pirates attacked it, the ship's owners were liable and had to pay the owner of the cargo. Ship owners also had to pay the family of any crewman killed or lost. So the crowns of England and the Netherlands gave both East India Companies limited liability, all someone who owned stocks in them could lose is the what they paid for the stock.
I'm all for running a deficit for a short while when absolutely necessary (like the Revolution, the Civil War, WWII), but not all the time or for piddly conflicts with countries who didn't attack us like Iraq.
I agree but currently deficits aren't run for short periods. You mention the Civil War. During the war Lincoln raised taxes to, imagine this, 4%. People were angry, but they knew the war had to be paid for. If those people saw how much we pay in taxes now there'd another revolution.
Falcon
Should there be a Law?
But speaking of constitutionalist, how about this? "Montana Secretary of State Brad Johnson's Comment in the Washington Times"
In the District of Columbia, et al. v. Dick Anthony Heller case the Supreme Court made the right ruling. The Founding Fathers of the USA above all feared government and knew the only way citizens could keep a reign on government was if they were armed. Beware the armed citizen sort of thing. On this Thomas Jefferson wrote "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants."
Falcon
Should there be a Law?