Internet Sales Tax Gets a New Champion

Archness1 writes with an excerpt from Declan McCullagh's piece at CNET about the recently renewed push for a sales tax on Internet purchases, led by Massachusetts Representative Bill Delahunt. "At the moment, Americans who shop over the Internet from out-of-state vendors usually aren't required to pay sales taxes. Californians buying books from Amazon.com or cameras from Manhattan's B&H Photo, for example, won't be required to cough up the sales taxes that they would if shopping at a local mall." That could all change, though.

Comments

Re:Taxation is necessary for government to run.

[fyngyrz]

You have to pay for cops, for firefighters, for medics, in some cases for healthcare and schools.

With the exception of "cops", I'm in agreement with you.

If the cops were on the street and actually patrolling the neighborhoods, interacting with the residents and deterring crime (instead of arriving 20 minutes late and arresting the victim for putting up a defense), I'd be all for them. However, paying for them to sit in air conditioned patrol cars, isolated from everyone, writing tickets and stepping all over people's personal choices... that's ultimately worse than wasted money -- it's like paying to have someone kick your dog.

The current military budget (fed) is also not on my "we should be paying for that" list. Very little useful is being accomplished. At the state level, the drug war is *very* expensive and should be ended forthwith; streetlights are a good example of a mostly useless cost we pay without thinking (cars have headlights, strollers can use flashlights... and a lot more of us would be able to see the stars again.) There are plenty of places we should be cutting, and we're talking significant portions of the budget.

Re:Use tax

[Quiet_Desperation]

While you can elect to avoid paying the tax by purchased out of state, you still owe the tax.

That's nice. You and this corrupt government or bought off whores are invited to collectively blow me.