Senator Wants to Tax Internet Shopping

tripleevenfall writes "A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping. The proposal — expected to be made public soon after Tax Day — would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes."

Comments

Surprised?

[Totenglocke]

A Democrat in favor of increased taxes - is there a person on the planet who's actually surprised by this?

Re:Surprised?

[Black Parrot]

A Democrat in favor of increased taxes - is there a person on the planet who's actually surprised by this?

Nope. We've got tax-and-spend Democrats, and don't-tax-and-spend-more Republicans.

Re:Surprised?

[Black Parrot]

Do you have any idea how much our funding shortfall grew during the Bush + Republican Congress years?

You should learn to look at what politicians actually do, rather than believing what they say.

Re:Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Spend more implies that they actually spent more money. The past two years would beg to differ with you, quite dramatically.

Republicans prefer to "spend" by giving tax breaks to millionaires, billionaires, and corporations. As far as fiscal responsibility goes, the Republicans usually make the debt far worse with their tax cuts than they do to ease deficit spending with mild spending cuts.

Re:Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

The last two years they were trying to stave off another Great Depression, brought on by the crazy policies of a previous administration.

Look at every budget since Carter:

Republicans = Spend Like Mad Without Paying For It.

The Democrats have been the fiscal conservatives for the past 30 years.

Re:Surprised?

[TigerTime]

That's essentially what the whole Tea Party movement was about initially. It was a "what the fuck are you doing GOP party?" movement. Many Republicans value a fiscally conservative government above all else. Other value a socially conservative government above all else. The 1996 elections brought both sides of the Republican party together because they promised to reign in spending and be socially conservative at the same time. They won big. Over the next 12 years, the Neo-Republican Party that was in office went AWOL and started spending as if there wasn't a limit. They completely left the roots of their party's political motto.

That's part of the reasoning behind the huge 2006 and 2008 election loses for the Republicans. The fiscally responsible ones became disillusioned with the whole bunch and didn't want to vote for them. They were just as angry about the deficit growing from $4T to $8T.

As a fiscally conservative republican/libertarian, i don't give a shit if it's a republican, democrat, or the Pope himself. This spending spree in Washington has got to stop. And the tax code needs to be completely restructured. There are too many damn loopholes for the super rich and corporations to get around, all while the middle class gets raped because they make enough money to get by, but can't afford these big name tax consultants.

Now, I'm no fan of a lot of what the Tea Party has become. There are a lot of rednecks involved in it, and a lot of the socially conservative Republicans are trying to take credit for it and take it over. But if you really want to know what is at it's core and the root of it, you'd have to read Ron Paul's book The Revolution.

Re:Surprised?

[Beelzebud]

Deficits don't matter. --Dick Cheney
Funny how when Republicans were in charge they didn't care about the deficit. It's also funny that you say Iraq/Afghan were funded over the last decade as if they were paid for. They weren't. Bush also passed TARP and the tax cuts for the rich. He also passed his Medicaid bill into law without funding it.

Re:Surprised?

[Anonymous Coward]

Umm, bank bailout? You may think they paid it back, but umm actually no. And any that did still just drew interest on U.S. treasuries for quite some time.

Bush's wars cost us $1.6 trillion. Obama's stimulus bill cost us $800 billion. All the economists told Obama to spend double that, btw.

By & large, the stimulus bill kept states afloat and transferred some state debts to the federal government. You may complain all you like about the obvious moral hazard there, but the state's were all set to close shit down. And state run services actually impact people's lives, unlike most federal services.

It goes without saying that the federal budget could be fixed by eliminating the corrupt transfer payments, like farm subsidies, subsidies for military contractors, etc., but that'll never happen under either a Republican or Democrat administration.

In fact, the only progress that has ever been made was when Clinton actually implemented a fiscally conservative program just to embarrass a Republican majority. No Republican president, or even a Republican speaker, has ever put forward a serious fiscal conservative program.

I'll take the Republican claims of fiscal conservatism seriously when they make someone like Ron Paul speaker. Until then, the only formula that's worked has been a powerful Democrat in the white house and a strongly Republican house.

Re:Surprised?

[tripleevenfall]

We can argue about whether disagreeing with Obama's avalanche of spending means you endorse Dick Cheney, but I won't bother. Nobody is still talking about Bush 3 years later except those who won't judge Obama based on his performance. The point was merely to draw attention to the fact that the wars are not some huge percentage of the government's budget. At best, they are a few single digit percentage points or so annually, meanwhile, Obama is raising spending annually by ten times that amount.

Re:Surprised?

[jhigh]

Ugh...and to think that I just used my last mod points. I wish that more people understood this. Advocating higher taxes at this point is just pure political posturing being done by politicians without the willpower to cut entitlements. We do not have a "revenue problem," we have a spending problem.

no taxation

[Anonymous Coward]

without representation

Re:Which state?

[ackthpt]

I didn't realize there was Federal Sales Tax. They have the constitutional power to regulate interstate commerce, but the Constitution prohibits its tax:

Art I, Sec 9. "No Preference shall be given by any Regulation of Commerce or Revenue to the Ports of one State over those of another; nor shall Vessels bound to, or from, one State, be obliged to enter, clear, or pay Duties in another."

I don't think that clause says what you think it says. 'Preference' being the key word, this means the feds, if they created a tax it would be even from state to state, not taxing one more than others.

Re:It needs to be a simple tax.

[darkwing_bmf]

If only there were a machine capable of storing all of that tax data.

Re:Level playing field

[Archangel Michael]

Brick and mortar stores have resorted to extorting consumers on certain smaller items for which they can count on people not wanting to wait for a delivery

First, it is call convenience.

Second, it is because people price shop the last 45 cents off a $1500 TV, but don't think twice about paying $35 more for a cable. A long time ago, I used to work in sales, selling printers that cost $450 that people would shop around on, and drive 90 miles to the next big city to save $5 ($445). I'd either toss in the 50 cent cable or sell them the printer at cost and the cable for $14.95. Yes, I made more on the cable than I did the printer.

Pretty soon, brick n mortar stores will die off and you'll never be able to see an item before you order it, and/or you'll be complaining about the walmartization of cities that destroy local mom n pop stores. I know way to many people who complain about $4.50 cables costing $40 at brick n mortar and buying online, and then complain about lack of good jobs locally. Funny how that works.

Re:Income Tax vs Sales Tax

[h4rr4r]

Neither one is a punishment. Taxes are the price of society. It is more sensible to take from those who can stand to lose it with the least amount of pain. Taking a few thousand from me might mean I go on one fewer vacation, from the working poor it would deprive them of all their disposable income if they have any. Ever noticed the scumbags that support these regressive tax systems are the ones who would benefit the most from them? No banker is going to support anything that deprives him of even a penny.

Re:Level playing field

[h4rr4r]

So there could be no good jobs if they charged $10 for the cable?
Somehow amazon can sell cables at a fair price, I bet they have some good jobs to offer as well. Their printers seem reasonably priced as well. I am sick of this buggywhip manufacturer cursing at automobiles bullshit.

Is working at bestbuy your idea of a good job?

Rare!

[nilbog]

This is truly a rare thing to see - congress discussing laws that they are actually given permission to enact in the constitution. Interstate commerce.

Re:Level playing field

[raddan]

Care to advance an argument instead of an unsubstantiated claim? Call me pedantic.

Re:Income Tax vs Sales Tax

[binary paladin]

I'll go with C: a government that doesn't spend money like a heroin junky. And it's the same principle too. The more they get, the more they need.

I mean if we're gonna punish someone for spending money on shit they don't need, it seems we should START with the government and not the citizens. Just a thought.

quit putting it on the US Taxpayer

[Dan667]

if they want more revenue how about they go after real corporations like GE, Exxon, and Bank of America that cook their books to pay no taxes. They have profits so where is the tax revenue.

Re:Level playing field

[samkass]

Because Best Buy charges $40 for a cable that's $4.99 with free shipping at new egg. Brick and mortar stores have resorted to extorting consumers on certain smaller items for which they can count on people not wanting to wait for a delivery.

Plus, large scale online outfits are probably more "green" that brick and mortar stores anyway. They only operate some offices and warehouses and any delivery fuel usage is mostly offset by deliveries to a brick and mortar store plus the consumer driving to and from the store.

All that is fine and good. If they are more efficient and/or provide better value then they should win in the marketplace. But it should be a fair win, and the sales tax system shouldn't favor buying from out-of-state merchants.

So lets drive more business off shore.

[upuv]

Sorry but ever single time someone tries to put this stupid law up I see another politician who has no grasp of current economic forces.

The Internet has essentially removed geographical boundaries that enabled things like local sales tax. Sales tax can only exist if you are able to regulate ALL product sales in a confined geographical area. So you must either tax at point of sale or at point of entry into the geographical area.

Point of sale is simply impossible. As most markets on the web operate completely outside the jurisdiction of US law makers.
So this leaves you with essentially a manual customs inspection of every box coming into an area. And then processing each item and attributing tax and billing an appropriate party. This method would be prohibitive in expense and time. Effectively hand cuffing the local economy.
Lets not even start on digital goods which require no physical transfer at all.

There will always be massive holes in any system that tries to implement a sales tax on the web. The honest people will only be priced out of existence. Kill this law before it wastes any more time and money.

Sorry but the days of arbitrary taxation systems are gone.

Re:Angry at Amazon

[slashdottedjoe]

I agree. The web could be considered an electronic catalog and ordering system, but it is still mail order.

If you truly want to be fair, then it must go both ways. Every brick and mortar store should be forced to card every customer to determine where they live. They may be tourists that should have to pay sales tax for another jurisdiction. The B&Ms would cry like babies, if they had to do that. That is funny for they are asking web stores to do that for 7500 jurisdictions.