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Slate: Amazon's Tax Stance Unfair and Unethical
theodp writes "We've talked before about Amazon's reluctance to collect sales tax, with Jeff Bezos going so far as to say it's unconstitutional. So it's not too surprising to see Amazon support a California referendum to repeal sales tax for online retailers. Slate's Farhad Manjoo loves buying from Amazon and would hate to pay higher prices, but says the e-tailer 'has no intellectually sound arguments against collecting taxes from residents — by all ethical and civic standards, its position is unsound.'"
Damn those federal rights over interstate commerce.
He should pay the use tax and be done with it, like a law abiding citizen
Someone please tell me how a corporation based in Washington State and legally incorporated in Delaware suddenly becomes a tax collector for states in which it does not have a physical presence? I can see being held liable for Delaware and Washington State, but until someone amends the tax codes of the remaining 48 states and other U.S. territories, I think it should remain that we don't pay sales tax on out-of-state purchases. I don't live in Ohio and I don't expect to pay Ohio state sales tax on a purchase I made over the Internet, nor do I expect the state of Michigan to tax my purchase from a company outside of Michigan.
Winning a stupid popularity contest did not give people the moral right to take the money of other people, even for allegedly good causes. Taxation is simply theft. Apparently this is lost on the people of Slate, however, if they feel that "by all ethical and civic standards, Amazon's position is unsound." They are dismissing my standard of ethics out of hand, unconsidered, unrefuted, and I feel that the burden of proof is on them to prove that taxation is ethical in the first place. My ethical position may be a minority position, but a majority is not always correct, and I have yet to see a justification for taxation that does not amount to "the end justifies the means," which is not even close to ethical.
Secession is the right of all sentient beings.
This Slate article has been brought to you by Best Buy, Target, Walmart, etc.
...but states are already collecting taxes on etailer sales. They pay those taxes on transportation costs. These places also generate jobs. Those people buy things which also allow for taxation.
States are just pissed that their double dipping means they might actually have to be good at their job to remain in office because balancing a budget becomes more important. Whereas the traditional school of thought is you're elected to funnel state and federal dollars to your buddies - or to declare eminent domain for an illegal land grab which is then promptly gifted to your buddies. And if you can't distract people with the slush funds lying around, how are they supposed to get away with crime as usual?
I mean, no crime, forced to actually do your job within a reasonable budget? What is this world coming to?
The problem is that sales taxes are a patchwork nightmare. Not only do different states have different rates, different collection mechanisms, and different auditing requirements, so do counties and municipalities. Just doing sales taxes for a small company that does business in 3 or 4 states is a nightmare; for a national company, it would be almost impossible. Then if you don't collect the right amount of tax, when the offended entity gets around to auditing you they hand you a bill for the tax on every transaction you've ever done since their last audit. I can understand why Bezos is so adamant about this; it's not about civic duty, but about practical possibility. If the tax was flat across the country and there was a single unified mechanism for remitting it, I doubt he would care so much.
Brackets contain world's first nanosig, highly magnified:[.]
-- Abraham Lincoln, October 15, 1858 Debate at Alton
Sales tax is a regressive tax -- it hurts the poor the most, and is barely a burden on anyone beyond middle class. In addition, sales tax hurts local businesses, who have to compete not only on direct prices with the likes of Amazon, but then have to charge you an extra 5-10% as well. Instead, states should make up for lost sales tax with increased income tax. You'll get more consistent tax revenue, a healthier business community, and the added bonus of being able to know exactly how much you have to pay for stuff at the store before checkout without using a calculator.
Bring legal standards or STFU. "Ethical" and "civic" standards are subjective. That's one reason LAWS were written.
All the Slate statement boils down to is "we haet Amazon, herp derp".
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
I only repeat this every single time the subject comes up, but no one ever seems catch on. I repeat...
Since online retailers must SHIP product they are at a disadvantage with brick-and-mortar shops. Moreover, requiring sales tax collection for every state of every online retailer would create undue burden on MANY THOUSANDS of small business sellers and drive them out of business.
If taxes must be collected on online retail, there is only one sensible place to lay the burden -- on shipping. The shipping companies are already well equipped to handle per-state pricing structures and already have the computer infrastructure to easily add to a new line item.
:T:R:A:N:S:
Sidestepping for a moment the entire issue of the ethics of taxation, etc...
Early on, I supported the idea of keeping internet purchases tax-free, as an incentive to let things grow. In a similar vein, I support the idea of making goods manufactured in outer space tax-free. But the "need for incentive" time is long past. In fact, if anything the brick-and-mortar stores are now in serious trouble and the sales tax increases their disadvantage. I won't sit here and say that a sales tax on internet purchases the right, ethical, and Ayn Rand approved way of doing this, but it's the mechanism we've got.
It was Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., a justice of the US Supreme Court, who once stated that "taxes are the price we pay to live in a civil society."
In recent years, in a rather brutish way we've begun tugging at the threads that weave our civil society together. Is everything optimal? Certainly not. Is there waste? Certainly. I won't argue with either of those points. I argue with the rather careless tugging at the threads, and the inattention to what it's doing to the fabric of society, the seeming attitude that, "Keeping MY money is the most important thing." Once things start falling apart - and they are falling apart - we don't know where they will stop. It's easy to say, "All we need are the basics!" but beyond not everyone agreeing on what those basics are, we may not understand the underlying web of dependence on even those things we agree are basic. OK, we need firetrucks, but without roads and fire hydrants what good are they?
Sometimes I think the US is the only nation actively aspiring and working to achieve thrid-world status.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
All the complaints about number of jurisdictions and tax laws do not hold water. We could come up with a open XML based publication of tax code by each municipality.
The big companies have become very adept in convincing so many Americans that "All tax is bad, All tax is theft".
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact