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Amazon To Collect Indiana Sales Tax In 2014
An anonymous reader writes with this quote from an Associated Press report:
"Amazon.com will begin collecting Indiana's 7 percent sales tax from customers in the state in 2014, under an agreement announced Monday. ... Gov. Mitch Daniels' office said Indiana will become the fourth state with such a tax collection agreement with Seattle-based Amazon. It follows a lawsuit by Indianapolis-based shopping mall owner Simon Property Group against the state over the issue and a lobbying push on state legislators by traditional retailers to end what they call an unfair price advantage for online retailers. The deal doesn’t include any other companies, but Daniels said the state is asking Congress to require all online businesses to collect state sales taxes."
Well good for them. I don't really see a problem with this.
Amazon are about to open a new distribution center near Richmond VA, and local retailers are a bit pissed that Amazon will not be collecting sales tax from VA residents.
Amazon purchases to remain free of Va. sales taxes
I am Slashdot. Are you Slashdot as well?
The state I live in, Texas, doesn't just have a state sales tax, we've also got county and city sales taxes- and each city and county sets their own, within guidelines set by the state. This is going to be a nightmare for retailers to keep up with, especially the little guys.
Oh well. It couldn't last forever. Stock up while you can before the feds step in.
I actually agree it's an unfair advantage over brick and mortar stores but I'll still miss nontax purchasing anyway.
The problem I have with this is not that it is necessarily wrong from any ethical standpoint, but that it would be a *massive* additional burden on small businesses. Any online company selling outside of its state would have to keep track of potentially 50 times as many different sales taxes (not all states have sales tax, I am aware), and then the rules each state has for remitting sales tax (when, where, etc). As someone who works at a small business (a couple dozen employees) I can tell you this would be a huge extra load for our financial department.
Long-term I would love to see a national sales tax replace many (all?) of the existing taxes, as it would be much cleaner and I think more fair as well. Then a central agency, maybe the IRS, could take in all sales tax revenue and split it up according to the feds + state of sale origin + state of company + local municipalities... and that, if done correctly, could lower the overall manpower burden of the tax system, freeing up more of the taxes for doing what they are actually for.
William George
This, along with the other states that already got in on this, sets a really bad precedent. Taxing companies that don't exist in that state is really overstepping the bounds of the U.S. Constitution. Can each state start setting their own tariffs next?
As if I needed another.
What I remember most about the state are the tolls on I80. They must like their taxes!
Godaddy is a scam and a ripoff.
They can claim that online retailers have an unfair advantage and pass this legislation. What they will discover is that the online retailers will still win customers' money.
Jhyrryl
Sounds like some enterprising person could establish a business with an address in another state that would act as your shipping address (which I'm sure is how they figure out whether to collect the tax) and then forward packages on to residents of Indiana. It would only be viable for expensive items, but it'd probably be worthwhile enough of the time.
The only beneficiary of this will be the state of Indiana. Amazon's prices are already (typically) lower than what I can get them for in a store and I don't have to put up with parking lots, shitty cashiers, nor someone trying to pressure me into getting the "extended warranty". I don't have to wander around the store trying to find it, and I don't have to deal with my items either not being carried by them or else out of stock. And now Amazon has the right to demand the same level of government services that the brick-and-mortar retailers are getting. So 3 years from now, when the anachronistic "main street" retailers finally figure out that sales tax wasn't the issue, it will likely be too late for them to do anything about it.
Retailers gripe about people using their shop for browsing, then buying on Amazon --- but nobody mentions the people (I'm one) who use Amazon for reading reviews, while they're shopping and buying in the retail store.
As far as the tax goes --- I don't buy it. Local taxes help pay for local services. The fireman will come if there's a fire in their shop. Amazon already pays taxes in the location where they do business, and the fireman will come if there's a fire in their warehouse. And UPS and other shippers pay taxes where they operate, too.
And Amazon has been collecting taxes from me for ages. What the hell were those taxes?
Unless they forget to pay their annual fee for fire dept. services.... http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/07/fire-dept-watches-home-burn-because-family-didnt/
I live in Indiana. I am not fond of sales taxes, but even less fond of "use" taxes.
Indiana has attempted to tax internet and out-of-state purchases for years with a so-called "use" tax. There is a line on the income tax form where you are supposed to add up all out of state purchases where sales tax was not paid, and pay the equivalent sales tax rate for the right to use your purchased items in Indiana. The absurd thing about a "use" tax is it doesn't apply to purchases you paid other state's sales tax on.
If you register a new car bought out of state, and you paid less sales tax on the car than Indiana would have charged, Indiana will charge you the difference in when you apply for title in Indiana. The only way around this is to title the car in the other state and transfer it to Indiana latter.
First off, none of us like paying taxes, including sales tax. This legislation in question won't do away with sales taxes, and the discussion here should not really be about the legality of sales taxes.
With that disclaimer out of the way, I agree with the business owners. If I can buy something on line and not pay sales tax so get the good cheaper, how is that fair to a local store that must charge the sales tax? Simply put, it's not fair at all. Taxes should be based on the consumer's location, not the outlet's location. We do the same with insurance premiums, some interest rates, etc..
The loophole for internet stores hurts smaller businesses. It favors large companies that can pack up and move to places with the lowest tax rates to attract consumers. Much the same way that interest rate premiums favor the state with the highest legal rates *caugh* Delaware *caugh*.
As long as taxes are legal, I am all for making them as fair as possible.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Amazon had a nice sell today on Kindle versions of several textbooks, and I noticed that I was charged my state's sales tax to download them (no Amazon datacenters are in my state). IMHO, Amazon should place the name/picture of the legislator responsible right next to that line item. Preferably holding money bags.
This is really overdue. Not only does sales tax exemption create an unfair advantage for out-of-state retailers (which is bad for the local and thus national economy), it depletes funding for civilization. And yes, Amazon does use public infrastructure to operate its business and no, shippers do not pay the Amazon's share of that infrastructure. Amazon uses all sorts of local services. Amazon operates as part of our civilization and thus should be contributing to its upkeep.
Tax is for suckers who are too stupid to avoid paying it.
They tax your money when you earn it. They tax it when you spend it. And they continue taxing you so long as you keep what you spent it on.
Also, they tax you extra for living in specific regions and again for working in specific regions, sometimes.
The only to escape taxes is to be very rich.
Humans are awesome.
Expatriate ripoff. The kids are living in the US receiving your mail including online bargain sales, or vice versa. With periodic pickups from travellers either way, state use/sales are a form of extortion, ripping off out of state residents. The "commercial license" or "refund application" bs just doesn't work. Guess we should buy direct from China or India, skip the middle (tax)man.
Isn't it funny as American consumption starts to dive, that suddenly we think collecting state taxes outside of the state boundaries will somehow help states remain competitive? By the same logic, we could tax imports from China to aid American industry... unfortunately, it would just cause more people to enter poverty, since incomes have declined (after accounting for inflation) and the only thing maintaining American quality of life is substitution of goods (i.e., cheaper goods trying to do the same thing, just not for as long).
So, government should protect high-priced retailers from big-bad open market, since the retailers aren't competitive. Such an argument isn't capitalist and only represents the corruption within the American government (i.e., through lobbying and kickbacks).
Let me get his straight.. Just because the person BUYING the goods lives in a place with sales taxes, they should pay that same tax no matter where they are buying from?
So.. let's say I live in Indiana, and I go visit family in Seattle. (Everyone with me so far?...) I go to a bookstore in Seattle, choose a book to buy and stand in line at the checkout counter. The cashier checks my ID and adds another x% to the price of my book because I live in Indiana.
If they really want it to be fair, it should cut both ways. I propose that all brick and mortar stores in Indiana be required to collect any taxes required by the buyer's place of residence. (I'm not sure how much of an international destination anything in Indiana is.. but this should of course also include VAT for the UK, etc. as well....)
What service does the state provide that justifies charging a sales tax rate to out-of-state-businesses comparable to those of in-state businesses? While there is some use--i.e. the roads--for the most part the out-of-state business requires fewer state resources, and the state is not justified in collecting that tax on the basis of the business presence. That being said, sales taxes are formally taxes on people, which makes them superior in certain ways to income taxes--because they're closer to taxing *consumption*. Thus the state taxes the consumption of things consumed within the state. The problem with this, of course, is that it isn't nearly so redistributive as the income tax; the advantage is that it actually taxes monies other than ordinary income.
Meh. I'm not going to think about this now.
-- IANAL, this isn't legal advice, and definitely isn't legal advice for you. Also, Squee!
Yes, we probably need to raise taxes, but what we really really really have to do is cut spending.
I disagree that spending cuts are the major priority; we could cut plenty of things plenty deeply, yes, but there's really no sustainable path on which we can continue to charge as little as we do in tax. It's basically impossible to charge the lowest rates in the developed world while simultaneously dominating the planet in military power AND science AND culture AND economic production, yet people seem to believe we can do just that if only we cut spending and lower taxes even further.
But so long as you admit taxes should go up, I can agree with looking at spending first. It's certainly responsible to use what you have more carefully before you ask for more. Just so long as you're not one of those dumb fucks who thinks cutting spending alone can fix the problem we'll get along fine....
I know that's inflammatory language, but seriously: who can be stupid enough to look at our federal budget and think we can even balance the deficit, much less pay off some debt, with spending cuts alone. It's a truly asinine notion, one which any fourth grade math assignment can easily refute, and yet it captivates (imprisons, at this point) a major political party.
My brain almost refuses to believe that anyone could be so ignorant, so selfish and deluded, as to think fully 30% of our federal budget is waste and inexcusable handouts, all of which can be slashed without any remorse or negative consequences at all.
And if you really want to have fun, look at the things Republicans want to cut out, and then look at the fraction of the budget they represent. The NIH, the NSF, foreign aid, the national endowment for the arts, public broadcasting money....all of that put together isn't even 0.5%, and yet they harp on each of those things, individually and extensively, like they're the pinnacle of waste and socialist excess.
God dammit, I'm gonna need some heart medication soon.
we have some of the highest taxes in the world.
What acid-dropping, Tea Party dipshit moderated this balls-out lie 'Insightful'?
Seriously, there's just no more gentle way to say that. American taxes would have to almost exactly double to become the highest in the world; as it is we're barely in the top fifty highest taxing nations.
This crap is a head-ache for anyone who builds ecommerce sites.. each state has different taxes for each county, that is if you're lucky they didn't just draw imaginary borders like in NY. AND these rates must be arbitrary -- my client selling online goods in Colorado, for instance, has to charge different taxes for each county but when it comes time to pay up, they don't ask where your buyers are from, they just want a lump sum of money and the state decides what to do with it. We're just charging a flat rate and supposedly it evens out.
All of Europe already does this. If I buy books on amazon.co.uk for delivery to a UK address I pay no tax because books have no tax on them in th UK. If I deliver them to an Italy address then I pay 4% and so on because that is the tax on books in Italy. You pay the product specific tax depending on the delivery address as that is where the goods end up (same if you bought at a bricks+mortar store). Here is the Amazon list http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=502578
So states just need to publish the tax rates for each class of item ideally to a central site to make it simple for smaller companies to manage and ideally permit small businesses to only apply local tax rates irrespective of delivery address.
If you ask me, it's becoming more clear all the time that it's not as simple as the American public "getting what we voted for, or not voting at all" that's caused the mess we're in.
The system has always been heavily biased towards only the wealthy succeeding in a political career, but that's evolved from a perfectly acceptable reality (where wealthy folks who actually cared about the future of the country could dedicate some of their time and resources towards steering it in what they felt was the right direction) to a playground for the uber-rich. Today's leaders feel like they're above the law, entitled to any self-serving deals they're able to strike, and are part of an elite who only care about success for their own political cohorts and connections.
We're not really given realistic options to vote for, in most elections. It's very polarized, with candidates standing on the "right" or the "left" and pretending either of the two choices are the only sane/realistic ones a voter can make. All we get at the presidential level are lies and empty promises, about concepts as basic as caring about the "poor" or more recently, "the hard-working middle class". In reality, both sides only see the "poor" as a useful political tool and the "hard working middle class" as a group to sap resources from while it lasts. Heck, we've got numerous instances where a politician was a well-known Democrat yet he ran on a Republican ticket at some point, because nobody else was on the ticket for a given election. The political ideologies be dammed ... they're just treated as available slots.
The claim that our taxes aren't really that high for a developed nation is VERY questionable. When I see that claim thrown around most of the time, someone's trying to do an "apples to apples" comparison of percentages of income paid out in Federal income tax, or something along those lines. It's much more difficult to determine what the average American really pays, total, in taxes - because we've gotten so creative at taxing in little chunks, all over the place. Gasoline tax, sales tax, property tax, inheritance tax, retirement tax, import or export taxes, tax on profits earned from investments, govt. licenses of various sorts, and even traffic tickets all play a role. Additionally, some of these taxes are increased by an order of magnitude depending on the situation. EG. Sales tax suddenly jumps up in some parts of my community, if you buy from stores in special "tax corridors" where the local community voted to take in extra funds for some project or other.
Yay for stealing money!
Quickbooks doesn't work with webservices, dummy.
I'm vigorously opposed to sales tax in general, and thus despise the idea of paying taxes on Amazon goods.
That said, I'm getting very tired of the several dozen comments per Amazon-related thread about how hard it is to manage the different tax zones, what a massive unfair burden it is for online retailers, how even attempting to comply would obliterate any seller smaller than Amazon or eBay in a blinding flash of red-tape, etc.
It's not that hard; not even at this moment is it anywhere near as difficult as you claim, but under any decently written law it would be a complete non-issue. The state could simply require the municipal party responsible for any layer of sales tax - mayors' offices, county commissioners, etc. - to enter their tax rules and proportions into a state database in a standard format. Then any moron could write code to parse that database, populate their sales system, and correctly tax a solid 95% of purchases with no further effort. In fact, it would be perfectly reasonable if the state required cities and counties to enter into my hypothetical database the correct tax jurisdictions for each and every property they contained. They already have to assess and charge those lands correctly for property and utility tax; it's just one more small step in a dance of surveying, assessment, and classification they already perform every year.
So there's no good reason sales taxation couldn't become easier, for physical and online stores alike, under a properly written e-commerce law. Come up with some real arguments, please. I may agree with you on the underlying point, that sales tax and complex taxes in general both suck, but it makes me nauseated seeing supporters of my ideals hiding en masse behind such a piss-poor construct.
Look. The top 1% of Americans control how much of the GDP? 40%? and they take 24% of all the income.
So that number is BS. 50% of Americans do not pay income tax, at all, and of those, more than 33% receive more money than they put in. The upper 51-95% are pinched, hard. We have some of the most regressive taxes in the world, but only for the middle to lower rich class.
The last version of quickbooks I have installed doesn't have the option to pay appropriate taxes for all government entities involved for a small scale E-merchant. I know my local bookkeeper can't handle that either. I imagine Quickbooks could start adding features for this but damn, sending checks to every city/state/town is gonna be annoying as hell. I know I have to pay my local township taxes in a check or money order and assume this will be the case for almost every entity. More expense, joy!
Then you get to the harder issues. Forget writing your own ecommerce site. Forget using open source e-commerce software. To keep track of this data, which could end up making a company liable for large fines, means you'll have to hire a company since you can't trust to be indemnified otherwise. This is actually a huge win for amazon, you're going to have to use amazon or ebay or other large companies just to keep your small businesses e-commerce operating. That could up the cost significantly.
In America, here's how it goes: In Texas (no *state* income tax, thank my forefathers!): 1. Federal Income tax: 50% goes out in the form of welfare (50% in the form of the Earned Income Credit (EIC) given to moms who have way more kids than they can afford and make less than $15/hr; 30% to support foreign wars I do not wish or condone, etc.). 2. Property tax (on houses/apartments): Pays for the school districts, fire department, police department, etc. 3. Employer Tax: 6.5% of everyone's salary: Pays 1/2 of Social Security/medicare for old people w/o enough money and unemployment benefits for people who do not have in-demand job skills. 4. Gas Tax: Pays for the creation and maintenance of the roads and highways. 5. Glutton Tax (extra sales tax) on cigarettes, alcohol, etc. 6. Sales Tax: Pays for city and state upkeep, governance, and food stamps. Largely stuff I don't really care about.
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
You built it stupid then. As another poster put it, use the full zip code with the +4 digits.
we are in indiana. we sell online and i don't understand the governor on this one. making people submit to a sales tax is -- to me -- another SOPA cable, that is trying to do whatever it is. it's like the patriot act for the internet:
shoved down your throat, no matter how much you DON'T WANT IT.
THis is SH%T
Shipping and 7% tax is just a start - they will be collecting county tax next and there will be no reason to buy from them. What ever happened to the law protecting inter-state commerce?
Just leave the sales tax box blank - "enter your sales tax rate here _____"
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
It unfair to local businesses so we have two choices:
1) Tax Amazon sales .. ahhahhahahhhahahh! )
2) Lower/eliminate the Indiana tax ( hahahahahahahahahahaha! hoooo... shit thats funny
This sig is not paradoxical or ironic.
but I really wonder who the hell they pull such blatant behavior off.
I like in the bay area (high calif. taxes) and yet a purchase I made via amazon came from almost literally across the street from me, was originated from there due to the return address, but I got it tax-free somehow. and it did take a long time to get here, more than 3 days iirc.
the 'sparks nevada' hack they do is one thing (just outside the calif border but very close so that they can ship to cali quickly) but when they sell goods from a few miles away and ship them, its incredible that their lawyers and accountants have found ways to evade paying taxes on this.
like I said, I have mixed feelings. I like the savings but it IS true that they are shirking the law big-time.
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Looks like "Abandon Ship, the Titanic is Sinking" is in order.
Unless the USA State Depto aka Hillery C. (aka HillBilly) gets her way and criminalizes all USA citizenship and all USA online activity.
Of course all Federal Employees of the Senior Executive Service will be exempt from taxes and home visits by the TSA.
Lovely that Mommy Dearist.
And it is done. Not to mention Rolex watches are pretty cheap on amazon compared to everywhere else :)
...In Illinois should file a similar suit against Indiana, seeing as so many residents of Illinois purchase things in Indiana to avoid the higher Illinois taxes. Since we are talking about being fair.
Does Amazon have any warehouses in state? Aren't the taxes for sending and receiving goods already being handled in the shipping price? UPS, Fedex, and DHL are the ones actually using the existing infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.).
There is no logical reason for Amazon collecting sales tax on behalf of these people. It drives the price for goods up, making Amazon less competitive with other firms (who have the in-state advantage of a physical presence near the customer), and allows for a beach-head for increasing levels of bureaucracy in an otherwise healthy company.
*Puts on funny hat* But of course, we need to continue to bow to our idiot overlords (whose brethren nationwide perpetuate a widespread belief that they have never sat through an accounting class nor know what one might look like, nor have a friend who has sat through an accounting class nor do they have a friend who might know what an accounting class looks like) and their omnipresent sycophants ("Dude, we need to collect the taxes, you know, to keep things 'fair'" -> I, like most people capable of basic reasoning and mathematical understanding, realize that the word 'fair' tends to be redefined on a case by case basis). I'm *this* (presses index finger to thumb) close to paying these people to have a backbone.
I am John Hurt.
great... yet another company that will migrate their business overseas...
Sure, but the flip side of that is the people screaming "make the rich pay their fair share!!!" as if that will fix the entire problem. That's not going to be even close to enough.
That's quite true. Making only the rich pay more will not be enough; not by most persons' definition of 'rich', anyway.
What bothers me most about the 'rich paying more' debate, however, is the lying responses from the politicians and think-tanks paid to glorify the wealthy, justify flat-taxes, and vilify the bottom 2/3 as selfish profligates sucking at the socialist teat. You see bullshit statements like "even if we took the entire income of the top 1% every year we'd only solve 1/6 of the deficit" or "even if the marginal rate on the top quintile went up by 15% a that would only fix 1/2 of the deficit alone, much less the debt" or one Republican candidate's favorite "54% of Americans pay no tax at all.
First, the top 1% generally have assets far in excess of their yearly 'Income', or even their real income. It's almost outright lying to look at a guy with assets in the billions and say that taking all of his Income every year wouldn't help because his income is only in the tens of millions. Not to mention that tons of that money - for many of the 1% virtually all of it- stays permanently in investment vehicles or goes through enough (technically legal) money laundering to make a Mafioso blush. It's either never technically income despite being economic power, solely controlled by an individual, which is equal to the lifetime output of dozens or hundreds or thousands of people working at the median national salary, or it was hidden from taxation outright. Either rewrite the tax code literally from scratch, or punish their decades of shirking by taxing the extremely wealthy on their assets (even as a one-time event), and the top 1% could indeed put a huge frickin dent in our budget problems.
Second, quintile-based arguments conveniently ignore the fact that even the second quintile from the top bottoms out at $55,000. That's already an acceptable living in all but a handful of cities, and the numbers only go up from there. In most cities the top 40% can easily afford to pay another 1 or 5 or 10% in federal tax per year, to say nothing of what the top 20% and top 1% can afford. I am not saying it wouldn't hurt, but real taxes - the kind that can actually sustain a first-world nation with 350 million people, the world's best educational and scientific capabilities, and a military bigger than the entire planet put together ever had up until the first world war - might have to hurt a bit sometimes.
But the worst of all is probably the argument that the bottom x% pay nothing at all (those greedy little parastic fuckers!). The truth is, the bottom x% pay no final income tax, after their deductions and refunds are processed; when you ask non-partisan analysts and think-tanks who specialize in tax they'll tell you that even the very bottom 1% pay at least 15% of their income in various taxes on property, utilities, retail sales, where even the top 1% pay only 30-35% across all types of tax.
I just can't seem to feel bad that people with six, seven, eight, and fucking nine figure incomes pay twice as much tax as the dirt poor. Can you? A lot of people, from the filthy rich to the upper-middle-middle class who just wish they were, need to shut up and pay their damn share. Before hey find people with pitchforks at their doorsteps. I'm not some militant communist whacko, not in the least, but I'm also not kidding when I say that. Just because the standard of living is so high that only the destitute in America have any serious complaints to make versus any other nation or time in history doesn't mean people don't notice the looting and abuse going on. Just because they have TV and cell phones and generally have heat in the winter doesn't mean the bottom 40% are happy struggling to pay for their healthc
The Amazon's and other large companies can afford the extra development and work to collect taxes at all the various rates and get it to the states. States have been pushing for this a long time and well eventually get it. The will be a burdon on the small internet businesses and cut into the slim margins they have to compete with the large companies.
What I would rather see is a ban on states collecting internet sales taxes, and a Federal internet sales tax. Not that I want to pay more, but have a single federal tax would make collection and payment for businesses of all sizes simpler. Then the Fed's could take the collected taxes and comes with some way to divide it up between all the states.
Does Amazon have a physical presence in state (Indiana)? A warehouse, perhaps? If not, why are they collecting sales tax from in-state citizens on behalf of Indiana? Isn't the actual infrastructure being used, that of the roads, bridges, and so forth, being paid for out of the shipping costs from the various shipping companies, who have an actual physical presence in state, and are actually using said infrastructure?
By virtue of taxing (effectively, functionally) an out of state company for infrastructure that it is not using, Indiana is favoring in-state competition. One argument, often repeated, is that the lower cost of not having a physical infrastructure in state is 'unfair' to competitors. I would counter that the spatial locality of the competitors with an in-state presence more than outweighs the cost advantage allowed by a company operating from out of state. It bothers me greatly that Indiana is introducing, for lack of a better phrase, a 'tariff system' inside the Union; now, I am not as up to date as others with the speed and change of politics, but I am fairly certain that that erstwhile commerce clause in an often cited document might forbid this kind of behavior.
How much longer must we bow to these idiot overlords (whose brethren nationwide continue to perpetuate the widespread belief that they have never attended an accounting class, let alone seen the inside of one, nor do they keep the company of anyone who has attended an accounting class, nor do they keep the company of anyone who has seen the inside of an accounting class), and their omnipresent sycophants (who will put forth endless arguments about 'fairness of taxing' of which two things might be noted: 1.) that 'fairness' is redefined on a case by case basis, and 2.) they will always be arguing for someone else's taxes to be increased, never decreased)? I am *this* (presses index finger to thumb) close to paying these sycophants to have a backbone, if only to see what might happen.
As for Amazon itself, the introduction of more bureaucracy into its inner workings should only decrease its competitiveness, decrease its earnings, increase the pain and sufferings of the programmers, lawyers, and business people alike as they are forced to spend bountiful amounts of time and good money to implement and maintain a system of questionable utility. Again, some will argue that "it takes but the wave of a magic wand" to devise and implement such a system, but as any programmer worth his or her salt will calmly explain, code does not write itself, and increasing complexity is rarely seen as a 'good thing.' From the lawyer's standpoint, yes, they are accruing billable hours, but they are also costing their client money for little to no benefit, which is not allow for a healthy relationship between company and firm. And finally, from a business perspective, they are going to lose customers over this change, profits will decrease, and the company may be faced with the unsavory task of having to collect sales tax for everyone else (this change creates a precedent that others will soon exploit).
I am John Hurt.
The US would be much better off if we jettisoned those ignorant, illiterate hicks in the south. And those dumbfucks in the midwestern and northern states.
As a moderate living in a "blue" state I am getting sick of subsidizing all these states full of the proudly stupid.
It is funny how all but one "red" state receives more money from the feds than they pay out and I don't think any of those evil liberal states do the same.
The US has simply too much redneck trailer-trash to be able to move easily.
Time to carve away the dead-beat conservative states.
Despite a ruling to the contrary by the Supreme Court, I don't believe Congress actually has Constitutional authority to do that.
Perhaps I am wrong, but I believe Amazon has a "physical presence" in the states that are now forcing it to pay sales taxes.
But the whole reason that every (or nearly every) state has a "use" tax in the first place is that Congress has no authority to collect state taxes, nor does one state have the power to tax transactions that take place in another.
Zip codes uniquely identify city blocks; if a city block is split across tax jurisdictions hen something is majorly effed up.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ZIP_code#ZIP.2B4
I think zip codes are sufficiently fine grained and you're just too lazy to type the complete zip code.
Simons Property Group seems to be down right evil... I first heard about them when they tried to close down a small shoe store:
http://www.kare11.com/news/article/952842/396/Ralphs-Shoe-Service-finds-new-life-new-home-in-Richfield
"Hmm, I sense the possibility of a science fiction story here. Some alternate future where "even footing" is not accomplished by removing impediments from those who are limited, but by adding impediments to those who are unfairly gifted."
Great Minds and all that! Kurt Vonnegut already covered that! It's a story called Harrison Bergeron. There's a couple of modern indie remakes on the web too.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
The thing you need to realize about Indiana property taxes is why they aren't as high as a lot of other places, for a lot of people they have quite literally doubled in the last 10 years.
As a person in the "second quintile" you noted above (though at the very bottom of it) I can tell you that a 10% increase in tax rates would essentially obliterate any ability for me to save for my retirement. I am intelligent and frugal about my spending and live in an area with a pretty low cost of living (and in Indiana, in fact, so I now get to pay this tax. This annoys me, but I don't have any deep seeded issues with it, aside from being a naturally cheap, err, frugal, person).
I am in agreement that we need to review what happens with the most wealthy in this country, no doubt, but the very defining of wealthy is difficult. A high percentage of the people protesting AGAINST the wealthy have lived pretty easy lives in comparison to some of my friends.
It's a difficult game to play, and no one can agree on the rules, which is why I don't see how this is going to get resolved anytime soon.
Just another ignorant American.
Ah yes. This too is one of my favorite Republican talking points as well. I went out to lunch with a couple I work with, one of whom supports the Tea Party, and another who is certainly right leaning. During our lunch one of them did quote this, which to me just strikes a nerve, because you are right. They don't make enough money to be taxed by the feds. One person's retort was then that they shouldn't be allowed to vote. I just looked at him in amazement that he would say that. Actually speechless. I also brought up the fact, like you, that they still are paying taxes (state income tax, sales tax, etc.), but they just brushed it of because it was almost a cognitive dissonance from what they heard. I knew it was a pointless argument to make with them, but I would at least try to impart to them some wisdom as to why they paid no federal taxes instead of just blindly quoting the 54% as a given fact. Sigh...I can only do so much.
I live in Indiana and property taxes only recently went down after a massive spike a few years back because of outrage. I was one of those outraged, having also lost an exemption. Also, I just sold my house in a short sale at 60% of the original value, but was taxed at 100%.
Sales Tax History of Indiana
Oct. 24, 1963* 2%
May 1, 1973 4%
Jan. 1, 1983 5%
Dec. 1, 2002 thru March 31, 2008 6%
April 1, 2008 thru present 7%
http://www.in.gov/dor/4159.htm
Yeah, we got a 1% cap, and 2% rental and 3% business property tax rate, but we got it at the cost of ever increasing sales taxes. It's just stealing from Peter to pay Paul, and makes it even harder on poorer Hoosiers.
Simon Properties don't give a damn about residents here. They think they will somehow save their GAP and Sunglass Hut malls with this stunt, rolling back the clock to the 80's. Hoosiers are fiscal conservatives. We damn well remember who raises our taxes, and Simon is on that list.
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I would argue that property taxes in many cases are too high when I can look at the waste that city governments have. Also you do realize that in the US we spend more per student than every other nation on education so I wouldn't say it is a lack of money. This is especially true when you look at charter schools. I don't know how they are in other states but in Minnesota they can't pick and choose students and made worse by the public schools. A favorite tactic by the regular public schools is to use them as a dumping ground for difficult students by suggesting to parents of difficult students that they enroll them at a charter school where they can get special attention. They also only get state and federal money, no local money, yet when run properly do show good results, Granted there are a number of them that are run very poorly which tarnishes their image and makes them more difficult to be accepted.
Time to offend someone
It's that simple.
I really like it how you think it okay for you to decide that I can "afford" to pay more in taxes. Why is my share (yes, I almost make six figures.) bigger than yours? Why if I make more money (and spend more, and pay more of my money in taxes on those purchases) should I give more. And what is more? Do you mean a higher percentage of my income? Or a set dollar amount?
After Federal, State, local income tax, sales tax, property tax, My family pays close to 45% of our income in taxes. I am paying for my daughter to go to college, (We make to much to get good scholarship money) my son goes to private school (I still pay taxes for public schools. How is that fair?)
Maybe I should quit my job, go on welfare, and then my daughter could get her school paid for by you (assuming you work and pay taxes). She is Hispanic and bilingual. Maybe she could pose as an immigrant and get more money for that too?
They're also quite low as percentage of income for well-off people, especially in Indiana, so I don't get the angst. If you make $80k and own a $300k house, the maximum property tax is $3k, i.e. equivalent to a 3.75% income tax.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Where I live, the government looks at what it needs and the appraised property values and calculates how much to charge. Just because my property value hasn't gone up (or perhaps even decreased due to the recession) our property taxes could go up to meet the city's and county's needs.
http://www.taxfoundation.org/news/show/250.html
I know this data is from 2009, but look at the abstract. The top 1% earned 16.9% adjusted gross income (AGI), yet paid 36.7% of all federal individual income taxes. That seems more than their fair share. We cannot penalize getting wealthy or people won't have the incentive to succeed. I'm not in the 1% (I earn less than $325k per year), but even $325k doesn't seem uber-rich.
I am all for applying a standard deduction then collecting a flat tax. We just need someone with more data than I to calculate what that standard deduction is (x dollars for self, y dollars for each dependent) and what percent above that goes to the fed.
This sounds like a programming nightmare for an ecommerce site. Eventually we will need SDK's to manage the ever changing business rules of all the sales tax laws of all 50 states.
Property, Utilities, and Retail Sales are NOT taxed at the Federal level, and so have nothing to do with the Federal deficit. You can't argue that because people are paying sales tax to their local municipality and state that they're somehow making up for not paying their share of Federal taxes. The Federal and local governments don't share one big pot of tax money.
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I don't have to put up with parking lots, shitty cashiers, nor someone trying to pressure me into getting the "extended warranty".
Nor do you have the chance to try before you buy to make sure that a product won't be unusably unergonomic for you. In addition, the product descriptions on Amazon don't necessarily have all the information printed on the product's package due to the 2000 character description limit, so you're more likely to end up buying something incompatible with what you already own. Finally, returns cost shipping and handling as opposed to just returning the product next time you're already out to buy groceries.
Or because the majority of the populace are so apathetic that they won't research the candidates on their own, instead believing what MPAA-controlled TV news tells them so that they end up voting in advertisers' interests.
Unless you are living in the midst of a large city, an $80K salary and $300K house is living pretty damn large in Indiana.
Much more common would be a $40K salary and a ~$100K house.
Check out my world simulator thingy.
A lot of people, from the filthy rich to the upper-middle-middle class who just wish they were, need to shut up and pay their damn share. Before they find people with pitchforks at their doorsteps.
Pay the Danegeld!
Pay the Danegeld!
I rely on the Amazon reviews for that as well as other review sites and go to the manufacturer's site for additional information when Amazon doesn't have it.
Say you're planning to buy a a laptop, PDA, phone, tablet, or other portable electronic device. How do review sites help you figure out how big and heavy the item is and whether you'll find the display and the keyboard, trackpad, or touch screen acceptable to interact with for extended periods of time without cramping up?
My only question is how much in sales is Amazon prepared to lose? Charging local sales tax is the kiss of death to online retailers. If I'm any example, just between the time I see the final bill and make payment if I see sales tax added I void the sale and seek the item elsewhere.
Nice rant bro, but you lost me when you compare percentages as if they were absolute values. From 15% to 30% may be double the percentage, but it is certainly not "twice as much money", and suggesting it is smells of intellectual dishonesty.
In the end, the budget spends actual dollars. And in dollars, the "damn share" that you want to extort from the ones you consider rich may very well be 10 times more that the ones you're comparing to.
I doubt this is going to make me shop locally since they charge much more for everything. The only places I shop at is Walmart locally.