Congress Takes Up Online Sales Tax

head_dunce writes "A bill introduced Thursday by a bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers seeks to make it easier for states to collect sales taxes stemming from online purchases. Amazon is among the e-retailers supporting the proposal, while a lobbying group representing eBay and Overstock.com stands opposed. From the article: '"Small businesses and states alike are suffering from the inability to collect due -- not new -- taxes from purchases made online," said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., adding the legislation is a "bipartisan, bicameral, common-sense solution that promotes states' rights and levels the playing field for our Main Street businesses."'"

Comments

Amazon's strategy

[crazyjj]

I've been noticing that Amazon has been spreading out physical presence in a lot of states in recent years, and in the process cutting deals with those states to suspend sales taxes specifically on them (though a few states wouldn't play ball). So it makes sense to me why they might actually support this. As a big employer in a lot of states, Amazon can continue to create and extend special deals to exempt themselves at the state level, while sticking competing online retailers who don't have so much local presence with a new tax burden. Plus, it also standardizes the now chaotic process a little more at the federal level.

Idiots gives suspended taxes

[ArchieBunker]

Only idiot politicians give out tax suspensions. Its happened several times with VW and Sony. As soon as the 10 year suspension was up both companies packed up and left.

Re:Idiots gives suspended taxes

[ShanghaiBill]

And yet they still benefited.

But on average they benefit less than if these special tax deals were not offered all. It is a version of the prisoners dilemma. You can only "win" if you defect while everyone else cooperates. But if everyone defects, we all lose.

Personally, I think these tax breaks are unconstitutional, because they violate the equal protection clause. Why should one business get a special exemption, when others (including their competitors) do not?

Re:Idiots gives suspended taxes

[Kelbear]

I support it...for businesses with high enough revenues. Small online shops are too small to bother with and the state tax calculations are too cumberson

States need tax revenues. Physical retail locations collect sales taxes, that provides tax revenues to the state. If online retail is able to bypass state taxes, that puts the retail locations at a disadvantage, and sales tax revenues drop for that state.

The State ends up with lower sales tax revenues, but they still need tax revenues. So they just end up raising my property taxes again, and physical retail continues to get screwed over. They're going to get their tax revenues one way or another because they have a budget to pay for, if high taxes are a problem we should fight them on their budget.

So in the meantime, we should just level the playing field with regards to collecting sales taxes. If physical retail should go out of business because it's inefficient, let it. But it shouldn't get pushed out of business by unfairly granting an advantage to online retailers. We're going to pay the same total amount of tax either way.

Re:Yay!

[Seumas]

Because local sales taxes, property taxes, state and federal income taxes, capital gains taxes, and all of the additional fees that people forget are actually just taxes isn't enough, apparently. And of course, the justification is always "well, but when you buy a video game that is shipped from another state, it has to travel over our roads -- so our state incurs an expense, even if the business you did business with is 2,000 miles away".

Of course, they conveniently ignore the fact that the companies doing the delivery of your product (UPS, FEDEX, DHL, etc) already pay taxes for doing business in that state for transporting your good. And buy gas, with included gas taxes for road usage. So, really, what individual states are demanding is additional revenue for incurring absolutely no cost or wear and tear. It's a money grab by a bunch of irresponsible pigs who can't handle what they're already given to budget with.

The big box stores go right along with it, because they're tired of the online competition. That's their only motivation. Somehow, they have this idea that if I have to pay taxes to Amazon for a product they'll deliver to my doorstep in 24-48hrs that I'll change my mind and drive a few miles to go buy the same thing for at least as much and for the same amount of sales tax in their store. Pretty shitty logic. It's less hassle to just go the online route, even with taxes. In fact, I'm more likely to do it just to spite the big box brick and mortar stores.

Anyway, it's a lost cause. It'll be taxed, because the pigs want it taxed. And it won't help anything, because the more money they get, the more they spend. It's just really depressing when you consider how much money you're handing over every April and how little will be done with it, compared to how much of an impact it could make to you. For the taxes I just paid this time around, I could have put a kid through four years of a good state college and had enough left over for them to buy a car. Or I could have helped my mother with her retirement after decades of working in a thankless and harrowing job with no real retirement opportunities or benefits. I could have covered her salary for three and a half years, making retirement a possibility for her. Instead, it'll probably go toward 20% of a drone purchase or installing two speed bumps. And that sort of waste is why people are so disgruntled with paying taxes. If they felt the work and money they are just handing over was being respected and used wisely, they'd feel that sense of "hey, it's my civic duty". When it's just being used as a free pot of money by a bunch of irresponsible pigs, you just feel like you're getting fucked.

Re:Capitalism

[Attila Dimedici]

A. It's called a cost of doing business. B. There's this stuff called "software" that is really good at tracking numbers automatically.

So, how much is it going to cost me to get that software? Who is going to update it every time one of those many municipalities changes their tax laws? How much will that cost me? Do you have a clue how complicated it is to keep track of the sales tax laws all throughout the U.S., with different municipalities charging sales tax on different things? Not everything is taxable in every municipality and what is taxable, or not taxable varies from location to location. In addition, How do I keep track of what tax jurisdiction a customer is in (hint, zip codes won't do the trick)?
Sure, you can say, "That's a cost of doing business," of course when you say that what you are saying is "I don't mind stacking the deck in favor of big business."