Internet Sales Tax Vote This Week In US Senate

SonicSpike excerpts from CNet's coverage of the latest in the seemingly inevitable path toward consistently applied Internet sales taxes for U.S citizens: "Internet tax supporters are hoping that a vote in the U.S. Senate as early as today will finally give them enough political leverage to require Americans to pay sales taxes when shopping online. Sens. Mike Enzi (R-Wy.) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) are expected to offer an amendment to a Democratic budget resolution this week that, by allowing states to 'collect taxes on remote sales,' is intended to usher in the first national Internet sales tax." There goes one of the best ways to vote with your dollars.

Comments

Should be collected by the feds

[MightyYar]

If the tax crosses state borders, then it should be collected by the Feds - or at least the rules should be national and consistent. Collect, say, 5% from everyone and then distribute it according to billing address. Making merchants deal with 50 different tax codes is onerous. I hope this bill is defeated.

Re:Should be collected by the feds

[Attila Dimedici]

You mean an up t odate database all the states and all of the municipalities within those states that collect sales tax...and don't forget that you need a map that tells you which taxing municipality every address in every state is in. Admittedly you do not currently need to know that for the states that do not charge sales tax at any level. Oh yeah, you also need to know what items sales tax applies to in every sales tax charging municipality in the country and don't forget those special tax holidays that many of them pass each year that only apply to certain types of items out of those they otherwise charge sales tax on.

And, sorry, but a database of zip codes does NOT match up to the boundaries of taxing jurisdictions.