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US Senate Passes National Internet Sales Tax Mandate
SonicSpike writes with the news that the U.S. Senate yesterday "passed a nonbinding proposal to allow states to collect sales tax on Internet sellers that have no presence within their borders. The proposal was an amendment to a 2014 budget bill that the Senate debated Friday. It was pushed by Senators Mike Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, and Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, and was designed to give backers a sense of whether they had enough votes to push forward with final legislation to impose an Internet sales tax. The vote showed they have plenty of backing to overcome any filibuster seeking to block a final sales tax bill."
Shouldn't change life in Delaware much. We don't have sales tax, period.
This isn't going to be good for anyone.
So, big deal. We all know how much the big spenders would love more money to waste though.
Send the bums home!
So let me get this straight, it is only National Internet Sales Tax. This sounds like a good way to stimulate all economies except the US. I guess I will be buying more stuff from foreign locations. The US already made that cheaper than buying from the US prior with huge import and shipping cost reductions... now not having tax. The only thing the US had for them before was quicker shipping by about a week or two.
I think this will be a nightmare to regulate... although I am sure many online sites will get around it by it not being a first sale doctrine anymore. The store buys things and then resell as second hand items...
Same in Oregon for pretty much anything that isn't tobacco or gasoline, and only one of those are practical for purchasing online.
OTOH, I am curious as to whether or not some neighboring state (*cough* California *cough*) would decide to charge me their sales tax rate for anything that an online retailer would sell to me if it comes out of a warehouse that is sitting within their borders...
It'll change a few dynamics, to say the least.
I do recall only one site online charging any sales tax - DAZ Productions used to charge sales tax to their Utah customers (back when I was one), because they themselves are in Utah. I'm sure there are similar setups out there...
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Until you get charged sales tax by the state in which the internet retailer exists.
More data, damnit!
Wrong. If they have a presence they already have to collect and remit sales tax as part of current State laws. This will just mean the States can collect tax on all sales. Right now most online sales go untaxed.
It is not a National tax. It will just allow the States, not the Feds, to collect existing sales taxes on online sales.
The knee jerk reactions around here are amazing sometimes.
If they have a presence then the state will collect sales tax. The concept here is that an online purchase made from an out-of-state company will be taxed by the state the purchaser resides in. California is already trying this by "requesting" taxes from out-of-state purchases on individual tax returns. I guess this bill is supposed to legitimize this practice.
Uh. Not having a presence was how they were avoiding taxes in the first place. By opening a local office, they become subject to the local taxes.
Nor is it a tax of mass destruction.
Gently reply
They've been trying to pass legislation like this for the last seven Congressional terms, this makes it eight.
http://www.netchoice.org/library/sales-tax-collection-myth-vs-reality/ ...legislation has been proposed in each of the past seven Congresses that would reverse decades of history and legal precedent preventing out–of-state sales tax collection, and another bill is being circulated for cosponsors by Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY). It would impose on all states and all retailers the provisions of the now voluntary Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement (SSTA). SSTA proponents have touted this measure as a simplified, streamlined method for collecting sales tax. Unfortunately, the reality is far different – the SSTA promises to increase significantly the complexity and compliance burdens for interstate sellers.
I'm sure there are similar setups out there...
Yeah, they're EVERYWHERE. OMG, THE REALITY! IT BURNS!
I think you are basically correct. Amazon can claim that all sales were from Bermuda (or anywhere else) which doesn't have to follow US laws. I suppose we will off-shore everything except Americans.
Ray Seyfarth, ray.seyfarth@gmail.com, http://rayseyfarth.blogspot.com
This was a non-binding resolution. yes, it's the start of the slippery slope, but it's not a real law (yet).
Massachusetts does the same thing... but they allow you to 'pay' a $50 fine in order to not itemize it... hmmm
Many MA residents go shopping in Southern NH malls in order to not pay sales tax.
No, the law today dictates that having a presence within the state already requires that they pay sales tax. This is why Amazon and Apple already charge sales tax, as does any other company that has as little as a warehouse or fulfillment center located within your state. As it stands currently the state of the recipient can't charge sales tax if the company has no presence at all within the state and that is what this legislation intends to change. If this legislation passes then all companies will be required to charge the sales tax based on the jurisdiction of the recipient.
Today:
1. Someone living in New York orders a product online from a company based in New York. The company charges New York sales tax.
2. Someone living in New York orders a product online from a company based in New Jersey. That company has a warehouse in New York. The company charges New York sales tax.
3. Someone living in New York orders a product online from a company based in New Jersey. That company has no presence in New York. The company does not charge any sales tax.
If this Legislation Passes:
1. Someone living in New York orders a product online from a company based in New York. The company charges New York sales tax.
2. Someone living in New York orders a product online from a company based in New Jersey. That company has a warehouse in New York. The company charges New York sales tax.
3. Someone living in New York orders a product online from a company based in New Jersey. That company has no presence in New York. The company charges New York sales tax.
Of course there is the question as to what happens with international companies and various reasons why this won't work 100%, but that probably doesn't matter much. The reason, aside from generating state revenue, is to level the playing field with brick and mortar stores who have lobbied heavily for this legislation for many years.
People living in Delaware and Oregon won't notice much either way as their state doesn't charge sales tax. Businesses in Hawai'i get a double-whammy, though as instead of a sales tax they have a business excise tax which the business is required to pay and may pass along to the consumer, so if someone in New York orders something from Hawai'i that business would be required to pay the Hawai'i business excise tax and charge New York sales tax.
How can states enforce this against sellers with no financial interest in the state? If the out of state seller doesn't pay, what recourse is there?
but mostly because sales taxes are primarily regressive taxes (they impact poor and middle class much more than the rich because poor/mids spend a greater percentage of money surviving). At the same time I'm a lot more concerned about wealth inequity than I am about paying an extra 10% on crap I buy online.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Shouldn't change life in Delaware much. We don't have sales tax, period.
Shouldn't change life anywhere. This is a non-binding resolution that has no force of law, even if it passed both chambers (and it hasn't). The only thing this means is that if congress actually decides to take up this issue in the future, it probably has the votes to pass. Which seems reasonable: I don't like paying taxes, but taxes should be fair. People are already required to pay these taxes, but evade them by buying from out of state merchants. If the merchants are required to collect the tax, the evasion is no longer possible, and warehouses and shipping centers can be located based on logistics rather than tax rates.
And why should they be taxed if they don't have a physical presence in the state? What resources are they utilizing? The roads? That the delivery persons delivering your purchase already pay taxes on via gas taxes?
This is all about pigs wanting more money as a solution to budget problems, instead of adjusting their fucking budget, to begin with and backed by the big brick and mortar corps that can't stand up to the competition. (The idea that no taxation online is hurting local mom and pop stores is bullshit, because the big brick and mortar chains have already crushed mom and pop). They think if we have to pay taxes online, we'll buy from their local stores, instead. Guess what? It's not going to work. If I can buy it for the same price online as in person, I'm going to buy online and have it at my doorstep. In fact, I'm going to buy online even more, just to spite them.
Then, of course, there's also the issue that *it should not be the retailer's job to pay my taxes -- it should be mine*.
Swing and a miss. Amazon has agreed to collect sales tax in an increasing number of states (like California ... did you read the article?). Amazon actually supports the national sales tax -- it's easier than trying to deal with 50 states targeting them (and only them, leaving competitors untaxed).
Collecting existing sales taxes on online sales . . . that are NOT in their state.
If I cross the border into Oregon and buy some groceries, I don't pay sales tax. If I return back to Washington with those groceries, should the Oregon grocery store be forced to report the spending and pay the sales tax to Oregon for the money I spent, based on Washington's sales tax?
This is all overly complicated money-grabbing bullshit and anyone celebrating the idea is naive. At the most, sales tax should be enforced and it should be the job of the resident to facilitate accounting and payment; not some retailer in another state who has nothing to do with you.
The ass-licking around here is even more amazing, sometimes.
This will be struck down. You can't tax a person or business not in your jurisdiction. You could try to make your citizens pay the tax but you can't require an out of state business be a collection agency.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I don't know if you're in the US or not, but if you are, buying from outside the country won't help you, because you'll still have to deal with US Customs fees/taxes/levies/whatever.
Shouldn't change life in Delaware much. We don't have sales tax, period.
...says the last man who was able to brag about not having any sales tax...
With the US government pushing an internet sales tax (as if this thing called the internet only existed within US borders), good luck keeping your tax exempt status. As if the list of excuses they use to levy taxes we pay today weren't absurd enough, this will open the floodgates for anything bolted down that isn't taxed. Your local tax-free representatives will seem weak and ineffective by comparison.
Here is the list of senators... http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00062
Write them and tell them what you think.
Being able to articulate what this legislation means to someone who clearly completely misunderstood it doesn't imply favor, let alone "ass-licking." You don't defeat your enemy by being ignorant of it.
It's complicated and, often, I believe they just totally make the rules up on the spot.
For example, if I live in a state without sales tax and I order something from a state with sales tax, I don't have to pay sales tax. However, if I live in a state without sales tax and I order something from a state with sales tax and I have it shipped to a person (as a gift, for example) in the same state that has sales tax, I have to pay sales tax.
At this point, I'm really looking for every edge on keeping my dollar that I can. I paid more in taxes for 2012 than my parents earned . . . combined . . . in 2011 and 2012. . . combined. And it's not like I'm wealthy. I live in in a sub $200k house in a blue-collar neighborhood, drive a seven year old car, and keep to a budget.
What resources are they utilizing? The roads?
That's how Amazon ships packages to me...
Probably not include in this resolution but customs could collect an import tax depending on final destination. The EU handles it that way.
Why should the burden be placed on the seller?
And maybe instead of saying "let's make it fair" (huh? fair? wtf are you talking about?), how about we say "let's address the fact that if you buy something from out of state, there's really no reason for the state to need to collect taxes on it"? I mean, what resource is being consumed by your external purchase? The use of the local roads, which the delivery company driving your product to your door already pays taxes on via gas (and their own taxation for doing business in the state, physically)?
It seems to me we're addressing the wrong "problem" and doing it in the wrong direction. It's like saying "let's make everything fair by sinking to the lowest common denominator".
By today's definition you're rich. Pay up bitch!
I am curious as to whether or not some neighboring state (*cough* California *cough*) would decide to charge me their sales tax rate for anything that an online retailer would sell to me if it comes out of a warehouse that is sitting within their borders...
Why do you assume that this would change the law regarding that? The issue here is that the tax is owed but not collected under these circumstances. In most states, you still owe tax when you purchase online. It's just that the state doesn't actually have any way to know to collect from you.
I do recall only one site online charging any sales tax - DAZ Productions used to charge sales tax to their Utah customers (back when I was one), because they themselves are in Utah. I'm sure there are similar setups out there...
That's just how sales taxes work. Amazon charges tax to Washington customers for that reason and has always done that. The reason why you may not have seen it often is that there aren't that many online sites located in Utah that are subject to sales tax. If you lived in California, you might find it more common.
It is not a National tax. It will just allow the States, not the Feds, to collect existing sales taxes on online sales.
The knee jerk reactions around here are amazing sometimes.
Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to upset your tea time with the idea of yet another concept to ensure taxes are collected. Gee, I feel so much fucking better now that you've clarified which crook wants even more of my money. Oh wait, I'm sorry, I guess every single person who has ever bought anything online is the real crook here in your eyes. After all, we felonious tax evaders have been getting around this "loophole" for decades now.
(In the meantime, the too-big-to-fail.org banking industry brought the entire global economy to its knees, vaporizing trillions of dollars, and not one of those cocksuckers involved is behind bars...and we're arguing about this bullshit.)
Hope I didn't jerk your knee too much with that shit. God forbid you find you have to go online and order a knee brace...and find you don't have enough money to cover the tax.
no, but someone in oregon who crosses into washington does pay sales tax.
likewise if you live in oregon and buy online they COULD have colelcted sales tax on the sale. however, right now, states by and large DONT in these situations.
its a bit of a legal tangle currently, and this is the first step being taken in answering the so-far-unanswered legal questsions involved, and normalizing it to be the same as physical sales. its not a money grab, no asslicking.
you are however woefully ignorant, and apparently prone to knee jerk vitriol.
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
The states already get plenty of tax on out-of-state internet sales. Those packages don't appear by magic. They're moved (usually by ground) from origin to destination, paying taxes all along the way. Fuel and mileage taxes and registration for vehicles, income tax from the employees, property tax from the depots and warehouses in the origin and destination states, corporate taxes from the shipping companies, etc.
And why should they be taxed if they don't have a physical presence in the state?
Sigh. They proposal isn't to tax Amazon. It's to tax *you*. That's how consumption taxes work. So if you live in California and you order something from Amazon you'll pay CA sales tax, in the same way you would if you walked into Fry's.
As an Oregon online retailer, I can say that this will be big pain in the ass, because I'll go from collecting tax for zero states to collecting tax for 46 states, and having to calculate all the various kinds of taxes levied by cities and municipalities. It's going to be a fucking nightmare, which is why the supreme court stopped it in the first place.
At least Ron Wyden is doing his damn job by fighting it.
and to top it off, this isnt even an actual law yet.
if you (SUemas) had RTFA, its merely a nonbinding proposal. not even a resolution, definitely not a law. merely a proposal, to gauge reactions, open debate, and get dialogue started for the purposes of answering those not yet answered questions.
(further illustrating just how ignorant you are)
The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
That would be true of physical goods, but what about sales of digital goods, (Music, movies, books, software etc) US customs can't charge excise duty on that, and neither can the Sates
Anyway I thought tax legislation had to pass the House, which isn't likely with the Replicans there.
As a non-USAian, can someone explain to me how this compares with mail order? Surely any issues concerning out-of-state sales taxes must have been resolved decades ago for mail-order companies? Does using a web site instead of a printed catalogue raise any new issues of law?
Yeah, with all the free trade agreements in place purchasing outside the US will be even more appealing. Why buy a chinese made monitor from a US retailer when one can buy the same one for less including shipping and without taxes from a korean retailer off the internet.
If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be-T J
Where else should it be placed?
Up until this point, they've had a competitive advantage over stores with an in state presence that do have to charge the sales tax, people self reporting makes no sense as it's entirely unfair to expect people to keep track of that many small purchases. And the shops already have accountants and billing software that handles that sort of thing.
The point of use tax is that it makes it harder to evade sales tax by charging taxes on all your purchases. Just because a purchase comes from out of state, doesn't make the things one uses in the state any less expensive nor does it mean that one should be able to avoid paying taxes in that fashion. In the past it was less of an issue because it would take weeks to get things via mail order, but these days, people do so regularly.
You know there are places with no sales tax or income tax or just about any tax. Really small government. No regulations. No gun laws. Libertarian paradise.
But if you decide to move to Somalia, bring a bottle of Pepto Bismal. And say hello to John Galt. Oh wait, never mind because he's fictional.
You are welcome on my lawn.
At this point, I'm really looking for every edge on keeping my dollar that I can. I paid more in taxes for 2012 than my parents earned . . . combined . . . in 2011 and 2012. . . combined. And it's not like I'm wealthy. I live in in a sub $200k house in a blue-collar neighborhood, drive a seven year old car, and keep to a budget.
You're precisely the kind of person they're looking to soak. People on handouts don't have enough money to tax, and the really rich can afford accountants.
Why would they do that? Sales tax is *already* collected on internet retailers with a presence in a given state. This bill would allow states to collect sales taxes even if the internet retailer does not have a presence, but that doesn't mean that establishing a presence would exclude them.
A post a day keeps productivity at bay.
Not true, if you're an Oregonian that passes into Washington, you show your ID and they're not supposed to charge you any sales tax.
What do you think nobody collecting tax or doing any of the things tax is collected for would be besides the "lowest common denominator"?
You'd have the situation where concerned citizens are free to build hospitals, roads, and schools if they feel there's a need ... you know, the Republican/Libertarian vision of the future in which the rich can afford private schools and armed guards, and the poor can fuck off and die: and as long as the police keeps the poor folks away, and the government enforces contract law and keeps taxes low, what's the problem?
States collect taxes to pay for the things they do on our behalf. That's how government does the things we've asked them to do because private concerns can't or won't do it -- at least not to our collective net benefit.
Rich people think all of the resources should be spent on making sure they pay as little as possible ... but they don't realize that if the rest of the populace is starving and poor, sooner or later they're going to come after you. Not trying to fix the problem leads to bigger costs for prisons instead of addressing the root cause of anything.
What they don't see is it costs an awful lot of resources to keep rich white folks secure and safely away from the teeming masses. The stuff to actually help out poor people isn't where most of the spending goes.
This Libertarian fantasy world where it was a totally free market and everything just worked is trite, romantic fantasy ... it's a utopian vision of something which simply could never actually happen, and which has never actually happened.
In some countries, we take paying taxes as the cost of doing business, in the knowledge that if shit really goes astray, there might be something to help out. American economics is being dictated by a bunch of people with an idealized view of an economy with no evidence it would work, or that you could ever transition into it without devolving into full on class warfare and anarchy.
You American are a bunch of greedy, selfish pricks who think that being a greedy, selfish prick is a virtue. The screeching voices have become so polarized that the right is incapable of saying without resorting to overblown hyperbole, ad hominem attacks, and religious zeal.
I have a hosting customer (who is also a friend) who is a very small manufacturing business - they hand make jewelry and sell it on their web site.
They are a mom-and-pop operation and have no hope of being able to track 50 states worth of sales tax obligations and file 50 states worth of forms... never-mind that others have mentioned elsewhere that there are some 10,000 distinct sales tax jurisdictions in the US.
If they're actually required to track even just 50 states worth and file those forms, they're not going to be able to comply. Their business is close enough on margins that this could quite seriously push them over the edge and make them close up shop should it be too onerous.
If the fed wanted to jsut say "5% sales tax on all Internet sales apportioned to the states by share of gdp" that would be one thing, but keepint track of that many moving targets would be too much for mom and pop shops.... big retailers have accounting firms or departments to handle it - one more way the little guy is getting destroyed.
The Digital Sorceress
On the taxing government. The hardest part of non-local sales tax is figuring out what the tax is. If those wishing to collect sales tax had to provide databases of taxable regions so that one could pop in an address and figure out what jurisdictions and taxes existed, retailers would only have to worry about coding their goods.
Even better, if one restricted it to state taxes instead of all the jurisdictional weirdness that comes with city, district, and county sales taxes.
Dealing with all the localities is a paperwork and regulatory nightmare. They should not be making the states be able to do remote sales. If they want the money they should simply have a federal sales tax and then the government can divvy the money up to the states just like they do with so many other funding things. Instead they are creating more of a burden for small businesses. Once again, Big Corp has the advantage since they have the systems in place for this and can spread the overhead over many products. Big Gov loves Big Corp.
Since the whole thing seems to revolve around the following:
"passed a nonbinding proposal to allow states to collect sales tax on Internet sellers that have no presence within their borders..."
Just how do they plan on collecting this from anyone 'Outside their borders'?
If they actually figure this out, someone in some foreign country will start using this against Americans (or any other country) to start some form of Internet-based Sanctions.
This is only going to make it all that much more muddied for anyone making online purchases.
First, my Ebay purchases. Next, my e-mail, tweets and SMS from out-of-country sources.
Digital 'stamps' anyone?
I mean, what resource is being consumed by your external purchase?
Entirely irrelevant question. The question is, what resources are being consumed by the residents of the state? Take a look at your state's entire budget for the answer. The next question is, how do you pay for all of that? Only a few of those items are directly and entirely supported by specific use taxes, the rest must be paid for out of general funds, using whatever variety of taxation methods they have decided to use in that state, in whatever proportions they've agreed upon using their representative democracy. If they've decided X percent of that funding is to come from sales tax, then that's where it comes from. Why should anyone be exempted from paying the same share as everyone else (most people would call that "their fair share" but you seem to be allergic to the word "fair" for some reason)?
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
Austerity. Au-ster-i-ty.
Excuse me, but how effen hard is this? If operating systems can keep track of timezones then how hard is it to keep track a sales tax? It is not that difficult. Or how about software that knows where you live by the zip code, or the telephone you call from, or even the IP address you use to log onto the Internet.
Sorry, but this "it is going to be an effen nightmare" is pure crap! People don't want to do this because they get an advantage over bricks and motar places.
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
What resources are they utilizing? The roads?
That's how Amazon ships packages to me...
Love the creative editing in your "quoted text". LMFTFY:
I mean, what resource is being consumed by your external purchase? The use of the local roads, which the delivery company driving your product to your door already pays taxes on via gas...
Oh, no need to be sorry. You didn't upset me at all. You seemed upset so I explained in tiny words what this actually means. I'm sorry if that upset your...well whatever you do in your mother's basement...time :)
Actually it will just increase the costs a bit, as there are many software as a service vendors where for a fee, you can get the proper sales tax calculated. While this is not a recommendation, looking for sales tax collection software on the web identified several vendors, that caluclate the tax, fill out the forms for the states, etc. The first one was Avalara. But the list is longer. So the effort is not so much, but you might have to increase pricing a bit to pay for it.
Why should the burden be placed on the seller?
Because it is easier to enforce.
As someone who lives in Illinois, Dick Durbin can go suck a dick. Jan Schakowsky is about a block from my office and Daniel Bliss' office is about three blocks from my house... I am gonna go talk to them about this.
You're not considering the other issues such as having to go through multiple state audits when they want to challenge if you're sending them enough of the revenue that you're collecting for them. Finding out that oops, this country in this state raised their tax rate and you didn't know but now they're taking you to court for not paying the right fees is not how you want to run a business.
In the end, the big chains that can afford it (Amazon) will have distribution centers in each state and completely dodge the issue, while all the added burden will go to their smaller competitors.
In the state tax office in the capitol city, someone blurts out "WTF is bitcoin ?"
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Does impose a sort of compliance tax on Amazon. Does Amazon have to submit to auditing by every state's tax authorities too? Does Fry's submit scans of all customers' driver's licenses to every state?
Why don't states just send bills for the privilege of residing in them? Yeah, few would pay unless the government could justify its expenditures, which everyone knows are unjustifiable.
It would be more reasonable for the seller's state to collect the tax. Before I even got to the comments I was thinking how idiotic it is to do this on the buyer's side due to the complications for any less-than-enormous business.
The issue is not that it's that effen hard - it's not. And larger retailers are already doing this. My zip code crosses 2 jurisdictions and a couple of the large retailers always ask me whether I live in jurisdiction A or B. We don't pay local sales taxes here, but obviously these large retailers are already collecting it in states that do. The issue for smaller retailers is cost.
Up until this point, they've had a competitive advantage over stores with an in state presence that do have to charge the sales tax, people self reporting makes no sense as it's entirely unfair to expect people to keep track of that many small purchases.
Often not... because goods in state could be purchased in person, without the additional cost of shipping added to the regular price of goods.
Strangely, the cost of shipping is often similar to or greater than the tax rate. So if you had to pay both a tax and extra shipping cost; the in-state business would be at a great advantage.
So in some cases the out-of-state goods have a cost advantage, in others they do not.
However, as far as the cost to the state is concerned... the shippers pay taxes. And there is very little state infrastructure used to conduct the marketing of out-of-state goods. It's unfair that the buyer or outer-of-state retailer be taxed, as if they needed all the local infrastructure required to support a retail store within the state.
This should be just loads of fun. I see this probably causing retailers to keep track of each sale by state of purchase, calculate the amount of sales tax, and send it to the appropriate state. Guess who's going to pay for all this?
In Washington, the seller is under no obligation to exempt any nonresident buyer from sales tax. If the seller chooses to not collect tax on a sale, the buyer must meet the exemption rules, such as being from a state with no sales tax.
How many times have you done this before? I'm curious as to where your authority comes from to claim that it isn't difficult. The logistics may not be difficult but I'd be surprised if dealing with the various States and local municipalities is easy. But, do go on. It's obvious you've done this many times, that you're an authoritative source, and that you know what is and isn't difficult for someone.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
The Enzi and Durbin amendment would allow the Senate Budget Committee to include the sales tax in the budget, providing it does not increase the federal deficit.
Hmmm this says otherwise. That is what they were testing to see if they had 61 votes to kill the chances of a filibusterer.
Is a way around that pesky Constitution that forbids interstate sales taxes.
Go slit your fucking wrists communist, nigger, spic, faggot, ching-chong, loving fucktarded dumbo-crat .
That is why I think that we should be offered the option to apply a flat 10% sales tax that is collected by the shipping firm. Then the shipping firm is allowed to keep say 5% of that, for handling it. With this approach, it would make it trivial for anybody, including foreign firms, to pay the sales taxes. And at 10%, where will be districts that are higher than it, but on average, the majority is bought at around 7-8% sales tax. As such, this is not too far from where it needs to be, and it removes all of the overhead of paperwork, lawyers, etc.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
States do not have the right to tax interstate commerce. Congress cannot give states that right without amending the constitution.
Before you can even collect sales tax you will have to register with each state and pay for a sales tax id ($100 for CT alone). I don't believe for a second that states are going to give sales and use tax ids away for free either. I don't see how this is going to work for anything but the largest online retailers and I'm still not convinced that this doesn't violate interstate commerce.
Instead of requiring retailers to PAY the sales tax, they should only be required to remit sales logs and let the state collect the use tax from whoever purchased the goods. But, that makes too much sense and would again put the responsibility on the state to collect the money when all they really want is a ride on the internet sales gravy train.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law - Aleister Crowley
A new bill will be coming. It should be modified to have 4 changes:
1) REQUIRE a sales tax on all shipped items, including those that import into here.
2) offer the option of a flat 10% rate that is sent to the federal IRS who then doles it out.
3) offer the option of having shipping companies collect the sales tax and pay it to the feds. IOW, the sender would include the sales tax right in the payment. With this approach, the companies does not deal with ANY future tax issues/liabilities, unless they declared the item personal (i.e. person=>person so zero tax), or claim that the item is less than what was paid to them.
4) Consider mandating #3, possibly #2, for all foreign sending companies.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Yeah, one part of the article talks about collecting existing State sales taxes, but then another part mentions establishing an "Internet Sales tax". So we're gonna get "double-dipped", paying both state and local taxes AND a federal Internet Sales Tax if all this crap passes?
...that would be interesting and another example of the US trying to force its' laws on other countries; then again, having said that, I ought to be careful given the extradition treaty Britain has with the States.
which jusrisdiction has the cheaper taxes? that's where "I live", or are they checking ids?
That's a fair point, but there's more to it than that. A lot of these mail order and online places are located in places where rent and labor is cheap or receive subsidies for being located there. What's more, by only having a couple of warehouses, they save a ton of money.
Which is why the total cost is often times the same or less. And some businesses like BestBuy will charge the same amount of money whether you buy in store or they ship it to you, part of that is because shelf space is quite expensive compared with warehouse space.
As far as in state infrastructure goes, that's infrastructure that the buyer uses, not the retailer, it's called a use tax for a reason, it's use that the buyer gets out of the infrastructure. And no, it's perfectly fair, the buyer uses it regardless of where he or she buys from.
Awesome man..just awesome. That was beautiful
Section (a)(2)(D)(ii) says "Provide -- ... (ii) software free of charge for remote sellers that calculates sales and use taxes due on each transaction at the time the transaction is completed, that files sames and use tax returns, and that is updated to reflect rate changes as described in subparagrah (H); ..."
There appears to be no requirement that software be:
There is a distinct possibility that no compatible software will be available for some retailers as a result of this. What are those retailers to do?
Also, who pays the software developer? It's free to the retailers so that means the states pay for it. The software is required to be usable for all states and that appears to imply one single software component used across the board. What if a retailer gets the software from one state but uses it for the others?
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
I think there's a bigger picture here that most people don't consider. Internet sales, except for digital downloads, require shipping...and that's not free. I might be wrong, but I imagine that some portion of these shipping costs that everyone pays find their way back to the states in different forms such as road tolls, airport fees, income taxes of employees and so forth. In fact, I'd wager that the USPS would be in far worse shape if shipment of online goods hadn't filled the hole that email has caused. Again, I could be wrong, but I don't think that the states are being screwed like they claim they are, money is just coming to them in a different form. It will be interesting to see what effect this will have on our economy--will consumer confidence fall? For states like CT with huge budget deficits, will increased taxation of consumers take the place of making cuts to overspending?
Yeah, I'm sure they want to extradite you, Anonymous Coward.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
That's great, except that zip code does NOT determine what sales tax rate applies to where you live. You are also overlooking all of the sales tax forms that a business is going to have to fill out every quarter, and for good measure, not every state has their fiscal quarters run the same months as everybody else. There is one state on the east coast (I think it is NY) that runs its quarters: December-February, March-May, June-August, September-November, while the neighboring states all run it with the calendar year.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
The main problem is that there are a zillion different taxes. They should make a more reasonable way to do this, but it's the tax code, so it pretty much has to be unreasonable.
Wait, Amazon owns fedex and UPS now? Corporations that pay taxes to use those roads?
When you cant win, ad hominem.
Although I would bet that you are supposed to pay "Use tax" on those groceries. I have not checked Washington's law on it, but most states require the buyer to pay the sales tax as a "Use tax" on items that they bought out of state that would be subject to sales tax if bought within the state.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yeah, but we still live in Delaware :(
Actually, I like the state, but still.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
If you had read the article, that is NOT what it was. It was to gauge if they had enough votes to pass the bill.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
The government can and will do whatever it wants, including directly violating the law of the Constitution, without consequence.
Domestic wiretaps and killing Americans without trial are proceeding full steam ahead. It's so normal it isn't even a talking point any more.
You don't pay taxes on purchases you make out of state? Wow! You are much smarter than I am. Whenever I leave Colorado my purchases are taxed.
All legislation has the pass the house.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
If they do demand this, they should provide some online framework. Buyers address and total gets sent in a standardized format to respective state ran sales tax servers, and the server spits out the correct amount. If the state gets the tax wrong, the seller should never be responsible for the mistake.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Instead of requiring retailers to PAY the sales tax, they should only be required to remit sales logs and let the state collect the use tax from whoever purchased the goods.
In many municipalities and states the sales tax rate, including whether there is any tax due at all, on an item depends on exactly what the item is. So you are proposing that every retailer should provide the state and municipal governments with a person-by-person detailed listing of every product bought by that person.
Maybe you would like to live your life in a glass fishbowl but there are still a lot of people who don't think their government needs to know more about them than their mom does.
I don't see how this is going to work for anything but the largest online retailers and I'm still not convinced that this doesn't violate interstate commerce.
The same retail giants who sell enormous quantities of goods across state lines and who have immense regional distribution centers in many?
That sure looks like interstate commerce to me.
Swing and a miss. Amazon has agreed to collect sales tax in an increasing number of states (like California ... did you read the article?). Amazon actually supports the national sales tax -- because Amazon is now big enough that this can serve as a barrier to entry for startups who want to compete with Amazon or Amazon Marketplace.
FTFY.
STRAW MAN!
There is no income tax, capital gains tax, purchase or sales tax, VAT or capital transfer tax in Bahamas. This applies not only to individuals, but also to all resident corporations, partnerships and trusts.
http://www.taxrates.cc/html/bahamas-tax-rates.html
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Sigh. They proposal isn't to tax Amazon. It's to tax *you*. That's how consumption taxes work. So if you live in California and you order something from Amazon you'll pay CA sales tax, in the same way you would if you walked into Fry's.
Which is all well and good, but who is going to collect those taxes? Oregon does not have a state sales tax. If the vendor I purchase from is doing business in Oregon then I do not owe Oregon any sales tax. I did not make a purchase in California, so I do not owe them any sales tax either. This would be no different than if I went to Oregon and made the purchase in person. I could even have the purchase shipped to my home in California directly from the store and still not owe any sales tax. Many states have what is called a "use" tax that they collect for goods that are purchased in other states and brought into their state, but that is something different.
'The tyrant will always find pretext for his tyranny.' - Aesop's Fables
Someone obviously hasn't been taking their meds recently!!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
No, Amazon wouldn't do that.
But any ecommerce company that could move to, say, Mexico or Canada probably would!
Slashdot Valentines Beta Massacre: iT WORKED! The boycotts killed Beta!!
Why should it be any different legally if I order an item from a retailer across the state line and if I were to drive to the retailer and purchase it in person?
My state shouldn't be owed taxes in either scenario. It is only sane if the retailer's home state is the one collecting taxes for the sale.
If a law is written such that the purchaser's state/county/city gets the taxes, you can kiss most smaller online retailers goodbye, because the tax codes across every town in the US are far more complex than people realize.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
Use a tax service. They tell you what the tax rates are, and some of them deal with the liability issue. If you didn't collect taxes correctly because of their data, they'll cover it. It's insane, actually. Taxes change on an almost daily basis somewhere in the U.S. Between legitimate tax rate changes at any level from city, county, to state, to tax holidays, etc. nobody can keep track of this shit unless they're in the business of keeping track of it... which is why tax services are so helpful. My customers all use them. When your core business is selling widgets, you can't keep track of thousands of tax jurisdictions.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Aren't there import fees for imported goods?
If I return back to Washington with those groceries, should the Oregon grocery store be forced to report the spending and pay the sales tax to Oregon for the money I spent,
You raise a good point. In my state, Colorado, use tax is required to be paid for the difference (unless it's negative, in which case you get/pay nothing to Colorado).
So just like online sales, people shopping outside of their tax district is a problem. To make it fair, every physical retailer should be required to ask for the shoppers address, so they can remit the sales tax to the correct district.
But that would be outrageous, right?
Why do you assume that this would change the law regarding that? The issue here is that the tax is owed but not collected under these circumstances. In most states, you still owe tax when you purchase online. It's just that the state doesn't actually have any way to know to collect from you.
No. A State has no authority to tax an Interstate transaction, unless Congress passes a Federal law allowing it to happen. Which is why any time a State has tried doing it in the past the Supreme Court gave them the bitch-slap.
It's a really, really stupid move, and most likely the Courts won't let it stand anyhow. If they were proposing a Federal-level sales tax on interstate transactions, that would probably hold up.
Amazon pays those shipping services and I'm sure those shipping services have accounted for any taxes in their fees. So no, Amazon should not be responsible for using the roads.
People are already required to pay these taxes, but evade them by buying from out of state merchants.
Wrong. When purchasing from out of state, that transaction is either occurring in a different state, and is completely outside of your state's authority to be involved in. Or else it's an Interstate transaction, which is also outside of your State's authority as all matters of Interstate commerce are in the Federal domain. Evasion is a legal term which means you're breaking the law to avoid paying the tax, there's nothing illegal about avoiding sales taxes in one state by conducting business elsewhere.
If the merchants are required to collect the tax, the evasion is no longer possible, and warehouses and shipping centers can be located based on logistics rather than tax rates.
Wrong again. Shipping centers are located based on many things. Logistics is part of it, but a great deal of attention is paid to local labor laws, business taxes, property taxes, fuel taxes, vehicle and transportation taxes, as well as a host of various state regulations regarding the shipping and warehousing industries. There are only rare occasions that a location is avoided due to sales tax considerations.
Finding out that oops, this country in this state raised their tax rate and you didn't know but now they're taking you to court for not paying the right fees is not how you want to run a business.
That's why small and medium sized businesses will use subscription services to track sales tax!
I don't respond to AC's.
People don't want to do this because they get an advantage over bricks and motar places.
And they lose their advantage with shipping fees.
If brick and mortar stores were capable of offering the immense selections that online warehouses do, it wouldn't be such a big deal. But there's simply no comparison between a poorly stocked drawer at Radio Shack and the millions of parts at Digikey or Mouser, for just one example.
It's just more and more taxes, while inflation continues to outpace median incomes.
Hopefully companies like eBay and paypal will make paying this tax easy. The average Internet user cannot afford a tax Id for the small stuff sold
With all this governmental meddling, often it is more profitable not to do anything at all. Keep under the radar. Offer small services for cash ( stuff like vending single cigarettes) . Barter. Know every freebie handout place in town. There are even quite a few lawyers out there who specialize in entitlement law and will accept a portion of government entitlements they get for you as payment.
I know a few "street people", who used to be wage slaves before Bernake crashed the economy. Most of them tell me that although they no longer wear as nice of clothes, drive a fancy car, or eat at fancy restaurants, they still enjoy life, and some seem quite amused at what other people will do to pay their bills.
The rich know how to play the game. They have their offshore accounts and tax havens. No congressman in his right mind would mess with that.
The entitled know the system too.
This system will continue to function as long as we can keep a critical mass of people who still believe in the work ethic and will continue to hold their nose to the grindstone while letting others run off with the fruit of their labor. Whether its the thief in the night who takes it or its the tax man, the bottom line is the same, You spent your day building something and someone else took it, Pen, knife, chains, or gun, its the same - someone else took your stuff.
No, you just tax the rest of the states by making your business laws so lax that companies incorporate in Delaware where they are immune to things like bankruptcy laws...if you can call those laws you have "bankruptcy laws". Your bankruptcy courts make it easy for scum like SCO and their fellow travelers to make out like bandits after screwing their customers and anyone else they could throw a sueball at.
Delaware is a disgusting state that should be disbarred from the Union.
Hopefully companies like eBay and paypal will make paying this tax easy. The average Internet user cannot afford a tax Id for the small stuff sold
Actually makes me wonder about us foreigners who order things online from the US and have it shipped internationally, or order things on things like Steam and so on.
Om, nomnomnom...
As to the auditing bit, it is a question of the address. For example I sent a gift to NM from Amazon, ordered in Tx (where they collect the sales tax) and none was collected, so it depends on the address. As to the complexity, there is the zip+4 system which software on most web sites resolves from the address. So all they need to do is to submit a list of what was shipped where. For example assume for some stupid reason a person from Oregon has a private mailbox in Wa, then they would pay the tax because it was shipped to Washington state. (Thus if you live near a state line and there is a significant difference in sales tax rates a private mailbox in the lower tax state might work). The shipping address analogizes to the stores location as the point of receipt of the goods is taken as the point of sale. Thus to take an example Boeing turns their jets over to customers over 12 miles out in the Pacific to avoid Washington sales tax on the planes.
If you go to Oregon and bought it yourself, you still owe taxes to California. You need to declare you bought an item for use in CA and remit the tax yourself. If you bought it in CA, the vendor collects the tax at the time of sale that is all the difference is. You owe the tax. Just because CA finds it impractical to come after you does not make it go away. You are still a tax cheat. All that grandiose talk about government and taxes does not hide the fact that underneath it all, you are just a simple selfish guy/gal.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Makes sales drop.
I believe the sales terminal IE your computer is in the state you are purchasing you are not in the state shipping you the item.
Well, there you go. Are you saving for your move? Of course, the Bahamas don't really have the need for taxes, given that it's a monarchist preserve, nestled in the bosom of the socialist USA. Also, they have this little inconvenience currently with the descendents of the slaves that actually built the place, but the legacy of slavery shouldn't bother a rugged, up-from-his-bootstraps individualist like yourself.
By the way, another low-tax, low-regulation state you might find interesting is Cyprus. In fact, it's a supply-sider's dream nation, though I understand Russia may be aiming some missiles their way right about now.
You are welcome on my lawn.
The poster almost certainly meant they aren't convinced it doesn't violate the Interstate Commerce Clause, which prevents individual States from creating barriers (i.e. taxes) to imports from other States.
Those retail giants collect taxes from transactions where both origination and destination of the sale are in the same State.
Those roads are paid by taxing the gross weight of commercial trailers (the people transporting shipped packages) and by gas taxes (also paid by the people transporting shipped packages). The shipping cost pays for the taxes that fund roads.
I do not see use taxes as legitimate. They are an end run around the Interstate Commerce Clause.
I bet alibaba.com will be happy as hell to see such a tax pass.
I've never had a Customs fee charged on a foreign purchase, though I've never spent more than a few hundred on one.
I like how the Government is so "quick" to act on closing a tax loophole that almost every consumer buying something online takes advantage of. However, they never seem to get around to closing the many loopholes that large businesses use on a constant basis that cost the US millions if not billions of dollars. Like other people have said, this will affect small businesses the most.
I understand that sales tax needs to be applied but there needs to be a better way with less impact to small businesses. A general sales tax that's divided up among the states equally based on population I think would be a possibility. While probably not perfect I think it's a lot better and simpler than what's being proposed for any type of business.
What happens with eBay and Amazon? Are they going to charge sales tax for only business type accounts selling goods?
It's sad to see them wasting time on this crap versus coming up with a budget to actually turn a "profit" so we can start decreasing our deficit. If nothing else they'll just do what Cyprus did and take up to 10% of everyone's bank account. Oh wait that'll mostly hurt the little guy too because a lot of large businesses have their money overseas.
I take home $15,600.00
I live in a $25k home, although I've probably put at least that much into it since I bought it.
Like you, I live on a budget.
But I suspect we manage a bit differently.
Holy mother of God, No! If anything use taxes should be abolished. The only way to enforce it now is to ask taxpayers to hit themselves in the head. Needless to say, compliance is low, except for companies buying large things out of state like airliners. What you're suggesting would require a government apparatus sufficient to kick us all in the face on a very intimate level. Then again, I see you userid is "cob666", so maybe you're smoking some truly evil stuff out of that old corn-core of yours.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Chicago has a LOCAL 10.5% sales tax.
Only if they have lost the battle with given states where they do not have a retail presence but do have a brick and mortar location IE a distribution center (office space has not been used unilaterally to declare a company responsible to collect sales tax in every state where they have employees..
IE if your company is based in Oregon and has an office doing marketing and accounting in florida.. and a distribution center in North Carolina florida wont demand you collect sales tax, but North carolina likely will..
however many of these states are annoyed more by the brick and mortar retailers who operate .com sales at arms length that they are claiming to be seperate companies operating under the same name and thus not triggering the "retail presence in our state" via loophole.. as well as the effects of such things as the Amazon/newegg style Marketplaces where they are not even being sold by amazon but are still selling from say NY companies to NY residents.. but bypassing sales tax..
Sales Tax is not "hard" to calculate and every single accounting program on the planet supports per state breakdowns that can be used at the end of the year to cut 45 extra checks beyond the 1 your already cutting to your home state. What is more troubling is that the people trying to push this through are claiming it is aimed at revitalizing downtown/local retailers when that battle was lost 20 years ago and it was lost to the big chains NOT to the internet.. Someone needs to figure out how to get Joe and Mary to realize that its a REALLY BAD BUSINESS PLAN to try to compete on price directly with any major retailer for commodity products.
Why on earth would you willingly pay more for the exact same items? Answer unless you have a political motive you would not.. and thus trying to get by selling 2$ products for 5$ locally so you can drive a fancy car and put 6 kids through college is a losing proposition.. and it always has been a shitty way to do business .. its just that when you have a captive market such as a compact downtown area with little or no "wandering" population.. its easy to be greedy and stay in business.
Either your parents are very, very poor, or you make a whole lot of money while having a modest lifestyle. In which case, sales tax is really the least of your worries.
in a quick informal survey of 10 states every one I have looked at shows that "local option" taxes are generally collected by the state and returned back to the counties, as well as being collected either blanket (all products subject to sales tax) or on products that are not sold online such as gasoline ..
Logically speaking if your already using a database on your sales front end to determine if there is a state tax to be collected, its a relatively small matter to update it based on zipcode to cover where local taxes need collection.
Audits are always an issue even without sales tax collection for every business registered in every state or country.. its possible but highly unlikely that Joe's web sales firm will be audited by anyone, much less multiple states at a time..
Finally your amazon plan is flawed across the board.. as every brick and mortar presence you have generally will cause you MORE local problems rather than less.. there are at least 5 states that have "AMAZON" laws on the books specifically to close loopholes in their tax code.. that used to make mail order an attractive option.. IE if you shipped every product from YOUR location in Maine to 49 other states with no local distribution centers.. and no other presence in those states.. you didnt have any responsibility to do anything in a given state.. but if you where say.. a big computer mail order vendor with products being shipped out of 27 distribution centers direct to consumers.. you had a "local presence" kicking in their tax and other laws as if you had a retail shop in that state.
Customs can be funny. I bought a gemstone abroad. Turns out that loose gems are not subject to import duty, though manufactured jewelry is. No taxes on an item worth a few thousand dollars.
nonbinding proposal
nonbinding
Nothing to see here folks, except trying to look like they're doing something for the brick-and-mortars. Nonbinding resolutions pass all the time and they are nothing but lip service. They are not laws.
--
BMO
Please read the article. "Forty-six U.S. states now have sales taxes, but a 1992 ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court prohibited states from collecting sales tax from catalog sellers because of the burden it would place on the sellers. The court, however, left it up to Congress to allow states to collect sales taxes on remote sales if the states created a streamlined tax collection system."
Find free books.
You don't get to decide what is legitimate and what is not. You may believe it is not justified and vote accordingly. But once a lawfully elected levies a tax, you got to pay it. You can sue, and if you prevail you can sue to get it back. But you are not the deciding authority about what is legitimate and what is not. You don't get to decide which laws you will obey and which ones you will ignore based on your personal opinion.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
What the fuck? Please, please, PLEASE send the /. editors to a basic english class! The title says, "mandate" and the VERY FIRST FUCKING SENTENCE of the summary says "non binding". The two are exact opposites.
Why, oh why, won't ./ either train or fire useless editors?!?!?!?
(heh. captcha is "disdain")
How the FUCK is a "nonbinding proposal" equal to a "mandate?"
Actually, he does. Of course, he may get sued, or jailed. But he can choose to disobey the law. That's the reason why "willfully" appears in the text of many laws.
I should point out that Austerity (putting the Budget Deficit above all) doesn't just mean cutting services, it also means increasing taxes and creating new taxes. In Cyprus they recently proposed a tax where they would just go into your bank account and take a percentage. This was done to pay for a deficit.
So, in the short run, there will be a combination of cutting and taxing to pay down the deficit (whether it will work or not depends on whether you think the shrinkage to the economy will increase the deficit more than the revenue generation can pay it down), but after all cutting has been done and only politically hardened targets remain for cutting, deficit reduction will eventually be imposed purely by new taxes and tax increases.
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
that cnn is not reporting this.
fox is not reporting on this
Msnbc does have an article.
I've seen Delaware references in the comments of probably 5 articles since yesterday. What gives? I thought we were hidden.
Glad you raised that point, though. I was dumbly worrying that I'd have to start factoring in tax stuff when buying. :)
You know your government has gone too far when it requires you purchase a service just to pay your taxes (income taxes suffer from this unreasonable burden as well, by the way). That's not a viable solution.
To me, the solution is very simple, change whatever laws necessary to make online purchases the same as physical purchases. Tax the sale, not the purchaser, and make irrelevant where the purchaser happens to live. Either that or abolish the sales tax altogether in favor of the corporate or income tax. Whatever the solution, it should be efficient and cheap to both businesses and the consumer, as the consumer will ultimately pay any additional costs anyway.
they should only be required to remit sales logs and let the state collect the use tax from whoever purchased the goods.
Can't get that info without a warrant, that's private.
You shouldn't need to purchase a service just to pay your taxes.
Why you would think that's a viable solution and be excited about it makes no sense. That is, unless you run or make money from one of these services. In which case, you have much to gain by promoting them. The consumer, on the other hand, will just pay yet more money for yet less product.
Makes sense, but you can only tax someone in your jurisdiction so this would be a receipts/excise tax on the seller rather than a sales tax on the buyer.
It's not that hard for larger retailers, but it can be incredibly difficult for truly small businesses with only a few employees.
I agree. Sales tax is dumb in a lot of ways. Abolishing it would make this so much easier. In the meantime, there are solutions to the problem of "how much sales tax do I collect and where do I send it?
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Not to mention exemptions - some states have exemptions on catalog and internet sales below a certain amount. And the correct way to tax internet sales is 100% identification of where the buyer lives so you can apply those city and county level taxes. This is next to impossible due to proxies and anonymous accounts. I also want to know exactly how they plan to prevent double taxation since I already owe (and am one of the few that pay) Use Tax in my state. If they don't make it exempt to use tax, I see a lawsuit.
According to Wiki, use taxes only apply to purchases where the local state tax is not applied, like remote purchases over mail/phone/internet or even local purchases where the item is to be delivered to another state. If you purchased something locally and paid a sales tax of 0%, then you paid the tax and the use tax no longer applies. There are other business cases when it comes to storage of items, but that doesn't apply to a regular person.
No taxes on income/sales, just a ton of duties and taxes on EVERYTHING else.
Government Tax Revenue is derived from the following sources:
- Import and export duties
- Property tax
- Motor vehicles
- Gaming tax
- Tourism tax
- Stamp tax
- Company fees
You don't get to decide what is legitimate and what is not.
Yes, he does. That's the inherent right of a self-aware species - any person (excepting the mentally damaged, possibly) is fully capable of making such decisions.
You don't get to decide which laws you will obey and which ones you will ignore based on your personal opinion.
Just today (much like every day, actually), I crossed a street at the middle rather than at a sidewalk, despite laws and signage.
LO! WHAT AMAZING POWER, BEYOND THAT OF MORTALS, I ENCOMPASS.
Excuse me while I go blast Judas Priest, because despite your sophmoric boner for a hobnailed boot society, I'm breakin' the law, breakin' the law. I suppose you don't know what it's like.
*guitar solo*
In the past it was less of an issue because it would take weeks to get things via mail order, but these days, people do so regularly.
It still often takes weeks. I haven't noticed any giant step forward when it comes to ground shipping. Is it somehow now faster for a UPS truck to get from California to Maine for instance?
This sort of law is going to hurt internet businesses. Now not only are consumers expected to pay shipping which is already quite expensive for small orders, but they have to pay tax as well. This is nothing more than a money grab for state governments and local businesses at the expense of internet retailers. I just hope I'll be gone from the US before this sort of law is passed for real. Cheap internet purchases were one of the best things about living in the US.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
"As an Oregon online retailer, I can say that this will be big pain in the ass, because I'll go from collecting tax for zero states to collecting tax for 46 states, and having to calculate all the various kinds of taxes levied by cities and municipalities. It's going to be a fucking nightmare, which is why the supreme court stopped it in the first place."
I would go further, and ask where the Constitution gives Congress any authority to allow one state to tax a transaction that takes place in another state.
Please don't cite me the Supreme Court... I know about their prior decision. But that doesn't make it Constitutional. Hell, SCOTUS had done A LOT that's unconstitutional.
Even the widest interpretation of "regulating interstate trade" does not cover taxation. It simply isn't legal for one state to tax a transaction in another state this way. And a sale that takes place over the internet -- just like mail-order, for way over 100 years now -- is deemed to have taken place at the company's location, not the customer's.
The Supreme Court ruled against this more times than just this last one. This exact same issue went through the courts over mail-order businesses. The same arguments were used on all sides. And the laws were the way they were because one state simply can't tax a sale in another state.
(I know about the physical presence rule, too. I'm saying when there isn't a physical presence in the customer's state.)
"Sorry, but this "it is going to be an effen nightmare" is pure crap!"
Not only is it not crap, it's 100% true. Nightmare doesn't describe it, because it isn't even possible.
Every state has different taxation rules. Every municipality (county, parish, city, township, whatever) withing those states has its own rules beneath the state rules.
You want to show me some software that will track all the elections and levies and bonds, and the resulting tax rates, in every town in America? And how about those states that have sales tax on some kinds of items but not others? And how often would it be updated? Because the tax rates are changing somewhere every day!
It's not just a nightmare. It's unworkable.
"Makes sense, but you can only tax someone in your jurisdiction so this would be a receipts/excise tax on the seller rather than a sales tax on the buyer."
That's the whole problem here. No, it wouldn't be a receipts/excise tax, it would be a sales tax. And the Supreme Court, in their BS prior decision on this, failed to explain how a state can charge a tax on a transaction that happens in another state.
It's been against the law for over 200 years. The Constitution gives the Federal government no power to collect State taxes, nor does it give any state the power to tax something going on in another state.
I don't know how the hell they think they will do this, but personally I think their heads are so far up their asses that they can't even see that nice copy of the Constitution they have under glass.
You don't know much about state taxes I guess. There are hundreds of laws, some places it's based on county and even city. This is just more government bureaucracy taking over before anything is thought out. It's insanity. The small business owner just can't catch a break as long as corporate lobbyists buy and pay for Congress critters.
It will be fair! When the state of Arkansas provides me with roads, bridges, police, fire, and social services here in California.
There is no reason I should pay taxes in Arkansas. The people using their services (listed above) should pay for them.
Which is why they are mostly on the "honor system" anyways. Unless you are making a very large $$ value of out-of-state purchases known to the world, then there's very little way that the states can enforce collection of use taxes.
Could always go with US Americans, whom I would advise to head over to Amazon as soon as possible while they can still get maps tax-free.
Would this affect international companies selling to the US?
Huh, wut? A home that is worth less than $200k means wealth? We've seen shoddy-ass apartments "sell" for a million dollars in this country. Alright, so the housing bubble finally burst, and things have returned partway toward real value pricing. Still - a $200k home isn't exactly a sign of wealth. This isn't the 1970's anymore.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
As the other two replies have said, I most certainly do get to decide which taxes are legitimate and which are not. There may be consequences to those decisions, but those consequences do not prevent me from making them.
Why should brick and mortar stores be required to collect taxes that their competitors do not. In a world where consumers will shop around to save 5%, small, local businesses are at a very unfair disadvantage.
It's interesting to see local schools and charities hit up local businesses for donations to their causes then purchase their goods from online retailers that don't pay local taxes. There's a real disconnect in the consumer's brain.
And some businesses like BestBuy will charge the same amount of money whether you buy in store or they ship it to you, part of that is because shelf space is quite expensive compared with warehouse space.
The fact that shelf space is expensive is irrelevant to the discussion. Nobody deserves protection from the consequences of their own inefficiency.
"His name was James Damore."
It's just not mail order and online places.. a LOT of businesses and manufacturing places receive perks to move into an area. There was an area near by where a company was looking to move and the local government was going to give them a 10 year tax free period (as in tax on the land and whatever else) as incentive to locate there...
using whatever variety of taxation methods they have decided to use in that state, in whatever proportions they've agreed upon using their representative democracy.
Except the online retailer with no state presence is not represented with that representative democracy, yet is to be expected to work (for free) for the State and collect its duties?
Its taxation without representation, pure and simple.
"His name was James Damore."
but, for example, PA already has a Use Tax. If you do order something online or from another state (mail order or whatever) that you did't pay the 6% sales tax on, you're *suppose* to include the total amount of the cost of said items on your tax return so they can collect the 6% use tax on those items.. (so they charge the same tax rate as the actual sales tax on in state purchases)
Granted I'm not sure how many people, if any, actually record a value in that box. This just appears to assist in getting that information to the states that have such requirements so people (like me) who use amazon and other internet shops can't just put 0 in the box
Move to Washington to avoid income tax. Shop and have things shipped to an address in Oregon to avoid sales tax.
You're also better prepared for global warming and in less of a population center for other natural and man-made disasters this way.
But there's simply no comparison between a poorly stocked drawer at Radio Shack...
You mean to tell me that there's a Radio Shack somewhere that still has individual parts in drawers?
Two words. Gas tax. Silly.
Bingo. Use taxes are illegal per the Constitution. Only the federal government has the authority to tax interstate commerce. And, sorry, changing the name of it doesn't change the nature of it.
Do you have ESP?
Yeah, because Bumphuck County, KY is going to give a notice to every retailer *in the USA* that they are adding a 2% county tax (But only on items containing sugar, nicotine, ethanol delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol, and gay propaganda) -- and I doubt the local TV stations would even cover that, so some retailer here in Oregon wouldn't have a clue they're charging 2% less than they're going to be liable for. Multiply this by something like 100 counties/state, then add in cities/municipalities.
A friend of mine here in Texas was audited a couple of years ago and he had to pay sales tax and penalties on out of state internet purchases he made.
A right to not be subject to excessive bureaucracy, and a right to not have one's time wasted, are both fundamental rights protected under the 9th Amendment. Having to keep track of all the items one purchases throughout a year, and where they were purchased, violates these fundamental rights. California is acting illegally in attempting to collect taxes from out of state purchases, as other those other states that have "use" taxes.
Furthermore, the right to go somewhere else to make a purchase is part of the right to travel, another right which arises under the 9th Amendment, and one which the US Supreme Court has explicitly recognized as being subject to "strict scrutiny", meaning they can't do this kind of thing.
There are legitimate means for state and local governments to balance their budgets, such as spending less or raising income taxes, that do not require the government to engage in criminal conduct.
Should the US Senate actually create a law authorizing this, the Senators voting in favor will all be in violation of their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights. Even what they have done so far is a violation of the oaths of the senators.
Unfortunately, Bill of Rights violations occur on a massive scale in this country, at the local level, the state level, and the federal level. We can reasonably suppose this represents the effect of entrenched corruption on a massive scale.
The Canadian Government finds it quite appropriate to collect sales tax on items purchased outside Canada and brought into Canada. This is collected at the border or by the mailman upon delivery of a package. This has nothing to do with customs duties but simply the sales tax collection.
Only in Canada eh?
No he didn't. Your friend had to pay "use tax": that's equivalent to sales tax, and it's for things you purchase out-of-state. Most states with sales taxes also require their citizens to pay use taxes on out-of-state purchases (it's a separate line item on your state income tax forms). Very few people actually bother to pay it though. There's a big difference between sales tax and use tax, however: "sales tax" is a tax that retailers collect from buyers, and remit to the state on their behalf, whereas "use tax" is the same amount that buyers have to pay directly to the state government for any purchases where sales tax wasn't collected.
Do you sell at least $1 million in products per year? If not, it looks like it won't apply to you.
It will be a fucking nightmare, but it looks like it's only going to apply to the larger online retailers, not the really small guys (thankfully).
Zip code isn't sufficient; sometimes some houses have to pay a different sales tax rate than other houses in the same zip code. On some Indian reservations, tribe members have to pay a different tax rate than non-tribe members, even if they live in the same house! Then, there's different taxes based on the products. In RI I believe certain products made of mink are untaxed while other products made of mink are. Food items are frequently nontaxed in many states, but then the definition of qualifying "food items" varies from place to place.
There's tens of thousands of different sales tax jurisdictions in the US, asking retailers to figure all that out is completely unreasonable. If they want sales taxes nationwide, they need to simplify it massively.
Oh bullshit. There's no drawers with parts left at any Radio Shacks.
And no, it's perfectly fair, the buyer uses it regardless of where he or she buys from.
It isn't perfectly fair. For a person choosing to make some of their purchases outside some governmental jurisdiction that charges sales taxes, a "use tax" creates a huge documentation and record-keeping burden, in order to keep track of which purchases have had taxes paid on them and which have not.
In other words, people who are making rational purchasing decisions (decisions that in most cases are completely uninfluenced by the tax issue, a point that has been discussed many times on Slashdot) are being unfairly penalized by the government for doing so.
Don't forget, some people live close to state or local government borders, and have the majority of their available local shopping on the far side of those borders. It's not even close to rational to make people drive a long distance to make purchases in their own state when there is convenient shopping that might be, for example, 5 minutes away on the far side of the border.
If we allow "use taxes", then these people must keep track of almost all of their purchases, recording what was purchased, and which of potentially multiple jurisdictions (city government, county government, state government) have and need to receive sales tax payments (an item that local government places sales tax on may not necessarily also be taxed at the state level, and vice-versa), how much sales tax was paid at time of purchase, what is still owed to each of the different governments having jurisdiction at the location where one lives, and must be prepared to provide all that information to one or possibly multiple levels of government for audit purposes (a huge violation of privacy rights in itself: the list of personal possessions of an individual is not something government at any level has any business knowing). Then we also have the situation where purchases are made on federal land, such as national parks or military bases, or overseas, thus requiring one to know any federal policies that may be applicable ...
It's hard enough for businesses to keep track of all the details of sales tax changes from one jurisdiction to another, and from one year to another, let alone requiring this of everyone! This is an absurd situation that clearly violates a number of fundamental rights, and there is clearly something wrong with the people in government that are even considering doing this.
If we don't allow "use taxes" on some people, as a result of these considerations, then we can't put them on anyone.
To make things more complicated, it's not really clear that government at any level has the legal authority to tax the purchase or use of some types of items. For example, non-fiction educational materials are the primary means by which citizens learn enough about the world they live in to make intelligent decisions about their government. Does it really make sense to tax the purchase of these items?
Simply boycott them. I'll no longer shop at Amazon.
Agreed. They would probably have to buy a package/service, which would probably be prohibitively expensive for them.
I agree. Sales tax is dumb in a lot of ways. Abolishing it would make this so much easier. In the meantime, there are solutions to the problem of "how much sales tax do I collect and where do I send it?
Sales tax is dumb?? I'll tell you what's dumb... Income tax is dumb. Sales tax is meaningful and based upon consumption rates. Unfortunately, it hits lower-income people worse than higher-income. Taxing a person's income is taxing their existence. Taxing the profits they make by investing their income seems more fair. If you think we can't fund the government without income tax, look into CAFR at cafr1.com (look at Walter Burien's BIO, too). We've all been getting ripped-off by our government since before we were born.
So, if you think that there still needs to be an income tax, then, the top-earners' rate needs to go back to what it used to be (near 90%), and I don't see that happening anytime soon. Unfortunately, the top-earners' tax bracket has been lowered, substantially, since Nixon's and Reagan's terms, thus facilitating the situation we're in. Capital Gains Tax needs to be raised, but only for top-earners, too. The rules have been rewritten since the 70s to give the wealthy a major advantage.
Ask yourself how you'd tax someone using a barter system... One person wants to trade a chicken for a chair another person made. If the gov had its way, you'd have a three-legged chair and a dead chicken (also missing a leg) that can't lay eggs.
No sig for you! Come back one year!
Even if all states adopt a single unified statewide rate for online retailers that is still 46 tax jurisdictions one has to keep track of rates and exemptions in. Furthermore that is 46 jurisdictions with different filing deadlines and requirements, and 46 jurisdictions who can demand an audit of your books.
Then you get the fun corner cases. What happens when I as a Washington State resident order something online and have it shipped to my parents house in Arizona? Do I pay Washington taxes or Arizona taxes?
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Court orders to provide customer lists along with what was purchased are routinely issued against online retailers who sell alcohol or tobacco on-line. In the case of tobbaco the state can't really do much to the retailer but in the case of Washington they do routinely issue nasty letters with the threat of legal action to customers who haven't paid the appropriate taxes.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
Is it a pain in the ass to figure shipping cost to every address in the United States? I'm sure the shipping companies will be subject to the same taxes and will have a data base covering every address they ship to. Every taxing authority submits taxes due for the addresses it covers. These taxes are printed on the shipping manifest. You collect the tax (with a little bit extra for your trouble). If the customer has an issue with taxes collected they have to take it up with the taxing authority, not you.
Yep, the one in my podunk town does. Almost every adapter and cable connector you can think of. Maybe stores in big metropolitan areas really just sell cell phones and have found out that their customers are to dumb to actually need a electronic PART.
Have you ever employed someone? You have to have a federal ID to make out their W-2s. If you work for yourself you are still going to file as a business to so you can deduct your expenses. You can't hide, just pay up.
... thereby satisfying the unwritten rule of all lawmakers: "Whatever you do, make sure it creates a business model for someone."
This is not a good solution. It simply means entrenching a new tier of businesses who have their own needs, costs, vulnerabilities, liabilities - and above all, their own lobbyists, whose job is then to make sure the system never ever ever gets simplified.
We don't have a state income tax. It was the sales tax people that collected it from him and it was the same percentage so what's the difference?
As I understand Use tax, as least in the State of Texas, you are only liable for use tax for items that you did not pay sales tax on when you purchased them. That may vary state to state, but, at least for the businesses I have worked with here, if they ran down to the corner store for a ream of paper and paid tax on it, then they already paid the tax, but if they used their Tax ID number to purchase a pallet of paper, and didn't pay sales tax, they had to pay use tax on it.
Free Pie! The Pie is Also Evil!
Sure, there are resources for calculating the sales tax, but there's another factor here. Most small retailers will go from having a single tax ID and a single sales tax filing each month, to having to do 46 of them every month. I work with small businesses a lot in my job, and I know quite a few of the ones that I work with can spend a whole afternoon filing it. One. Single. Form. (Virginia and New York, I'm looking at you right now...) If they had to file 46 six of them, that is going to mean that they will need a whole extra employee who isn't going to be doing much more than filing tax returns. All day. Every Day. And Yoda forbid if you have a high enough sales total that you have to file twice a month....
Free Pie! The Pie is Also Evil!
Please keep in mind I said there is a solution. I never said it was a good solution or that the tax situation in the U.S. is ideal. If anything, this is an example of the government discouraging sales (the tax means I have less money to spend and encourages me to hoard money, only spending on the most important things), while simultaneously increasing the burden on the seller (pay for a tax service, or hire more people to keep track of sales tax), reducing their capital to make business improvements or sell at a price that may increase volume and improve the economy.
There is a reason why "tax" has synonyms, and none of them are positive.
24 beers in a case, 24 hours in a day. Coincidence? I think not!
Shouldn't change life in Delaware much. We don't have sales tax, period.
Tell that to the merchants selling goods from Delaware to other states. First this effects sellers of goods and second it indirectly effects buyers who try to avoid paying their sales tax on purchased goods. So although it may not effect you personally as a buyer, I am certain it effects many business owners in Delaware selling goods online and will increase their accounting and administrative expenses. In general, the seller or exporter of a good is not required to collect sales taxes for the state in which they are delivering to. It is the responsiblity of the buyer or importer to account for and pay the sales taxes as appropriate for the state in which they reside. With this new regulation, a business owner in Delware would need to apply for a sales tax license in every state in the US. And then adjust their shopping cart to account for all of the specific tax regulations for every good they sell based on the specific state tax law of the state they are shipping to. And then they would need to be sure to store this information and pay the taxes properly and on time. This is a lot of hassle for smaller business just trying to sell a few product online. The law is trying to make sure taxes are paid because many individuals do not properly declare their online purchases to their state and pay the taxes. However, the states have absolutely no juristiction over sellers outside of the united states. As a result good from Canada, Mexico and any other country will be able to sell the same goods online for a perceived cheaper value to customer because the state sales tax will not be added in the checkout cost. Furthermore, these companies outside the US will have lower administrative costs as they do not need to apply for licenses, determine which items are taxable and for what amount in each state, account for taxes charged and make payments to each of the states individually.
So it may not seem to effect you as an individual. But I assure you it will have an effect on businesses in Delaware
Collecting state tax is probably an important thing. But unless the states find a good way of ensuring tax is charged for all imported goods... it seems like it will put online domestic sellers at a disadvantage in comparison to international ones.
Excuse me, but how effen hard is this? ... It is not that difficult.
Youre wrong. This will be very difficult and require a lot of knowledge of tax law in every state in the US. Its not just a matter of applying a different percentage for the final purchase amount based on the state. You need to know the specific laws of each state, because often a single items is taxed differently and at different amounts for each state. You cannot simply apply a blanket tax formula for each state, you need to consider all of the products you sell and other seemingly strange things, such as the quantity of the item sold, and possibly other seemingly unrelated things, such as the race of the individual your selling to. I know it seems easy from the outside, but until you really get into the specifics of state tax law you may not realize how much more difficult it is to multiply this complexity by about 50.
This isnt such a bad idea really. The online vendor could then also email the customer information on how to reclaim the paid tax from the state. As they would need to do if they were visiting a state and paid state tax on goods for which they do not have to pay. This would put much of the labour back into the hands of individual customers and the states themselves rather then putting it into the hands of the sellers of goods.
Probably goes without saying this, but Amagoon and companies the like, are the ones pushing for this to go thru.
If they take out what are essentially mom and pop internet shops they can continue to monopolize, and charge out the yazoo for products.
I can't prove that Amagoon or other companies are paying off the trustworthy "we do not take brides" politicians but I would suspect that since most that commented on this continue to mention Amagoon, I suspect they have there hand up these hand puppets asses to get this to go thru.
Yes I am aware that the US gov and states want to have more tax money, so they can blow there new found wealth on more stupid projects only to complain they need more money to fund more oxymoron ideas, but there are others among us that are drooling for this to happen.
Yet another Slashdot headline malfunction: A nonbinding proposal is a "mandate"?? The real story bears little relation to the head.
Look, let's admit it, Slashdot, as a news source, is broken. Five years ago, SD was one of my primary news sources. But today, it's degenerated into Glenn Beck for "Big Bang" fans. Nobody cares?
This was my impression as well.
His parents are probably 47%ers. i.e people who get more from the gov't than they pay in each year...because they're retired and paying little if any tax besides capital gains on certain retirement investments, while receiving benefits from social programs they'd been paying through their taxes for most of their lives already.
Hire a national accounting firm (which already has SALT (state and local tax) experts for each state) to write-up a treatise on sales tax for that state. Program the resulting reports into the database.
Just take in customer address, run it into database, spit out a sales tax number.
Got audited? Run a report off the transaction database. Law changed? Throw it in the auto-update.
These problems aren't impossible to solve, Turbotax has the federal income tax code pegged for 95% of the population, and they also have to fight hundreds of competitors who have also translated the federal income tax code into a database to sell. They create, update, and maintain these databases to sell this stuff to individuals for ~$30 a time (for state income tax reports based off the federal income tax report they'll handle for free)
My bet is that if state taxes on online transactions become the law for the nation, we'll have dozens of sales tax transaction layer vendors in less than a year, and have already bid each other into a market rate for sevices. I'll go further and bet that many of those vendors would come from the vendors already established above. The barrier of entry and the technical hurdles involved are low.
The ones in Columbus, Ohio; outside of malls and away from college areas; still do.
Not much there, though. 1/4 watt resistors, various jumbo-sized capacitors (eg 25V+), DB9/DB25 soldering cups and terminals, small breadboards, solder, and 15-30w irons. No ICs, not even 555's, let alone 74LS. Very poorly stocked, and you can usually see two to three generations of packaging redesigns in a drawer. And the markup is about ten times that of Digikey. Something like $5 for a pack of 5-10 resistors.
It's basically a last resort, when you just don't want to wait four days on a mail-order part.
There are alway costs associated with doing business.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
If the people of California, through their duly elected representives, have decided to institute an "internet tax" then an "internet tax" there shall be. Those who try to work around the "people's will" should face the hardest penalties.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
You don't get to decide which laws you will obey and which ones you will ignore based on your personal opinion
Law that are obeyed never get changed.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
As a small business owner, selling 80% of my sales via the internet, this sends shivers down my spine. Not because of lost sales, but because of the nightmare of paying the tax to 46 states and 9000+ taxing jurisdictions. State sales tax, city sales tax, county sales tax, and all at different rates! There is NO WAY a small guy like me can possibly do this. Pay the flat 6% to Michigan, yes, but pay all the different rates to all the jurisdictions, IMPOSSIBLE without paying for a very expensive service. Small businesses and hard working little guys screwed again.
Agreed. It will just be tougher on small businesses.