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US Senate Passes Internet Tax Bill 69 To 27
schwit1 quotes The Washington Post: "The Senate aimed to help traditional retailers and financially strapped state and local governments Monday by passing a bill that would widely subject online shopping — for many a largely tax-free frontier — to state sales taxes. The Senate passed the bill by a vote of 69 to 27, getting support from Republicans and Democrats alike."
schwit1 adds "Unfortunately online businesses could be in for a rude awakening when it comes to the law's interpretation." Passage in the House is not certain, and companies like eBay are lobbying to raise the minimum sales required to collect state sales tax to $10 million instead of $1 million per year.
Total Garbage. Just what I expect from the U.S. Government. Can't balance our budget, find more ways to tax consumers.
to collect state sales tax to $10 million instead of $1 million per year.
I predict that if the limit is raised to $10 million then companies will "outsource" sales to wholly owned subsidiaries. For example "Your order has been filled by Amazon West Houston INC"... which has sales below the threshold. At $1 million a year it would be debatable whether the large organisational overhead would be worthwhile for larger companies, but an $10 million it probably would be.
There's no way Republicans will allow a tax increase if it affects millionaire bankers, and millionaire bankers are exactly the sort of people who buy a lot of stuff on the internet. So this will die in the house.
Yes I did just point the finger at Republicans for the huge deficit, take a look:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2013/02/parfait.jpg
That big thick orange stripe that is increasing over time, is the amount added on to the debt by the Bush tax cuts for the rich. As long as the Republicans won't let rich people be taxed, that big thick strip will get thicker.
Borrowing money is not a viable long term 'low tax' policy because the interest is piling up too. The states need sales tax, because companies like Microsoft won't pay corporation tax.
Traditional retailers want business? Change their service, train staff better, have more registers open, kick out the rabble who just hang out in stores and never buy stuff. Most of all lower prices. Even with shipping and sales taxes, I've bought quite a few items online far cheaper. It adds up. Time saved, gas saved, not desiring to punch a moron, or rude person. Despite our need to be around people, malls and shopping just sucks. It's not the same pleasant experience it used to be.
How hard would be for those large companies to just offshore the sales to avoid paying this tax? I mean they are already doing it to dodge other taxes anyway. Wouldn't this just affect smaller shops that do not have an army of lawyers and "tax optimization" specialists.
Fortunately this is US only (for now) but it's a very bad example for other goverments. I can already see other country politicians smiling and thinking: "Hey - we can do that too, right?"
Let's be clear - legally it's a National Sales Tax - "Internet" is just the wrapping paper it's in. Only a fool would expect it to not be expanded in the future, should it become Law (and survive the Constitutional challenge filed the next day).
If a State does not want to enforce its own sales tax laws, that's not the burden of people in other States, nor do the Feds have the authority to impose it. Well, assuming the US Constitution still has any validity.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
The web front end and credit card transactions are in Bermuda, but the shipments are from a warehouse in the states? Is the seller obligated to collect state taxes.
I for one am glad to see that congress can come together on such an important bill.
If they did that, then *they* wouldn't own it, their tax exempt company would own it, and if they had exclusive use of it, then it would be a benefit in kind and taxable.
The super rich *do* dodge taxes, (e.g. there's a fund manager who makes $8 Billion a year or so, and makes *zero* tax), but sale tax is not so easy to dodge.
Buying from offshore doesn't save you, because you need more paperwork, and get charged the missing sales tax on receipt.
Well... time for Amazon et. al. to move to India...
So what now stands in the way of obligating brick and mortar stores to post that actual final price of goods on their price tags? The argument I invariably hear against it is that there are so many tax jurisdictions that it's unnecessarily onerous for a business to manage that. Obviously that isn't the case anymore, is it?
bipartisan effort working together to screw the common american. Major multinational corporations are entirely exempt from burdens like taxation, while wageslaves enjoy a cornucopia of arcane, recursive taxation. That some how we're not supposed to talk about class warfare, why we all make shit-tier pay, or what sand encrusted foreign clusterfuck our taxes are being shoveled into.
it leads me to believe Hollyoaks has it all wrong. That Tony Stark only runs around fixing problems he created in the first place. that Batman is just the billionaire boilerplate we've come to recognize as our perpetual prison industrial complex. That should a revolution ever befall this great nation it will start with a flaming Wal-Mart, and not stop until every mansion and chateau from marthas vinyard to kennebunkport is reduced to a smoldering pile of ash twisted wrought iron.
Good people go to bed earlier.
"The web front end and credit card transactions are in Bermuda"
Is it a Verisign TLD? Evidently that makes it U.S. enough to try extradition regardless of the server's physical location.
Time to switch to Alibaba instead of Amazon...
that there are 50 states and 50 different tax laws, and that's just domestic commerce is a huge problem. The benifits of internet commerce will ensure that online retailers don't go away, but ultimately there will emmerge a new system of state taxes that erases barriers between interstate comerce. The power of the internet is not going to be ignored, rather the world will eventually adapt to several billion people becoming virtual next door neighbors.
"The Most Fun Possible on 4 wheels" is at SunBuggy in Las Vegas
Looks like this will make people order directly from China. Decreasing our jobs more and other BS.
But, everyone knows, it is very difficult to enforce and people will lie or "mis remember" about their out-of-state purchases. People who denounce this new move as onerous, bad, etc are tax cheats to dodge the tax or benefit by aiding and abetting tax dodging.
I see no reason why the internet businesses, whose existence came in because of long investments by the government in R&D and infrastructure, now denounce the government. If they get this tax law watered down, I wish the brick and mortor businesses push for a new tax on all internet companies to out of state sales, be levied a new federal tax to recoup the investment the federal and state governments (dont forget the state universities R&D contributions). They will be given a rebate equal to the amount of sales tax they have collected on behalf of state governments, all other federal sales should be charged a flat 6% federal tax. The Federal government might redistribute the money based on population or sales volume per state.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
in a nutshell, yes they are.
The legal term is "nexus" which is defined differently in different states. Some states require a physical presence (store, warehouse, salesperson's home) and some required much less. In some cases, if someone from the company travels to the state, that is enough for the state to demand sales tax.
The real kicker is not that online companies will have to start collecting tax from all 50 states, but they are going to be responsible for the tax rules from (IIRC) about 19,000 different tax jurisdictions: city, county, state, etc.
...this is merely to collect existing State Sales tax, that is fine. If they are trying to sneak an additional "federal sales tax" in as well however. Time to take up the torches and pitchforks and overthrow a tyrannous government
Yes. Is most states is has to do with physical location of the business not the online store. If you have a distribution center in North Carolina... you are subject to their taxes.
Some big online retailers charge you sales tax, some patchwork of others do. Currently, I have to dig back through receipts to report unpaid sales tax come April and it's a hassle. How about some of you stop your whining and accept that a tax code should be consistently applied.
god bless sales tax-free New Hampshire.
OK, the state supplies software. Can you integrate it into your shopping cart software at no cost? If you bought shopping cart software, do you now get a free upgraded version that supports state tax software, or more likely, will you have to spend money for V2.0?
And how much detail do you have to report to the state tax office? Can you get away with:
Sales to your state: $XXX.XX
Tax sent: $X.XX
Or will they do like normal governments and ask for tons of other hard-to-get-after-the-fact information, used for [insert Deity here]-knows-what?
The web front end and credit card transactions are in Bermuda, but the shipments are from a warehouse in the states? Is the seller obligated to collect state taxes.
No, but the customer will have fun time with US customs when the package arrives.
Selling all of NH's cultural relics like Vermont maple syrup and Maine lobster's, delivered fresh to your doorstep.
A few things that would improve things a lot in stores
1 issue the staff scanners with barcode and CC readers so they can ring stuff at the racks
2 keep a better track of whats in store
3 have a buy in store send from warehouse service ( invert the ship to store thing)
4 have at least one person in the store keeping the sales folks going
oh and as to the "riff raff" sometimes they do actually buy stuff (or bring folks that do buy)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
But if you'd drop-shipping from a third-party within the state, I'm not sure that that's still true.
Among the challenges of collecting sales tax is there are thousands of taxing jurisdictions. And often the boundaries don't correspond to any zipcode nor even a particular municipality. In addition, sales tax jurisdictions can and often do overlap - ie. city and county.
Even a state that doesn't levy a sales tax itself may allow local authorities to do so, such as some local Alaskan towns do.
To make matters worse, there are numerous categories and exceptions in what's taxable depending on what it is, the amount purchased, the location / manner in which it's sold (ie. food item purchased in a convenience store verses supermarket; consumed on premises or take-out) and when (tax holidays, etc).
And then there's the matter of filing dozens of state sales tax returns - some will expect filings every month, some quarterly, etc. And the time-frames will often differ, so one could find themselves filing sales tax forms practically every month or even more often depending on sales volume. And that's not even getting into dealing with compliance checks that states may perform at any time.
Bottom line is sales tax is far more challenging to collect than many realize. It's not 50 states, but rather thousands of taxing jurisdictions with numerous different rates, rules, exemptions, etc.
There is talk of simplifying the collection process for on-line retailers, which would lessen the burden, especially to small businesses.
I frequently buy from Amazon and other online companies however it is blatantly unfair that these companies don't have to collect sales tax, while regular brick and mortar companies do. Either do away with sales tax completely (which I'd prefer) or add it to online sales.
Other than property taxes, we have no income nor sales tax.
Yes, is true, but I think there is a bit of a loophole. If you set up a PayPal like system in the Cayman Islands, you could funnel money into it (your "bank") and then because taxation is from the point of purchase (buyer's address) not the point of delivery, you could bypass tax law by making all purchases through that location. Basically, purchase by proxy through a Cayman's web site. The caveat is whether you owe gift tax or if it considered an overseas purchase, but once again you're right back in the unpaid Use Tax problem they are attempting to fix.
Also the average tax jurisdictions is thought to be about 9800, though there is a highball number in the 19000s. The real problem is there are something like 120 changes a day on average according to a news report I saw on it. If you have the resources to track 9800 different jurisdictions and 120 changes a day without a major impact to your bottom line, well I commend you Wal-Mart, but most businesses don't.
I currently pay the "safe harbor" amount of the use tax on Massachusetts income taxes. Why? Can't be bothered keeping track of the online purchases, and afraid if I put down 0 for the use tax I'd be audit-bait (and penalized). But I'm not convinced I'll come out behind if this passes...
Instead of doing something simple to raise revenue, like tax capital gains at the same rates as income, the Senate has voted to create a national sales tax. Another tax on the majority who already pay too much in taxes.
Okay, let's make this fair and require the brick & mortar stores to do the same thing. If I live in Colorado and visit friends in California, I only want to pay Colorado's 2.9% tax (which would be sent directly to Colorado) and not California's 7.5% (California should get nothing since I don't live there). It's the exact same logic. Let the brick and mortar stores have to hire new employees specifically to deal with all the new paperwork involved.
But the American people are sheeple. As long as you continue to feed them their daily dose of Honey Boo Boo and American I-Dull, they will continue to scream "Yeah. Murica Number One!", go about their dull lives and take whatever crap to elite feel they can continue to crush them with.
And if any Americans do start to rise up, the government will have an act of "terrorism" to keep the people frightened of the boogeyman, and tell them to duct tape their windows and doors and we'll all comply.
Unfortunately; America is bunch of whiney, spineless do-nothings who've had it easy for so long, they can't even see they're being squeezed into slavery and servitude to the elite.
But hey, you made your bed. Now sleep in it.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
So, if Republicans supported this bill, and they signed Grover's tax pledge, is Grover going to go after these people come the next election? Or is Grover going to look they other way, since this doesn't affect the elite and large corporations?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
What happened to all revenue generating (tax) bills must be introduced in the House first, then the Senate?
You're forgetting every county and municipal sales tax there might be.
And let's not forget that each state classifies items differently, and sometimes in really ambiguous ways. Is bottled water considered 'food'? (and thus not taxed in some areas) What food items are considered 'ready to eat' and thus subjected to various 'snack' taxes?
When this came up years ago, there was a push for there to be one body per state responsible for sorting out all of the sales taxes (and to be the point of payment), so that it'd be closer to the problem you describe (although, you forgot DC and territories).
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
GE paid zero corporate income taxes. ZERO. On a company that continuously reports record profits. They "offshore" most of their money so they don't even have to pay taxes on the interest they earn. Exxon Mobil plays the same games, but they're in an even better position because they receive subsidies from the government, so their taxes are actually negative (the government gives them money), on top of their record profits.
My guess is that the larger online retailers will have to start playing these games as well. Amazon for sure, will probably charge us (the buyer) taxes, and then offshore the income, so that those taxes never get to the states they should.
Therefore, Amazon will actually get more income from every product sold, and that money will go right into Bezo's pocket. Because he has lawyers and accountants to make that money vanish into his mansion(s), without ever reporting it to the government.
And if not, it's fairly easy to buy a few senators and congressmen and make the problem go away.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Can someone explain how ordering products from other states via the internet is any different than calling the merchant and ordering the same product over the phone? Would these transactions be considered the same, tax wise? I can see a potential loophole.
They do have the resources. You just use computers.
Accounting firms already exist with numerous experts in every state, (Typically referred to as their "SALT" or State and Local Tax department). You find a change, interpret, push into the database with the associated effective date. Next week's update rolls out to every subscriber.
Off the top of my head I can name 5 accounting companies that already have/ are continuing to interpret law changes in every state. (I can think of several more possible companies, but not sure if they operate in every state). All they need to do is sell it. When that many companies (plus any that decide to join the competition) are selling identical products, you end up with price competition and commoditization of the product. In the end, you end up with the equivalent of TurboTax for internet sales.
"even backers of the bill concede would only amount to about 1% of state and local government revenues"
I'm having trouble convincing myself that the expense of setting up the infrastructure to administer this and the costs from unintended consequences won't outweigh that modest gain.
Currently, I have to dig back through receipts to report unpaid sales tax come April ...
Gosh darn it! You are so honest?
Is your name Ned Flanders?
If you dont to participate and pay for the benefits of socitey, that is fine for me. Just dont freeload off me.
Screw that noise. But, I heard on the radio yesterday that consumers would be able to circumvent the tax payment by calling the store (instead of ordering the item online).
Can Siri do that?
I can only think of Cuba, and Venezuela as the only Socialist economies that exist today. A lot of people like to call Europe Socialist, only because they have social services like free health care and such. But that has absolutely NOTHING to do with a Socialism economy. All economies can have free and amazing social services - it is not tied to one particular brand.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Last thing we need is even more regressive taxes.
This is actually a touchy subject. What the bill does is excludes smaller companies that make under $1 million in profits as to promote small businesses (the good). It forces larger company's to charge sales tax, from a business perspective this makes sense as to create fair competition (the bad). From a consumer perspective this sucks balls and I probably wont be able to afford all my newegg gear now (the ugly).
There's absolutely no justification for not paying sales tax when buying online. This gives an unfair advantage to online retailers. It has to end.
Won't someone pullease think of the small businesses?! Oh wait! Is this an Obama initiative?
I understand the theory here (the current system does give online retailers a sizable price advantage over bricks-and-mortar), but this is a bad idea to implement now for two reasons.
First of all, we're still in a recession, and that makes it a bad time to be increasing any taxes on the middle class. Basic Keynesian theory is that you moderate a recession by cutting taxes and increasing spending (even if it means running a deficit), and moderate an economic boom by increasing taxes and cutting spending (thus paying off the bills run up during the deficit). And taxes on the middle class (which this largely is) are especially potent, since that's where much of the consumer spending comes from, and it's consumer spending that drives the economy. So we should be talking about adding an Internet sales tax when the economy recovers, not now.
Secondly, it is unlikely that the state governments currently in power will use the added sales tax money in a wise manner. In theory, states could use the money to increase public services, build infrastructure, or cut the overall sales tax rate (while keeping revenue constant because of the larger tax base). But in practice, a majority of state governments are run by unrepresentative right-wing extremists (thank you, low-turnout off-year elections) and they will probably use the money to cut state income taxes on the rich and give more handouts to corporations.
There seems to be an endless need to give tax breaks to companies that don't need them, but any time there is a perceived subsidy to working families Congress moves to squish it. Are people going back to brick and mortar stores? Nope, so this is just squeezing people who cannot afford to pay, because they cannot afford to lobby like giant companies.
How is this "law" not a violation? An another lie, yes lie, is the how business is "hurt." Even the tinyest of businesses are gaming the law. The last time I saw a Brick and Mortor NOT have a web site, that is also "being hurt", was, never. This law smells like fish, three days in the sun.
The US Constitution states quite clearly that all revenue and spending bills must originate in the House of Representatives. It doesn't matter how good or bad this bill is, having it introduced in the Senate is unconstitutional, and I predict that it will get shot down very, very fast when it reaches the House because regardless of how badly some of the Representatives want this, they're not about to let the Senate step on their own privileges.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
It seems like it is almost inevitable that someone "won't be paying their fair share" when we have a complicated tax code. We have numerous incentives and exceptions. We have reasons for them.
Personally, I'd like to see a simplified tax code. One with no exemptions or exceptions. But even then, some would still think others aren't paying their fair share.
If any country ever does manage to make a decent and simple tax code, they might find they have a worse problem: large numbers of suddenly unemployed lawyers looking for "work".
One last thing: Sometimes I wonder; "Is that someone's signature? Or do they type that at the end of each post?"
Never underestimate the ability or willingness of your Senator to sell you out.
It is. It's why Buy.com and Newegg started chargins sales tax in TN. Their main offices didn't change but they now drop-ship out of Memphis.
Oh, third party... Not so sure about that. I'm sure if that were a loophole, it would be closed up quickly.
As I should be. Imposing a sales tax on in-store purchases but not online is fundamentally regressive. But there's no need to make the argument all over again here. Visit http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2013/04/22/1900551/how-closing-the-online-sales-tax-loophole-would-help-low-income-families/ and read the sourced articles.
I just bought some interesting toys from DealExtreme and they ship straight from China. I bought from them because our asinine Govt. has recalled the same product from US sellers (Buckey Balls). I can still get much the same thing from DX with no problem.
So, I suspect that DX won't collect taxes, my money goes overseas. Will this not have the unintended side effect of making overseas businesses more attractive? For many things shipping is just as reasonable if you don't mind a little delay. I'm already forced to buy some things I want overseas, buying more of them isn't that great a stretch IMO and this could certainly make them more competitive...
Build it, Drive it, Improve it! Hybridz.org
This should be renamed "the tax auditor full employment act of 2013." The only folks who will like it are CPAs and the IRS.
Organization? You must be joking..
In case you need a list of senators to not re-elect:
https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00113#state
It is every American's duty to dodge unconstitutional taxes. Which is basically all of them. So, yeah.
If this bill becomes law it will be shot down by the Supremes. You can't enforce New York laws in Arizona. Period.
Captcha: Conspire
The web front end and credit card transactions are in Bermuda, but the shipments are from a warehouse in the states? Is the seller obligated to collect state taxes.
No, but the customer will have fun time with US customs when the package arrives.
The package isn't going through customs; it was shipped from inside the U.S. That's the most likely problem with this scenario; they're going to consider the seller's address to be the warehouse, not the country where they're registered.
Anyway, sales and use taxes are a pretty bad idea no matter where or how they're implemented, and I hate to see them taking hold on the Internet, where they will inevitably go to pay for things which have absolutely no relationship to the commerce being taxed. For local public services, a flat property tax is the only one that make any sense. (Not that I'm prepared to endorse any tax, but it's better than any of the alternative taxes.) The only real advantage sales taxes—but not use taxes—have is that they're very easy to collect, at least in a brick-and-mortar context. That doesn't generalize to online sales, so it's best to just forget about sales and use taxes entirely (for both local and online merchants) and find a different source of funds for local services which is actually tied to the use of those services.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
2011 they paid $5.7 Billion.
I am a software developer and have a part-time independent game development business. Thus, this law can not apply to me.
I'll just sell my wares online, and give the finger to the corrupt classicism that is this law. If Rosa Parks had the balls to sit at the front of the bus and break the unjust segregation laws, and risk getting thrown in jail, then so do I. Unjust laws should be ignored, just because a law is made, doesn't mean it's a good one to abide by... Jim Crow was a law once. WE ALL already pay heavily via income tax. WTF more do you want from us? If you want more, then take more from the income tax, that's a decentralized method of taxation. Making all companies do more work to pay this tax is cruel and unusual punishment if you ask any systems designer: It's not scalable! The tax system is broken. As long as they're pretending like the The Information Age isn't here, I'm pretending like moronic laws like this don't exist either -- It just so happens that those who are supposed to represent me don't; So, I have nothing else left to do but protest.
Let's face it, this shit doesn't really affect the big guys. They'll manage. It just creates a big moat around real profit (and thus lobby power, since 'money = speech' now), to keep small companies from getting bigger and competing with the big ones.
It's not like I have any choice, I have to ignore the law. I haven't reached their BS $1mil limit, far from it, but I do have big plans... If I do hit that limit, then my actual take-home profit won't be that much because it does cost a lot to run a massively collaborative online world building game... Once I hit that tipping point, I'll go broke if I try to comply with this fucking law. I'd be dumb to just close up shop though. I'm just hoping the fines for not collecting the taxes will be less than the actual cost to do so, and that maybe I can fly under the radar until I'm on the other side of the chasm and can afford it. Even if that means I'm jailed and can never write software again, then it's a win-win situation. We'll have our "parks" moment (not that the corporate owned media would publicize it)... I hear that not all countries on this rock are quite this daft, so maybe I'll just fucking move and take my tax money with me to another country.
Great piece of legislation, as usual, pricks.
So if its not about "getting wealthy" and I should be satisfied with an average life, why would I work for a living if I'm owed an "average life"?
I realize mediocre & lazy people like this kind of system, but how do you convince the productive people to support you?
I mean other than convincing them with guns and jail?
I'm not going to pay it. If I have to I simply won't purchase online.
The "congresspeople" prattling on about how it's "unfair" to brick & mortar stores should shove it. How about when you buy something that's not a tangible product, like an MP3 from the iTunes store?
Meanwhile, trillions of dollars of transactions happen every day in the stock market, and NONE OF THAT IS TAXED.
So, just so we're clear: middle-class == screwed by paying more taxes when they buy stuff online; rich investors == even more rich 'cause they don't really pay taxes of any sort anyhow, then complain bitterly if their income (via investments) is taxed at 15% while the rest of us pay 30% because we actually work for a living.
Seriously; screw them all. Perhaps it's time to enforce our second amendment rights. No taxation without representation.
And believe me, we (the 99%) are NOT represented by the government.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
If you're not gonna spend it, they'll need to tax it. So start spending, or we'll have to try Socialism. :-P
What do so many Americans have such fear/hatred of Socialism?
Because a lot of people have ancestors who fled socialist countries.
Because the biggest experiment in socialism failed to last 90 years, and the last 45 years of that was propped up by leaching off East Germany, Hungary, Poland, Czechoslovakia. as well as states absorbed ionto the USSR such as Georgia, Chechnya and the Ukraine.
You call it like you see it. I like that. You wanna know why I want to dodge all these little taxes then, if we're gonna speak honestly? Cause all those rich assholes get to dodge millions in taxes every year but when you or I try to get a break of $2 then we are evil little bastards who are a leech on society and we should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. Why is it ok for them and not for us? I imagine you'll say it's not. Then why are you berating us, your fellow middle classers, and giving them a free pass? Many people here and even the rich folks I refer to, have stated many times that it is your duty to pay as little tax as possible and one should actively work towards this goal. So when we find us a way to save a buck or 2 suddenly it's problem that needs fixed. It'll get fixed too cause it is to the big boys advantage. But when we want one of their loopholes patched up what do we get? A bunch of fucking nothing. So let's hear your opinion on the matter.
It'd be better to do one or more of the following...
1. Create a national database of sales tax so retailers have on location to find the rate.
2. Assume tax on all items if UNSURE, and let the consumer deal with getting a refund.
3. Allow or mandate states create a special tax rate for the state. The state would find the average tax rate for the state and give it a special code. For those retailers who don't have a nexus in the state, they'd be permitted to use that rate. The DoR would then divide up the money among their locales based on sales statistics. So, they'd be around 50 special tax rates in this situation.
I dunno, I've bought plenty of things from overseas (tech crap from companies in Hong Kong, old car crap from companies in Britain). I'm sure the packages go through customs given they usually take two to four weeks to get to me, but the process seemed rather transparent. Of course these are small items worth small dollar amounts, so I can't speak to what would happen if I tried to order a new TV from Bermuda.
+1 Disagree
Why is everyone whining about thousands of taxing jurisdictions when we have computers? This is nothing more than a business opportunity for a few groups of tax lawyers and programmers who start a few companies that make software that throws a tax calculation into the point-of-sale software that most businesses, even small ones, probably already use. It will be a bit of a SNAFU to set up initially, but then will work fine, no matter how complicated various levels of government make the tax code. It will cost a bit, but it won't break the bank. Think turbotax and the dozens of other personal tax-prep software packages. Same thing.
And the benefit? There are two:
1) State and local governments can now collect taxes from all the citizens who benefit from their services in a fair manner.
2) We stop unnecessarily wasting fuel shipping things across state lines to save a few bucks in taxes.
And if you just don't like taxes, don't you at least like the ones that pay for roads, safe water, police officers and firemen more than you like the taxes that pay for bombs, warships, and subsidized corn, sugar and other nutritious foods?
Marx called them the lumpen proletariat. Sweden, etc., sterilized and lobotomized them. China, etc., killed them. In the USA, we usually just drug them as kids and put them in prison as adults. We are just more kind like that. I like your tag line, though... It's ironic.
Have you seen how many filings have to be made for the tax collected? Figuring out the tax at point of sale is a tiny problem compared to that and that is really what has the people affected up in arms.
America was built on selling land we stole from native americans.
You're forgetting every county and municipal sales tax there might be.
The collection of these taxes isn't included in the bill that just passed.
When this came up years ago, there was a push for there to be one body per state responsible for sorting out all of the sales taxes (and to be the point of payment), so that it'd be closer to the problem you describe (although, you forgot DC and territories).
The bill that passed includes rules that require exactly that (and you forgot that some some states don't collect any sales tax).
Alexander (R-TN)
Blunt (R-MO)
Boozman (R-AR)
Burr (R-NC)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coats (R-IN)
Cochran (R-MS)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Enzi (R-WY)
Graham (R-SC)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johanns (R-NE)
Johnson (R-WI)
McCain (R-AZ)
Moran (R-KS)
Portman (R-OH)
Pryor (D-AR)
Sessions (R-AL)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
Wicker (R-MS)
This bill passed with little fanfare; you didn't see Republicans hopping mad about it the way you saw them last year when another revenue bill was proposed. Why? What is the difference?
The bill blocked by Republicans raised tax revenue from ultra-high incomes above $1,000,000 -- not "millionaires", but people who *earn a million dollars in one year*, meaning super-zillionaires. Today's bill, on the other hand, raised revenue mostly from "poor" people, if "poor" means "people who earn less than a million dollars in one year".
The Senators above, 21 Republicans and 1 Democrat, voted AGAINST the zillionaire-tax bill and FOR today's tax bill. They hypocrites of the first order, who practically shut down and bankrupted the entire government so that super-zillionaires wouldn't have to pay up, but quietly agreed to squeezing you and me out of a few more pennies.
Share this with your friends in those states so these hypocrites can be voted out of office.
"Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013"
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=113&session=1&vote=00113
"Paying a Fair Share Act of 2012"
http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=112&session=2&vote=00065
They would eliminate the sales tax.
If traditional stores didn't collect sales tax then there wouldn't be any difference in cost between online and brick/mortar stores.
Why do you all bother with individual state taxes anyway?
I was in Chicago in January and as an experiment, I went to 3 different McDonalds in different parts of the city and was charged 3 different amounts for the same exact meals. And that's just in the same city (almost within walking distance of each other - by which I mean a couple of km, not every other block), forget going down to Indiana or in to Michigan and getting charged differently still. It's so annoying I can't even find the words!
Why not just have the same rates for taxation nationwide? It would make accounting and everything SO much easier! After all, the name of the country is the UNITED States, but they're not really very united, it would seem, since everybody wants to be different in their own little worlds.
Sure, it might mean that tax revenue by state will shift on favour of some states and less in favour of some others, but who cares, really, since at the end of the day, the main reason will be population density, so the federal spend per capita will end up being approximately the same, excepting the differences in the cost of living (but even that would end up balancing itself out). And as an added bonus, you *might* even end up with less disparity. Who knows.
Founder & COO, Hayai India (hayai.in) / USA (hayaibroadband.com)
I thought the US turned socialist when the government/tax payer bailed out the financial capitalists'i.e The banks
The federal government should allow businesses to elect to pay a portion of their online sales (perhaps some kind of sliding scale) in exchange for indemnification against tax claims from a host of petty despots (the states). The states then could focus their revenue grabbing efforts on the federal government rather than raising regulatory burdens on small taxpayers.
If the sliding scale was such that at large revenue levels it became cost effective hire a professional to deal with complying to the various jurisdictional regulations, at high levels of revenue, then it may not even very seriously adversely impact tax professionals.
The Supreme Court already decided that mail order companies do not have to collect state sales tax if the company does not have a physical presence in the customer's state. So how does ordering online via web browser differ much logically from ordering from a mail order catalog and using the 800 phone #? A bankrupt state will tax anything that moves. The vendor already pays property tax and profit tax. The consumer is paying property tax and other taxes that already cover utility for road use and such.
Let states charge their own sales tax on sales that start and finish in that same state. If they ship to another state, charge 7% Federal interstate sales tax and keep 33.3% of that for the federal government, and give 33.3% to each state. States would get some of what they wanted, and on both ends and the feds would get their third.
Once passed, states could opt in or not. If they do not, they face what they face now on sales shipped into the state?)and they get nothing on sales shipped out of the state. My bet is they will take the 33.3% into and the 33.3% sales out of as better than no loaf.
There is no inventory in stores. There is no local sales tax. There is no clerk behind the counter. There is no landlord collecting rent.
Cash flows out of towns, cities, states and yes countries.
The value of a local sales tax is that it is local.
The problem with this centralized tax is that is gets handed down like other general fund tax monies and gets strings applied in the process. At the start the string might be as gossamer as a single strand of spider silk but with time it will drag thick old nooses that yank society in the ways the "govment" wants.
Compounding this is the reality of distributed talent and specific knowledge of the community needs.
Further compounding this is the diminished leverage of oversight. Communities do talk. They do notice when things are "different" and local officials get called on the carpet.
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
We currently have this problem in the UK. Lots of sales made via Amazon, Google etc are technically made in Ireland or Luxembourg. No tax payable.
Law takes a while to catch up with new developments. A disruptive tachnology like the internet / www will take time "normalise". Goverments are only just waking up to the globe spanning nature of internet commerce taxation.
The U.S., while claiming to be a Democracy, was set up as a Republic. Now, the idea behind our Freedoms, was that you could become whatever you felt you had the capability to become! And initially, once King George's yoke was overthrown and the States were set up. Taxes were collected from businesses and worker earnings in order to build & improve the country as benefits for the population. However, it got off track and has gotten worse and worse. GREED has taken over, Started by individual business owners and Politicians that the voters elected, by not paying attention as to who they elected! Now, the Republic is diminishing, bit by bit & Socialism is taking over, cleverly installed by Big Business & the Politicians that they own! Because the ultimate benefits, Power & Money, have become their goal.Legislation is aimed at major business avoiding taxes & allowing them to take over smaller businesses or to eliminate those that threaten competition, aided in large part by the Politicians owned by them.
Govt doesn't need our taxes. Govt can print currency.
Govt is imposing taxes to CONTROL the citizens.
I suspect Govt is running a Ponzi/Pyramid scheme with the help of Banks/Corporations
Casteism
they have several examples: cuba, north korea, ussr, somalia, angola...