Slashdot Mirror
eBay Urges Customers To Oppose Washington Internet Tax (knkx.org)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from KNKX: If you live in Washington state, you might have gotten the email from eBay. It begins: "The Washington State Legislature is threatening to impose new Internet sales tax burdens on you." It goes on to urge the recipient to send a form letter to Washington lawmakers opposing "harmful tax laws." So what's this about? EBay's Brian Bieron said the company is alerting its customers to a proposal to require out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax from Washington residents. "It's the right of all of our users to know when new tax policies would impact their ability to sell online or shop online, we think that they want to know and they want to get involved," Bieron said. The fact eBay is emailing its customer base now indicates the company is concerned the internet tax bill will be part of a final budget deal in Olympia. Washington House Democrats and Senate Republicans are currently trying to hash out a compromise budget that fully fund schools. That agreement will likely include some additional sources of tax revenue. Of all the choices on the table, capturing sales tax from more online sales might prove the most palatable to tax-averse Republicans. House Democrats estimate the proposal could bring in an estimated $341 million over the next two years.
And stuck with 128K ISDN because these a-hole politicians can't get their act together.
No way I'm paying any tax until they fix my fucking broadband.
Then why the special tax? There is an existing one on the books? Maybe if they pass more laws people will follow those too?
"House Democrats estimate the proposal could bring in an estimated $341 million over the next two years." Meanwhile House Republicans estimate that the proposal would drain an estimated $341 million from household budgets over the next two years. It's all how you look at it.
As soon as I open a location in Washington state, sure. Until then, fuck off.
What are your cops/judges going to do about it? Stamp their feet? Waggle their wigs?
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
As soon as I open a location in Washington state, sure. Until then, fuck off.
What are your cops/judges going to do about it? Stamp their feet? Waggle their wigs?
They will flaunt their private parts in your general direction!
Then why the special tax?
Washington state (of which I am a resident) already requires purchasers to pay - after the fact - a tax on out-of-state purchases which is equivalent to the in-state sales tax. The problem is, the state has no way of knowing what you've bought from, say, an online retailer in New York. So, being based on the "honor system", almost no one actually pays this tax.
This new solution is basically trying to get out-of-state businesses to collect that already-owed tax at the time of purchase.
#DeleteChrome
As I understand it, the state of Washington wants to require retailers outside of Washington state to collect sales tax and send it to the state of Washington. This is an attempt to regulate interstate commerce, which is a power explicitly granted to Congress in the Constitution. Congress could pass a law requiring this, but it certainly doesn't seem like the state of Washington could do that. They could crack down on the payment of use tax, but they certainly don't seem to have the ability to require retailers outside of their state to collect sales tax for them.
Here is more information on the so-called "Use Tax".
#DeleteChrome
It is both ironic and saddening that Republicans support regressive taxes, which help keep the poor trapped in the cycle of poverty, because it was the Republicans who abolished slavery in the USA a century and a half ago.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
Attempt to prevent you from selling/shipping items to people in the state... as they long have with Alibaba.
Help Brendan pay off his student loans
this is how you get people to stop shipping to your state. Implementing special rules for one state is usually more trouble than its worth. On ebay Chinese sellers will collect the tax and keep it. So your choices will be them, Walmart + Amazon unless you buy local.
I have no problem with tax on new items, as in the very first time an item has been sold. Sales tax on items that are used, that are being sold less than the original purchase price should not be able to be taxed again. The government already got their cut the first time, they shouldn't be able to get a cut every time the item changes hands.
As an American, I say, go to hell. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. The state of Washington has no authority to impose the burden of Washington sales tax collection on out-of-state businesses. It is an attempt to regulate interstate commerce, which is illegal for them to do. If you can get Congress to pass a law requiring out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax, that's fine. Otherwise, go to hell.
That is the issue for internet sellers, especially large-scale ones such as eBay. Their IT complexity would skyrocket with keeping track of the rate charged by each state (most), and forwarding the payments. And it would be further complicated when even localities are involved, such as in my state of North Carolina, where each county and/or city may soon be allowed again to add a quarter percent (IIRC) to sales taxes in their jurisdiction (used to have it, then the legislature took it away, and is now considering restoring it with tighter times). That's100 counties, and no idea how many cities, in just one state to keep up with...
The least distorting tax is a small tax, and the smallest tax is a broad tax. I'm in favour of taxing everything by a mostly equal, small amount. Less discretion, less political dickering.
People do realize that the taxation system is a waterbed ...
Don't they?
And stuck with 128K ISDN because these a-hole politicians can't get their act together.
No way I'm paying any tax until they fix my fucking broadband.
Where are you in Seattle that you are stuck with 128K ISDN?
Real lawyers write in C++
They're legislators. Please stop calling them lawmakers. Just because the mainstream news is deiberately dumbed down to about a fourth-grade reading level doesn't mean that this site must also be.
A few generations ago, the news was written to what would now be considered a college level of English. One had to be relatively educated to fully comprehend it. Since then, the standards have been lowered. If this was intended to accomplish some kind of achievement, it has failed (actually, it was intended to accomplish more advertising dollars by reaching a wider lowest-common-denominator audience, which is its only purpose). It's time to reverse the trend.
I think their argument is that they're not taxing the out-of-state business, they're taxing the citizen of their state. (yeah, yeah... six of one, a half dozen of the other)
Really it's an attempt at a cash grab via tortured wordplay - but lawyers love that sort of challenge, as do congress-critters.
#DeleteChrome
As an American, I say, go to hell. The Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate interstate commerce. The state of Washington has no authority to impose the burden of Washington sales tax collection on out-of-state businesses. It is an attempt to regulate interstate commerce, which is illegal for them to do. If you can get Congress to pass a law requiring out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax, that's fine. Otherwise, go to hell.
They will call it a "use tax" and the said "use" of interstate-purchased goods occurs within the state. That's how they will get around that little inconvenience.
They can play with words all day long until they find some way to do whatever it is they were going to do anyway. Isn't that funny? If you are ever in real trouble, accused of violating some kind of law, that same tactic won't work for you. In fact, if you tried very hard at all, the judge would hold you in contempt (the only occasion in America in which you can be jailed without any sort of due process involving proof of guilt). Don't you just love double standards?
As far as I knew, it was settled law that Washington can't do that. New York can't tax a business in California, and so on... lord knows they would if they could. The only exception would be if eBay had an actual business presence in Washington. If so, maybe they can move out of that state?
States tax out of state businesses all the time...for commerce occuring within their borders. Even Quill Corp v. ND didn't rule otherwise. The nexus is what counts, and that can differ with a different company. Or Congress could get off its ass, it had been in the baliwick for some time.
Still, absent that, there are still questions. Does eBay have enough of a presence for Washington state to act? Well, eBay thinks so, this lobbying wouldn't exist otherwise.
Amazon's been exposed to the same pressure. They started collecting.
So what is going on?
Unfortunately, the information I've found is light on details.
Sales tax is a regressive tax that disproportionately hurts working families. Raise capital gains and top margin rates instead. Folks who spend their entire earnings getting by shouldn't be looked at as walking dollar signs.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You just use a service. $10/month. https://taxcloud.net/
I don't respond to AC's.
Don't sell to WA state residents.
Read this: https://www.courts.wa.gov/appellate_trial_courts/SupremeCourt/?fa=supremecourt.McCleary_Education
WA state schools are ALREADY adequately funded through local tax levies (property taxes).
You are saying to stop calling them lawmakers and instead to all them "makers of laws"?
Whatever. Go fuck a porcupine in the ass.
"We at eBay would like to continue to have an advantage over Washington based retailers who are required to charge sales tax. We are concerned that if we are required to charge sales tax that our customers will no longer have a financial incentive to use our service. We don't care at all about "extra taxes" being placed on consumers or small businesses. We just want to be able to undercut any business that can't get out of sales tax. Please write your congressman so that we can continue to make a lot of money and you can find a way to deal with your state's lack of tax revenue some other way."
See also:
"We of the GOP want to urge everyone to oppose the estate tax. Democrats are trying to rob you of your inheritance and take away your family farms. Though you may have heard that there is a $5 million exemption on the estate tax, this has nothing to do with rich people keeping a lot of money tax free. We just want to look out for the little guy"
"Write your congressman and oppose the increased tax on capital gains and dividends. This will hurt hard working Americans who are just trying to get by on their stock investments and will hurt Job Creators"
Etc.
Uh, no: People in other states don't have to obey your laws: Moving the burden of payment from in-state customers to ex-state vendors, will achieve nothing. In fact, it becomes an import duty, which is illegal for states to impose.
Sales tax has the benefit of being a "consumer pays" system, which alas allows government to use it for social engineering and industry 'punishment'. The result for many taxes being, the paperwork costs more than the government earns.
The downside of sales tax being, it is a flat-rate tax, so income tax should be adjusted for poor people. Which will in turn require taxes to be increased for rich people. This is difficult when sales tax is a state revenue and income tax is a federal revenue. It's a nightmare when nobody levies similar taxes on capital investments, forcing the tax burden purely onto working people: It also means the bulk of economic growth is not taxed.
The federal government needs to implement a 10% tax on all out-of-state/nation sales, BUT have the shipping company collect it. Then 10% of that goes to shipping company, 70-80% goes to the state where sold to, and 10% to the feds to pay down debt. Note that states would have to agree to this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I used to lease gear for my business. Every lease had a use-tax because the company reported me. But if I bought an item for cash there was no use-tax as no one reported the sale.
Implementing an incoming tax would be hard as the USPS has no requirement to report who sent you anything. Commercial shippers (UPS/FedEx) could be subjected to such a law (ie report what business accounts sent to residential customers). But then you run afowl of the 4th amendment... its unreasonable for the State to demand information about every box delivered to your door.
States do not have the right to tax interstate commerce. That is right out of the constitution just like the feds can't tax intrastate commerce. The exception is as others have stated is the Nexus rule. I should not have to collect/pay taxes for a jurisdiction that is thousands of miles away from my only location. As for Ebay. technically they don't sell anything, they provide a platform for others to sell. Their interest is in having to create code that would collect tax for the 1151 different tax jurisdictions that make up this nation. If the Washington law passes and holds up in court (which it won't) it would be a nightmare for Ebay to set this up for their sellers. They already allow their sellers to collect sales tax for where they are located.
It creates a ridiculous amount of paperwork for a business.
I am located in NYS I collect sales tax based on the tax jurisdiction where I am located. It takes me about 10 min a quarter to do the paperwork. There are about 50 different sales tax rated in NY. Imagine if I had to collect different rates based on where the buyer resides, fill out 50 collection forms a quarter and write 50 checks to them. While there is software to collect tax so you just have to punch in the numbers on the form it still takes about 10 min. Now multiply that by 1151 tax jurisdictions nationwide. It would take a business 11510 min/ 192 hours / 8 days / 24 8 hour shifts just to fill out all the paperwork for collection of sales tax. That's 5 weeks of work for 1 person and would go beyond the last day to submit the forms in most places (they give you about 1 month).
No business will stand for this, there will be massive lawsuits which will waste millions of taxpayer funds to shoot down a law that is known to be unconstitutional. If it was legal it would have been done years ago. Ebay's interest again is in not having to spend the money for a lawsuit for this.
The Lunatick, Carpe Corpus!
I think their argument is that they're not taxing the out-of-state business, they're taxing the citizen of their state.
This is it, exactly. They are taxing their citizen, and expecting that a Law will force an online retailer to act as an agent-of-the-State with regards to collecting this tax.
So, an online retailer should respond with a bill sent to the State Legislature for recompense on the manpower necessary to comply with their Law. Make the dollar amount twice what the State would have received in tax revenue.
Pretty soon the State will realize how ridiculous their idea was.
No company should be expected to foot the bill for an onerous requirement by a State that company is not a resident of.
Washington state can fuck right off if they think they have jurisdiction to decide what I, someone living at the other end of the country, must do.
I endorse the spirit of the plan but I doubt it's got legs.
They will call it a "use tax" and the said "use" of interstate-purchased goods occurs within the state. That's how they will get around that little inconvenience.
They can call it a "because we fucking said so" tax for all I care. As a resident of Florida, they have no power to force me to collect it for them, nor provide them with records to go after the Washington residents who aren't paying it.
They can't pass a tax that tells me what to do, I don't live there. Are they stupid or something?
lol, lived here my whole life...I don't even know HOW to pay the use tax. People filing as a sole proprietor might pay (some of) it because the state expects you to be buying something online nowdays. That and the form is used for your taxes collected so it is right there. If you are not COLLECTING taxes for a business you would have to actively seek out how to pay the use tax, care to give odds on that happening? I suppose someone has actually done that but i couldn't prove it ;)
They aren't trying to impose a NEW tax. They are talking about passing regulations to require retailers to enforce the sales taxes that are *already* in place! Honestly, they should be going after consumers who aren't paying these taxes themselves each year as they are required to do. They are criminals and owe the government tons of back-taxes and interest on all of their untaxed out-of-state purchases.
eBay is such a vile and disgusting company for doing this. I hope their downward spiral continues until they are made entirely redundant. I can't even shop there due to the influx of Chinese counterfeiters and businesses spamming it to all hell. What a waste.
Washington's sales tax was passed as a temporary measure to help balance the budget during the Great Depression. I'm sure it will be repealed any day now.
The citizen of the state has a nexus within the state. How is the state going to enforce this on businesses outside the state which have no nexus within the state?
Ebay and Amazon are "affiliates" which may be in the state. They could drop their Washington state affiliates which is what Amazon initially did.
Quill v North Dakota is still good law. So all Washington is doing is setting itself up for losing lawsuits.