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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.
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'
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
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
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.
How is this different than Amazon and California some time ago?
California is bigger than Washington State.
Although I do think it's cute how WA tags along after CA.
Have gnu, will travel.
Finally! Both sides agree on something. The dollar amount.
But this is Slashdot. And we obsess over things like units. Could we have that in Bitcoin?
Have gnu, will travel.
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++
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
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.
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.
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.
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 endorse the spirit of the plan but I doubt it's got legs.
At the time this happend, Amazon was very careful to NOT have a corporate presence (nexus) in CA. Now that they have started collecting sales tax they have opened a lot of facilities in CA, and offer things like free same day delivery. Not sure that's what the brick and mortar guys were expecting on this issue.
A 13% income tax would not be viewed as cute by WA residents I bet.
They can't pass a tax that tells me what to do, I don't live there. Are they stupid or something?
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.
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.