Slashdot Mirror
US Supreme Court Will Revisit Ruling On Collecting Internet Sales Tax (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Bloomberg: The U.S. Supreme Court will consider freeing state and local governments to collect billions of dollars in sales taxes from online retailers, agreeing to revisit a 26-year-old ruling that has made much of the internet a tax-free zone. Heeding calls from traditional retailers and dozens of states, the justices said they'll hear South Dakota's contention that the 1992 ruling is obsolete in the e-commerce era and should be overturned. State and local governments could have collected up to $13 billion more in 2017 if they'd been allowed to require sales tax payments from online merchants and other remote sellers, according to a report from the Government Accountability Office, Congress's non-partisan audit and research agency. Other estimates are even higher. All but five states impose sales taxes.
The high court's 1992 Quill v. North Dakota ruling, which involved a mail-order company, said retailers can be forced to collect taxes only in states where the company has a "physical presence." The court invoked the so-called dormant commerce clause, a judge-created legal doctrine that bars states from interfering with interstate commerce unless authorized by Congress. South Dakota passed its law in 2016 with an eye toward overturning the Quill decision. It requires retailers with more than $100,000 in annual sales in the state to pay a 4.5 percent tax on purchases. Soon after enacting the law, the state filed suit and asked the courts to declare the measure constitutional.
The high court's 1992 Quill v. North Dakota ruling, which involved a mail-order company, said retailers can be forced to collect taxes only in states where the company has a "physical presence." The court invoked the so-called dormant commerce clause, a judge-created legal doctrine that bars states from interfering with interstate commerce unless authorized by Congress. South Dakota passed its law in 2016 with an eye toward overturning the Quill decision. It requires retailers with more than $100,000 in annual sales in the state to pay a 4.5 percent tax on purchases. Soon after enacting the law, the state filed suit and asked the courts to declare the measure constitutional.
Didn't this already happen years ago?
The earlier ruling was made because there was no law on the books either way.
Normally if people or states think it was wrong, they should petition their congress-critters to pass a new law. New laws generally give new structure for the courts to follow. In this situation a new law would have allowed it.
The lower courts have already said that there is no law in effect, and without a law the prior judgement of requiring an in-state presence applies. I don't think that should change. If people or states want it added, craft and pass a law to that effect.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Quill invoked the Commerce Clause because the United States is set up as a free trade zone. If the states could regulate interstate commerce, they would start engaging in tariff wars -- as they did under the Articles of Confederation. To say this is "judge-created" is to express some rather deep ignorance about the Founders' intentions.
Dog is my co-pilot.
OK. I admit that, with the increase in online sales, a full-blown internet sales tax will almost certainly happen one day. However, my wife owns an Internet business. Will she have to file paperwork in all 50 states? How about county and city taxes?
For this to actually be feasible, we need some sort of government web site where you list sales by zip code. They give you an amount and you pay it. That site distributes the money to the various cities and states. Otherwise, the paperwork will drown a small business.
"-1 Troll" is the apparently the same as "-1 I disagree with you."
Because Amazon has a physical presence in my state (AZ) and I do a lot of my online shopping there first before venturing elsewhere, I already pay an (admittedly annoying) sales taxes on many of my purchases.
This issue (sales taxes) also seems like they can more easily be enforced now than back in 1992. Back then, the idea of tracking where purchases are made seemed like a daunting task to do accurately. Nowadays, my browser knows generally where I'm at within a few miles, and with cell phone purchases your location is easy to surmise.
While getting accurate tax rates is a burden, it's much easier to overcome for web apps and sites.
Do I WANT sales taxes on what I buy off of every site I visit? No. But some of the more technical reasons to not have those taxes collected don't hold much weight anymore.
Wickard_v._Filburn emasculated states' rights and the 10th amendment.
I can't recall what ancient civilization declared it, but they said taxation over 20% was slavery (not that they thought slavery was bad, just how they defined it). If we're going to be taxed for our money both coming and going we are in the same boat. There needs to taxes on either income, or expendatures, not both. The USA has not been free in almost 100 years since the income tax was implemented.
You are supposed to report uncollected sales tax from out of state purchases on your PA income tax form. It has a line item, but of course almost no one does that. The tax is really on your purchase and not the sellers sale (yea I know it's called a SALES tax), it's just a convenience for the state since individuals will almost never bother to report it themselves.
Putting the burden on out of state sellers doesn't seem right either, but I dunno.
Charge an extra $0.10 cents for a particular counties sales tax and then spend $20 in administrative time trying to mail that $0.10 to them? A small business that might sell under $20 a year to all of North Dakota would likely just say, fuck it, we don't ship there, get a postal box in Manitoba, Canada.
Further the tax rules are a mess in most places. Shoes, taxable, children's shoes no tax. Food under x dollars one rate, over another rate....
The term "Dormant Commerce Clause" refers to a rather specific doctrine that the courts have imposed on the states. The "Dormant Commerce Clause" doesn't exist in the text of the Constitution and it is a limit on the power of states rather than an additional power of Congress "found" in the penumbras of the Constitution by the courts.
This doctrine holds that since Congress has the power to regulate interstate commerce (a power given to them by the "Commerce Clause" in Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution: "To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;"), it has that right exclusively and individual states are prohibited from doing so. For example, California can't impose a tariff on oranges imported from Florida - although they could put a tax on all oranges sold regardless of their origin.
(Hmm... In spite of the Dormant Commerce Clause, as of a week or so ago, California has made it illegal to import ammunition purchased in another state without going through a California dealer. Sounds like it's time to invoke the Dormant Commerce Clause!)
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
Alexa: The Feds want to allow internet sales taxes.
Bezos: Then buy the US Government.
Alexa: We already did.
I think that's the rule for every state with sales tax, so 45 of the 50 states. If you didn't pay sales tax to the state and you use it in the state, there's a "use tax" that applies instead of a sales tax. Effectively it is the same thing, just different groups sending in the money.
I think the lower courts already got this right, there is no need for the SCOTUS to review the decision.
The first time it came up there was no law on the books, so the courts ruled that they need a presence in the state. Otherwise there is an enormous burden to figure out taxes, collect them, report them, and send them in to all the different states. If they already have a presence in the state then they're already doing the paperwork so collecting and submitting the taxes is not a large burden. The lower courts already agreed with the precedent and said that was the case, they need a presence in the state to collect sales tax for the state. If they don't have a presence in the state then it is up to the individuals to file with their own state taxes.
Over the decades there was no change in federal law or federal policy on the matter. Congress could pass a law if they want something different. It would still be a a burden to make small businesses file taxes in every state, that burden hasn't gone away.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
sales tax is based on the *delivery* location
Dead drop on the local Indian reservation. Problem solved.
Have gnu, will travel.
I distinctly remember a row a few years back where people panicked Congress might not renew a ban on states taxing Internet commerce. Then they renewed it.
So wht the heck is all this then?
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Sorry, but that's what this means.
TANFL
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Less than LAST year :(
nah, this is just trump using the gop-led scotus to attack Bezos, who has the temerity to publish stories that, while true, are not within trump's ability to admit
Umm, you have that backwards. (Why doesn't that surprise me?)
Amazon is likely behind this push since they have a physical presence in just about every US state so they're already collecting and paying sales taxes.
Amazon also has the resources to determine what the sales tax for every political jurisdiction in the US happens to be, along with the resources to figure out which jurisdiction a customer actually resides in.
Many of Amazon's competitors don't have that physical presence so aren't required to collect sales taxes. And they won't have the resources to determine the proper sales tax.
This is quite likely Amazon trying to horse-fuck its competitors.
We could do without sales tax and go with income and property taxes including the old fashion luxury item taxes.
Only a few states don't already have an income tax, automobile, and property tax system in place.
Place additional taxes on liquor that costs over $40 per liter, electrical usage over double the average household usage, on premium concert tickets and restaurant meals over $40 per person.
Tax investment income. Limit the amount of 'tax free' income anyone can have to 20% of the countries average income (so about $10,400 per year right now).
But drop sales tax. You are taxing too many people living in poverty. In some states they even tax unprepared food. That's literally taking food out of children's mouths.
Look, 10% of the country has over 95% of the countries wealth and about 80% of the entire countries income. At some point, everyone else is so poor that you have to go where the money is to collect taxes.
Or you'll end up like brazil where poor people kidnap 1,000 wealthy people per year, killing some of them.
When democracies collapse, countries like Monaco with tons of wealthy people who are not paying for national defense will become ripe fat plums to be plucked.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Though it's referred to as a dormant clause I'd disagree that the constitution doesn't say the states can't regulate interstate commerce. I believe the constitution and the discussion that lead to it were quite clear that they didn't want individual states interfering with commerce between the states. This was one of the "mistakes" of the articles of confederation that the second constitutional convention sought to fix as states had imposed tariffs on other states goods during the confederation creating an interstate trade war that caused no end of problems during the period.
When the founders wrote the current constitution they went out of their way to give the federal government sole jurisdiction over interstate commerce to prevent these actions and even gave the power to the president to nationalize national guard units to prevent states from going to war against each other. Again, this was all documented very heavily in the discussions during the writing of the constitution which is why the courts ruled the way they did. States were never intended to have the ability to tariff other states.
If I take money from people all over the country and put things in the US mail to those people, you can totally make an argument that I should be paying my share of taxes, sure. I can't deny that. But I should be filing 50 tax forms in 50 states? Fuck that, I'd just stop trying to run an interstate business.
If SCOTUS rules for the 50 state taxes, then I think that immediately creates an emergency where Congress needs to pre-empt all that, and boom: we'll have a national sales tax. (And probably some twisted way that it's paid back to the states, almost certainly with some abuses.) Can't say I want that tax, but it's probably better than the alternatives. Lesser of 51 evils, you might say. ;-)
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
the justices said they'll hear South Dakota's contention that the 1992 ruling is obsolete in the e-commerce era and should be overturned.
Ah, good! Too many old laws cutting into profit margins these days!
Next, after the precedent is set, they can go after that pesky First Amendment; after all, the Founding Fathers couldn't have possibly envisioned a world where we can communicate with anyone, anywhere instantaneously, so obviously the antiquated belief that people actually have a right to communicate freely needs to be eliminated.
Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
I think the greater concern, and a sure sign of economic trouble, is the collapse in the understanding of the difference between "countries" and "country's."
When we can't tell the difference between plural and possessive, wider chaos isn't far behind.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Voice typing leads to a lot of grammatical issues.
And it's just reliable enough to stab you in the back.
However, every single other forum I post on let's me fix posts. Slashdot doesn't.
So I have no regrets about any errors of any kind posted on Slashdot.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The root problem is not a Constitutional one. The question is this: with an internet (or snail mail) retailer, where does the transaction take place? Purchaser lives CA, seller lives in NV, billing address is in CA, shipping address is in CA. If this is considered a NV sale, CA can't collect sales tax. If it's considered a CA sale, they can.
By all rights, it should be a CA sale. The purchaser never crossed state lines, he had the goods sent to him in CA. It's no different than if he buys the item at the local Best Buy, who had it delivered to them from a distributor in NV. By all rights the sale should count as CA sale.
However courts created this legal fiction that it counts as a NV sale. In the snail mail days, they didn't want to burden catalog retailers with figuring out sales tax rules all over the country and remitting payments to hundreds of municipalities. So they devised a test based on a business's contacts and physical presence in a state to determine if they had to follow that state's tax laws.
Pop quiz: two internet retailers are located in TX. One has a warehouse in NJ, the other in VA. If you live in NJ, you have to pay sales tax on items bought from the first retailer but not the second - even if in both cases your item actually ships from TX. How does that make logical sense? Answer: it doesn't. It's just a convenient legal fiction for establishing jurisdiction.
What made sense in the snail mail days may not make sense anymore. Electronic tracking of sales tax rates indexed by shipping address makes it much simpler to handle these days.
The point is, designating the "location" of the sale is a court-created doctrine that is free of Constitutional issues. Once it's a NV sale, the commerce clause is in effect. However if the court decides to declare it a CA sale instead, then the commerce clause is irrelevant. It's all about how the court decides jurisdiction.
Now changing the test for jurisdiction isn't easy. I don't expect the court to go that way. I'm just pointing out that the issue does not inherently raise Constitutional implications. Yes IAAL.
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch.
Will every Mom and Pop online store have to be aware of and process Sales taxes for each and every one of the 9000+ individual taxing districts in the us each Qtr.
;)
Amazon is all for this!!!, because they want to close down and force these businesses in to Amazon Stores. Where Amazon skims the top 8-15% off every invoice total they process !. For their own profit.
The margins are not big, Amazon gets theirs either way. This will happen! And it will destroy small online sales.
But that is Amazons goal, one store, one vendor, one acquirer of wealth.
Just my 2 cents
. . . . Amazon already has market share . . .
For bonus points, which errors in that post were intentional and which were real errors?
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The jurisdictions with sales taxes should get together and create an internet sales tax clearinghouse. Set it up so the seller can send the necessary information to the clearinghouse at the time of sale and it returns the amount of sales tax delivered based on the address of delivery and the kind of item being bought. The seller adds it to the bill and sends the tax payments it receives to the clearinghouse that then distributes it to the proper jurisdictions. All it would require is a big database of the different taxes which would be the responsibility of the taxing jurisdiction to keep updated. Then a relatively quick and simple calculation would compute the tax owed. The seller could keep track of what it owes and send a payment to the clearinghouse once a month or so. I could even see brick and mortar stores using the system.
With more and more purchases being made online you shouldn't be able to avoid the taxes you owe just because you make purchases that way. If nothing else it's unfair to the people who are paying sales or use taxes. I know a lot of you think of taxes as thievery but I look at it as the dues you pay for living in a civilized society.
Well now that all those business got a nice big tax cut, the state and local governments are turning to consumers to pay for the shortfall in tax income. So we get to look forward to cuts in federal programs AND increased prices through taxation on the state and local levels... Thank goodness for those few extra pennies in my paycheck! WHEW!
By what right does a state have to force the uncompensated labor and expense of collecting and remitting sales taxes on an entity not within the borders of that state?
Quite a few years back a group of states got together to battle the e-commerce behemoth. They passed laws that allow for the taxing of something based on where it is delivered/accepted. So if you went to a grocery-store, this is where you paid the tax for that location; but if you bought something from Amazon to be shipped to your house, then they were responsible for charging you the tax for the address where it is shipped.
The kicker now, many states assigned a threshold to how much revenue you had based on sales to a given state before you would get charged. So smaller home/hobby businesses like ETSY didn't trip that.
This is changing, and with this suit coming back into place; the potential for a state(like here in WA) to require all sales tax to be charged/collected is a reality. //Sales Tax Program Employee
He who is always at the bottom of the distribution list, but needs the information first!
That's not how math works.
Ideally, you would pay sales tax to the state where the retailer (or e-tailer) is located. I consider it to be exactly like buying an item when you're on vacation. You pay tax on the item in the store where you bought it. You carry it home in your own car instead of shipping it by UPS.
My own home state is so greedy that they expect you to pay sales taxes even on items you bought on vacation! Screw that! They didn't invest anything in the sale.
States with low or no sales taxes would have an advantage over states with high sales taxes, but that's the way competition is supposed to work. Let them compete to lure internet businesses to their state. 4% of something is way more than 100% of nothing.
I think sales taxes are a very regressive way of funding government. The low to middle income families pay a disproportionate part of their income in sales taxes.
How about a simple 'head' tax? Count the heads, each head pays the same amount. People who can't pay go into debt.
You could try googling the difference between principle and principal.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
People who can't pay go into debt, or can opt to have their head(s) cut off.
FTFY
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Why do we even have a purchase tax? I already pay my income taxes, why do I need to pay a second tax off already taxed money? Wouldn't it be easier to simply abolish the purchase tax?
Except, it appears that if you have one 22LR round and live in Nevada, you can't put that in your UHaul when you move to California.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
True. Once rape is ignored, rapists will become more bold.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
In states where sales tax is collected, they all must have the exact same rates and rules on every level.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
People fall into two groups on the 10th Amendment:
Those who think it doesn't mean anything,
and those who can't agree what they think it means.
You can. It "appears" wrong to you because your hatred of hippies prevents you from understanding any law or rule that you believe hippies might have supported.
If the various taxing governments thought this was a good idea, then this story wouldn't be happening. The premise is that we are going to have a sales tax, whether some people dislike its regressiveness or not. They want the money.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
And you would know how?
**Life is too short to be serious**