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Internet Tax Moratorium Over?
clawson writes "Looks like Congress just can't resist it anymore.
This story, mentioned in The Naked PC e-zine, is in ComputerWorld.
Yeah, right, the tax will go to fund teacher salaries. This is pretty lame when the current congressional mindset is pretty much doing what it can to ensure that there aren't TOO many smart people in the future, but lots of semi-literate, idiotic consumeroids."
They get you someplace else. I spent a year in Texas once. No income tax, but car registration was high as hell. Delaware has no sales tax, but big highway tolls and some other "hidden" fees. Commercial limo licenses there, for example, are high as hell.
BTW, Maryland (where I live now) *theoretically* has the power to levy sales taxes on items bought out of state and shipped here, no matter how you ordered those goods. Now and then a state official rants about this, but then someone saner realizes that enforcement would cost more than any revenue enforcement could possibly generate and the idea dies down for a year or two.
If you want to see a *real* tax rip, check hotel taxes. Tourists don't vote, and locals don't usually stay in local hotels, so they're easy to levy without getting flak. They're over 10% in some places, including some states and localities that have low or no sales or income taxes -- and no, you don't get to duck the tax if you reserve the room online.
...and taxed again if you invest the income and make money off of it
...and taxed yet again if you use that money to buy something
...and taxed again if you leave that something to your children after you die
...and taxed again if they sell it and make money
Many people will be paying taxes on their income long after they've died.
I'm not averse to paying taxes in general, there's a lot of things government can do better than me. What I do resent is the absolute duplicity, misdirection and outright lying the government uses to hide how much they are really taking. It started with Income Tax withholding in the 40's and gets worse every year.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Local sales taxes (state or city) serve to benefit the municipality in which the item was purchased. If the state is unable to collect, given the prohibition on regulating interstate commerce, that would be the inherent problem, but replacing those lost local taxes with a federal tax does very little to help the state. Yes, some small part of the money would eventually "trickle down" to the local level, but on the whole, the state loses out. The consumer loses out too, by being penalized for seeking better prices and more convenient shopping. Finally, the Internet merchant loses out when unable to compete with local brick-and-mortars. It's a classic Federalist approach which only impedes fair trade and open markets.
Of course, all of the above presumes that sales taxes are a Good Thing (tm) for local municipalities. Here in NYC, sales go through the roof during the few weeks of the year that sales tax on clothing is suspended; the rest of the time, consumers simply cross the bridge to shop in New Jersey. There's no clearer demonstration that sales taxes only hurt the economy.
If the government wants/needs to tax my income, fine. It's got to get its money from somewhere. I have no problem with high income tax in order to provide needed communal services. But to punish someone for keeping the economic flow in motion runs contrary to all logic.
- Richie
Huh? From my experience in working and having kids in school in Sunnyvale, the teachers work less than half of the days of the year and go home long before 5:00 PM. You claim that the teachers work harder than techs? I don't see many teacher cars in parking lots till midnight (or even 5 PM for that matter) like I do in the office park where I work. (back of the envelope calculation...) Per hour with a masters in CS, I make less than my kid's teachers. Now, they want a raise?
Then consider a $10-20 per student class budget for the entire year, and you find teachers spending their already pathetic income on classroom materials.
I agree 100% on the per student budget. I went to Carmel HS (rich area for those of you who aren't from CA), and most of the teachers had to buy their own paper to copy tests onto. My chemistry teacher even had to buy some of the chemical used in our labs. (worst of all) My school was soo cheap, the teachers even had to buy their own chalk! I might not agree with raising salaries, but I do agree that at least tripling the money the teachers are given per student is needed.
But there could be some real nice benefits from an internet tax. The money raised could pay for the printing and distribution of Ten Commandment Posters! Or better yet, it can go to purchasing new science books that don't mention evolution! And if they do increase teacher salaries, then the NEA can raise union dues so that they can give more campaign contributions to the politicians. It's a win-win solution!
So instead of hireing linux people they are hireing M"fn"$ people who charge 3 times as much for setting up this Shi**y OS. Highschool students should learn some real OS so they do not grow up to be bunch of mouse clicking morons as the rest of the population appears to be. (With some Linux/Unix exceptions.)
yo fool, origin of USA was revolt against excess government, including taxation, gun confiscation, and otherwise heavy-handed misgovernment. Which seems to be in vogue lately.
And we don't derive rights from Constitution neither - it only guarantees already-existing rights (subtopic: 10th article of Bill of Rights could be construed as preventing even constitutional amendments which remove rights).
Primary ostensible purpose of salestax is to retire bonds. In many cases the shell game of fund accounting allow local governments to plead empty pockets with millions or billions tucked away under the hat.
It's always acceptable to question motives of those advocating of taxation...don't you think?
Improper reference to Big Brother there. Think about it.
What?
My apologies. I posted the prevous AC comment, and I didn't notice that you said she was a special-ed teacher. In the three states I have experience with, non-traditional (sorry, I can't figure-out a better word to put here) teachers are paid more like teaching assistants than teachers. Here in Alabama, special-ed teachers, just as teachers who specialize in helping physcially handicap students, work with kids with speech impediments (one at ever school here it seems), reading tutors, or counselors, are paid the same as assistants. Their pay does not go up with education-level or experience. A good friend of mine's husband is making about $12.5K/year to teach a group of 6 elementary students who are physically handicapped. He has a masters and 20+ years of experience. I just found that out after discussing this issue with his wife today. His low salary makes me mad, a deep-cold, it doesn't go away-type of mad. I had too many lazy teachers making $40-50K/year, and they didn't do much. In addition (as you mentioned) there is typically more late-hour meetings with parents than a "traditional" teacher would have. Your mother probably does her job, because she sincerely cares about these students. Now we're getting to the core of the issue. The "caring" teachers, who don't take the average teaching job, are taken advantage of. From what I've seen, I'll agree with that. Maybe, the stats in the paper should mention averages for teacher salaries plus averages for other school employees. I know most people would find that enlightening.
GEEEZ, Folks !!
Y'all have GOT to pay MORE attention !
This bill was introduced on 07/26/99,
and reported on 08/02/99.
Also, it doesn't JUST tax Internet sales,
It takes the SAME piece from ALL
interstate commerce. Order by phone,
by mail, by internet, by carrier pigeon,
etc..
Like I've always heard: There's not much
we'll stand for, but we'll SIT through anything !
You do realize that there's not much difference between an electronic transaction including/excluding sales tax, and an electric register (or manual) transaction including/exclusing sales tax?
The states that levy sales taxes also have enforcement divisions, and from time to time you do find a business that has been cheating. (Since generally businesses reimburse the government in lump sum payments representing the tax for many, many transactions, it is always tempting for a tenuous business to hold back some of that cash for itself -- something like adjusting withholding. You end up owing the same amount of tax; it's just a matter of whether you've paid it or not.)
Right now, the government DOES have the right to come in and examine your books, if they suspect tax cheating. So this really has little "internet" relevance.
lake effect weblog
{Network engineer in Chicago--looking for work!}
Income tax. If you live in Oregon, you "get" to pay federal income tax as well as state income tax. In Washington, we don't pay state income tax, but we do have one of the highest sales tax rates of any state in the union. It all works out the same in the end.
-B
Yeah why is this being talked about again??
"when i needed you most, when i needed a friend, you let me down now, like i let you down then."
But items that are bought through mail orders and the Internet have reduced the revenue for states and local merchants
Funny how the government isn't worried about the WAL*MART-s of the world putting the (truly) local merchants out of business.
This is not true in all states. I for one live in a state without sales tax. I find the whole idea of paying sales tax offensive, especially since I already pay State and Federal Income Tax!
With ever more effective Payroll Revenue Services, the IRS being the good example, state and the feds can get their own bucks, who cares about the township supervisor any more?
Internet taxes will allow state and feds to collect their own bucks at the checkout level. Who needs local anymore.
This is how the internet will change how we are governed.
When a brick-and-mortar business reports a certain amount of income coming from cash transactions, the government takes those reciepts on faith, unless the auditor has a reason to suspect fraud.
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The bill was introduced in July!
The Bill is "S 1433". Go look it up for yourself using http://thomas.loc.gov/
There's a search engine at the top of the page.
Amazing how people post crap without even checking the facts.
The whole concept of internet tax is a joke. And to the delusional fweeb that said we need this tax? Get a clue for starters no tax is constitutional unless voted on and ratified by the people,go read YOUR constitution. Secondly why should I pay a tax for public schools if my children are in private schoool? Last time I checked that would be unconstitional taxation. There is only one way to handle crap like this,contact your senator and ask his/her opinion of the bill be sure to reference the Sentaor who posed it and then state your opisition. Email is great too,however only about 50% of the senators of HOR Reps actually check it, so do both. If enough oppisistion is shown something will happen.
BTW. If your in Atl Senator Coverdale opposes this tax
Ned
House Republicans 860-240-8700
House Democrats 860-240-850
Senate Republicans 860-240-8800
Senate Democrats 860-240-8600
The world, and the US particularly, has seen greater technological and economic advancement as a result of the popularization of the web since the industrial revolution. The fact that the gov't has interfered very little with web-based economic growth, speech, etc. has had a *lot* to do with it. Of course, Clinton and Algore (the inventor of the internet) are happy to take credit for the recent economic explosion, but it's the programmers out there, working hard and quietly, who deserve the thanks and the recognition. Unfortunately, I imagine most people will be all-too-happy to comply with an internet tax (I have no idea how it will be enforced other than through voluntary compliance). Like offline businesses, online commerce will be choked and will continue to drag on and progress at a fraction of what it had originally. *sigh* -Seth Johnson www.pdamusic.com
Right, but why are taxes always going up?
Every time you turn around, something new is being taxed, or the tax rate on something is being increased. I don't see all that much improvement in the services the gov't is providing. Shouldn't I be getting something for my money?
Basically, the gov't is wasteful, inefficient, with too many redundancies. I say trim it down. The private sector can do most things better, because it has to be efficient to survive. The private sector does not have the option of raising taxes for more funding.
What happens when 100% of my income is going to pay one tax or another? That's communism, boys. And I don't wanna live in that world.
Return the power to the lowest level of gov't that can do the job. The closer to the people, the better. The feds have proved they are great at screwing things up. Federal gov't could be reduced by 1/3 or more if it were so grossly inefficient. The people laid off could go into the private sector and start contributing to the GNP rather than sucking tax dollars.
CT
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Yes, you do have to pay sales tax if the site you purchase from is in your own state. However, it is unconstitutional for Congress to pass a law levying a tax on inter-state trade. It is laid out that the Federal government can not do ANYTHING to regulate inter-state trade. Whether or not this would hold up, I am not sure, I'm not a lawyer. However, from the way I understand it, Congress "shouldn't" be able to levy this tax.
Just a thought - anyone know for sure?
"Life is too short to take seriously"
> You claim that the teachers work harder than techs? I don't see many teacher cars in parking lots till midnight (or even 5 PM for that matter) like I do in the office park where I work
Not generically. Rather, I claim it's not uncommon. In teaching there's little reward even if you work hard. In tech fields the rewards are high even if you hardly work.
Merit based pay might fix this, however so far the people who have proposed this for education want to base merit on really stupid things, like norm reference test score results.
> the teachers work less than half of the days of the year and go home long before 5:00 PM
... long before 5:00 PM so they can cook dinner for their family and then stay up until 2am grading papers. (speaking, again, from the teachers I know personally).
It's been pointed out previously that working only part of the year is a myth. Tons of preparation goes into being ready for the school year.
What a great idea to give the kids a better education...
Pffft
If you buy over the internet from a company in your own state, and your own state already charges sales tax?
George
This may be overly simplistic, but here goes:
To paraphrase an FCC spokesman:
The Internet is too big, too important, for Congress not to want to regulate it just for the sake of regulating it, simply because most Congressmen have egos that are too big to comprehend something such as the Net existing without them having some kind of control over it.
Furthermore, Congressmen know almost nothing about the Net. Most of them are too old to think in terms of the Net, and even if they're not, they're not ever going to learn enough about it to avoid making stupid decisions about it.
Case in point: How many times do you think Fritz F$%#ing Hollings has pulled up a website? It doesn't matter if it's him, Orrin Hatch, or Ted Kennedy, the answer's still going to be the same - squat.
They're listening to lobbies that, by sheer signal-to-noise ratio, deemphasize the importance of cyberspace (such as the AARP, the NRA, and large business interests like agriculture and King Oil), and ultra-conservative constituents who are more worried about the potential of pornography to harm their children.
They specifically DO NOT listen to 18-35 year olds who may or may not be cyber-sympathetic because only about 9% of those people actually VOTE in the elections that get them their jobs.
And like your favorite upper management executive, knowing too much about any one thing obscures the "Big Picture" vision that made them such shining leaders in the first place, even when that one thing is to our society like factories were to their grandfathers'.
The only way anything's going to change is if people who know something (about how beautiful and important is the Net) actually hold politicians accountable at the ballot box, not only for sensible policy about the Net, but for more than a casual knowledge of the Net. And if there are no politicians who can meet that qualification, to BECOME ONE.
It frosts me neverending how many cake-eating artistes there are in my town who are my age and actually have sensible political insights, yet do nothing but bitch and complain. Meanwhile, I turn out for every election, vote my convictions (those of a free thinking 30-something who considers the Net extremely important and realizes that schools and transpo must be funded to function), and get my ASS handed to me every November 20th by all those semi-literate consumeroids someone mentioned a while back.
I'm sure I'm preaching to the choir (at least, I damn well better be), but picking out some half-dead Net tax bill sponsored by some half-dead redneck Senator and then bitching about it is such a supreme waste of time.
Instead, I recommend that each of us harasses and otherwise beats on ten of our young buddies until they show us their voter registration cards. Then we follow them to the polls in November (forcefully, if need be), and make sure they vote their convictions, whatever they may be. Until that starts happening a LOT, America is going to look less and less like we'd like it to.
_______________________________________
_____
The antidote to bad speech is not censorship, but more speech.
Whatever. I pay taxes on a lot of stuff I buy via the net already (since they have offices in MA). The things I do buy usually have a better than 5% (MA local tax rate) difference between what I get online vs. meat world store, so I'm not going to quit buying some stuff online.
It's just one more reason we have to see as a collective that our governments are corrupt, fat, bloated, innefectual, stupid and clueless.
Enjoy the winfall now, because what we have now is almost certain to crash down if we continue the things we live with today.
...Steve
Next, who do you think passed the act that said no taxes on the Internet for 3 more years? Our Government. So, why would a body of people who always want more money agree to lay off the net for 3 more years? SO IT COULD GROW. See, its really simple if you could think logically and quit judging. If we start taxing it now, we will be taxing a base of 3 billion (?). So, if we tax it now, it won't grow nearly as fast. But just think if we left it alone for 3 years (and hell, it should be a lot more than that). Doesn't it just make sense that it would grow a ton faster? And companies would invest a lot of money in it? And then we start taxing it down the road when the base is Billions and Billions more.
Thus, if we leave it alone, the government will allow business to create a MUCH larger capital base to be taxed. Thus, the government will make more money in taxes by 2009 by taxing it starting in 2004, than if they did now. So, if we just wait a little while WE'LL BE ABLE TO GENERATE A TON MORE IN TAX REVENUE!!! But the problem is that you have a senile senator from S. Carolina (and I'm sure there are other small minds around as well who agree with him) who have probably never even read an email, and they don't even care to look at the "big picture". So, there's your precious tax money. And next time please think a little before you start accusing people of not chipping in. Or do you not understand this concept as well?
However, I don't see the point in taxing "the internet", per se. I mean, if you're going to do it, be fair about it...tax every out of state package, be it mail order, fax order, internet order, phoned in, whatever.
;) If they read /., they might get the idea to tax all of those methods.
I am going to have to smack you.
Um Congress is in the August recess at the molment. So no bill has been submited at this point.
Erlang Developer and podcaster
Just another way to bring the Big Brother Mentality. Everything that is being founded by the govenment has to comply with their standards. So when you hear your kid one day saying that "excessive taxes are acutally good for the society" and "the govenment will fix everything for us so we do not have to warry about it" you will know that your child was thoroughly indoctrinated. In order to solve the problem we need to stop requireing for students to be forced to participate in schooling. You should not be forced to attend high school at all. It would help with the overcrowding and improve the education (since we could get rid of the people who do not want to be ther in the first place.) Make high schools have entrence exams. So if you are working hard in your 1-8 grades you will be able to go to a better school. Competition was always good for the society. Stop giving away the educaition. Make them earn the privilage of going to school!!! This would definatelly make them think twice before bringing a gun to school or selling drugs. If you want to see improvement in the schools system taking the right and making it a privilage shoud be the way for us to take it.
Well, we all knew this was coming. What I want to know, as a resident of the Great White North, is if this will increase prices for us Canadians?
Fuck the Pentagon. It's huge, bloated, and wastefull budget is a fine example of corprate welfare. Of course, it's a holy cow that will never be cut.
In a side note, the GAO (General Accounting Office) did an audit of the ten biggest government agencies and determined there was "signifigant lossage" of funds in all 10 agencies it looked at. These are funds that simple disappear or can't be accounted for. This alone costs taxpayers BILLIONS (literally) per year. Go complain about THAT.
if i operate a company out-side u.s., but major customers are americans, e.g. sell music on-line .. what can the government do?
Any other government in the world having the similar tax?
What Congress gives, Congress can take away. This capriciousness without consequences is the definition of True Power.
The three-year moratorium on new Internet tax may end prematurely if a new bill is passed
Many "Christians" today think it would be a swell idea to force everyone regardless of their actual religious beliefs to pray in school. So much for your "Christianity is the source of freedom" theory. I dare you to find Jesus mentioned in the constitution....
Help me out here, does any federal money go to
pay teachers now? I don't know.
If they aren't paying for teachers now, this law
would allow them to start. And you know what
happens when the feds put money into anything,
they start to control it.
If only we could vote!
It's for the children! Won't you help?
Kind of like the line the state govt. fed us about
the lottery. The money will help the schools!
Sheeple
Introduction
I attend Southwest Missouri State University, which started life as Missouri Teachers' College or similar. Consequently, we have a pretty large Elementary Education contingent on campus, and I spent plenty of time in lower-level general education classes with them.
Now, I make no claims to speak for everyone. However, I'd have to say that the E-Ed. group was, as a whole, the ditziest, least educated, and generally dumbest group around.
A Personal Example
As a non-traditional student, I live off-campus and work full-time to provide for myself. At one point, I was spending my evenings and nights behind the front desk of a local motel (0) - many of them with an E-Ed. major, "Jenny". She was a very sweet and kind girl, but as dumb as the proverbial box of rocks. Dim. Slow. Whatever; she was it. Anyway, I helped her with a lot of her homework, because motel work isn't exactly the most intellectually stimulating thing you can find yourself doing. Unfortunately, neither was said homework. I'd swear on a stack of Bibles that her pre-exam study sheet for "Geography for Educators" class was a U.S. map with blanks for you to write in the states and their capitals.
Jenny was struggling.
Yep, that little exercise you whipped out in what, 3rd grade?, was almost her undoing.
On one occasion, another co-worker ("Mindy") was helping Jenny with her math homework, when suddenly J. started getting upset. "Well, just because you're some kind of genius doesn't mean that I can't be smart, too", says she. What had Mindy done? She made a practice worksheet of fractional arithmetic (you know, 1/2 + 1/4, 2/3 x 3/8, etc.). Mindy was so surprised that Jenny was completely stumped, that she couldn't help but to start laughing.
I thought that maybe Jenny was just a slow learner, until she graduated with a 3.8x GPA (out of 4) - on the Dean's list, and all. She wasn't a slow student; she was one of the star performers.
Conclusion
As I said, I full well expect others' experiences to be different than mine. (2) The above are just what I've seen first-hand. I fully believe that at least one school is slapping degrees on the dumbest students on campus, and these slow-burners are then going out and teaching our children. I don't have a teaching degree, but I'm confident enough in myself (especially compared to some others) that I plan to home-school my children.
Refs
(0) Which is actually not bad work, if you're more interested in people-watching and being alone with your schoolbooks than you are in a large paycheck.
(1) Disclaimer - I have no interest in arguing my opinions, for that reason.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
...when I check the price/availability on line, and then call in my order? Lots of those online "malls" have 800 #'s buried in their website somewhere...
-----------------------
To understand recursion, one must first understand recursion.
The fundamental grievance behind the Revolution was taxation without representation. If the government of Buttscratch, Kansas wants me to pay sales taxes (with or without Federal proxies), they can bloody well give me the same vote as a Buttscratch resident. Otherwise, no dice.
/.
/. If the government wants us to respect the law, it should set a better example.
Bend over for gates? Yeah right. I think you're the one bent over (with your head up your ass). Last time I checked schools weren't buying hardly any software, and when they did they used it until it was 5 years obsolete. So yeah they could not use windows software, so they could possibly give each teacher another $50/year. Of course then they'd have to hire a bunch of linux people to setup the computers, not to mention the fact that 99% of high schoolers wouldn't be able to use it. I hate the people that hate MS just for the sake of hating MS. Get your head out of your ass.
Amendment IX: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
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Absolutely right... except that you under estimated the salary part. Here in Alabama, the teachers are only required to work less than half of the days of the year. They make just less than $30,000 per year starting-out. It sad that the other Engineers I graduated with, make less than that on average. I don't know any unemployeed school teachers, but almost half of my friends who graduated in engineering don't have jobs in their field. My mother and my GF are teachers and so are most of their friends. They all complain about money continuously, even though all of them make $30,000+ per year. I don't hear my friends with EE degrees who make less than $20,000 per year complaining about it. The EE's budget, while the teachers complain. Pay teachers more? Bah! More money should be spent on giving the teachers classes on how to balance their checkbooks and make (and stick to) a budget.
And the internet is international. How do you impose taxes on that?
If a company has a web site in Canada, but operates in the US, how do you collect taxes from them? The sale, in traditional terms, took place it Canada.
I agree that money needs to be generated, and it's NOT pleasent, but to try to tax something like online sales is silly. The medium is international, and NOT simply the US..
-- I'm the root of all that's evil, but you can call me cookie..
Here in Seattle, we (the taxpayers) are paying for a $500M baseball stadium that was VOTED DOWN in the first place. Meanwhile, our public school teachers had to go on strike for a measly 5% salary raise, which (if I remember correctly) they did not get. If state and local goverments had their priorities straight in the first place, nobody would even be talking about a ludicrous and unconstitutional internet tax.
I miss Segfault!
I'm not rich, but I'd put "paying less taxes" in the Good Thing column.
And I've still never had a non-liberal explain how a "regressive" (1) tax hurts the poor/unemployed more than the rich/employed.
(1) Regressive - flat, constant, equal, fair. Pick one or more: in this case, they all apply.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
>Okay, so they only work 9 months a year. But for those 9 months, it's very often 50-60 hour weeks.
>Then you've got the inflexibility of the job itself. No vacation time (aside from when everyone else is on vacation), limited sick time, and few real freedoms during the day (can't skip out early for lunch, for example, limits on phone calls, and so on).
>In NY, I believe you need at least a masters in education before you can take the teaching exam.
At my former school, teachers worked approximately 200 days a year( 180 school + conferences ) which means they get 165 days off a year. The starting salary is 30k yr + benefits for a half year's work. In NY you only need a teaching certificate, which simply requires taking the test( most people have 4 years of college ), you don't need a masters. As for the priveledges, I manage a restaurant and I'd love all weekends off( fact is, it's been since 1994 since I had a full weekend off ), summers off, all holidays off, paid medical, etc. I get 55 hour weeks, ignorant people who've never washed dishes and need to be taught, limited sicktime, no phone calls, can't leave early, etc and I get paid less than these teachers do( in addition to working on my comp eng degree ) for their half a year's worth of work.
Don't leave your mind so open that your brain falls out. Don't close it so much that you cut off the blood.
So you would rather have EVERY state be as fucked up as the rest? I'm sorry but I think the Federal system of government is a good idea. If one state goes too far, there is always the option of moving out of state. Likewise, if another state offers you a better deal, move there. Competition is good. The founding fathers knew this.
How does "implied powers" apply to this?
It's line ending sentences with 'you know'.
Yes...they have students 9 months of the year, plus a week before and after the students come/go.
And during those 8 hour days, they don't get to leave the campus - have to be on duty almost the whole time, and are usually busy with something or another during their "break" and planning time...and since they don't actually get to do any of the work preparing for their classes while at work, they have to spend a lot of (personal) time at home doing this work.
Where the hell do you get your "facts"?
The only fact I've seen is that you are proof that education needs some work.
Teachers first, then students. You want to put all those teachers through tech training?
Saw it written and I saw it say, pink moon is on its way. None of you will stand so tall, pink moon is gonna get ye al
This is always the objection liberals raise, and it is always false. Every national sales tax plan includes a universal rebate system, which gives X dollars per year to every person or family. This way poor people effectively pay zero or negative taxes, because the sales tax they do pay is more than offset by the rebate. Richer people spend more, so even if they get a rebate they still wind up paying. When a liberal says that a national sales tax is regressive, he is lying through his teeth. He just doesn't want the IRS deprived of its power over American citizens. (I'm not accusing the previous poster of trying to mislead anyone, the universal rebate component is not as well publicized as it should be, so it is easy to come to that conclusion if you hear the simplistic explanation of the sales tax.)
How to solve most of our problems: 1.Lots of nuclear plants. 2.Cure aging.
Indeed, the government did not have the right to levy income taxes until congress passed and the states approved the 16th amendment:
This was approved in 1913. I'm afraid you're a bit behind the times. Nothing about taxes needing to be "voluntary."
My opinion: Down with sales taxes, from federal, state, or local governments, in stores real or virtual. They take a larger chunk out of the pocketbooks of people who spend more, and people with lower incomes have to spend a larger portion of their income. Progressive income taxes are a fairer method of taxation.
Property taxes are just wrong. I mean, on one hand the government encourages property ownership by giving you tax breaks on mortgage interest. On the other hand they have property taxes. Talk about mixed messages and disincentives. Let's all just sit around in homeless shelters....
It costs $79.99 in a store, so you must owe someone $3.99. Maybe I'll just buy my teacher sister-in-law a beer instead.
Now _there's_ somebody who knows what they're talking about, and how ridiculous this whole affair is.. at least, IMO.
Insert mind here.
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Cold pints: $2 #Product
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The only way to fail is not to try. It should be more people involved in making decisions that affect people, not a few people who make the decisions. Those few people didn't make you sleep in on Saturday and not vote. They're doing their best to keep things afloat while you bitch and moan. It's supposed to be the Government OF the people FOR the people, but lazyness on the part of the people has made it the Government OF a few enduring souls for the vast LAZY population. If you're not in the government, you don't have the right to whine about the government. You're the people - it's your responsibility to run this nation. Get up off your ass and do something. That's how Linux was created - if the same effort were put into running our nation and other democracies, there'd be nothing to bitch about. Our government is the way it is BECAUSE of YOUR LAZINESS! Bitch about yourself and the fact that your ass is glued to the couch before you bitch about the government...
The suggestion to "see as a collective that our governments are corrupt, fat, bloated, innefectual, stupid and clueless." is ludicrous. We are the government so we are corrupt, fat, bloated, innefectual, stupid and clueless? We need to be a collective to run things and we can't do that - how then do you think people will become a collective to bitch about the fact that we the government is C.F.B.I.S.&C? If we can do that, why can't we run our nation the way it's supposed to be run. People suggest revolution - then what? We get lazy and let someone else think for us and the same problem still exists. Democracy requires participation of ALL involved or it won't work. If you're a freeloader, then leave. You are the drain that taxes the system, not the taxes. There should be laws against non-participation that would put you on a boat to Cuba... Better yet, you should be made to visit the poor shanty-towns in Mexico, Phillipines and Indonesia and get a new respect for just how good we have it here in the states. Or you could go to Europe where you'd have to pay per-minute charges just to use the phone let alone get online. Maybe you wouldn't mind standing in line in Russia or ducking bullets in Bosnia? Life here is Utopia by comparison, regardless of the little problems you like to explode into massive catastrophies. Don't like it - leave. If you stay, you'd better play.
# end rant
First off, a US-directed sales tax on Internet-distributed goods is great if you're interested in big issues like claims of ownership, national sovereignty and imperialism. Sorry to be political, but politics are the root of all taxes.
It's not so great if you're interested in growing markets and creating new channels for access to goods.
European 'net access is a good example of how taxes and questions like this can slow every initiative down to a crawl. Most of my friends in that area don't use the Internet much at all because of the high charges for phone use. And some countries (this may have changed) were taxing the Internet connection fees as "other than local" calls, making them subject to different tax structures and ultimately higher rates. While it's obviously tihsllub to say that we should all be tax free, there needs to be a smarter concession than what's being offered by Sen. Hollings.
A previous commenter noted that the Canadian purchasor should not (and, ultimately, will not) be charged a sales tax on their purchase of goods from an originating US seller. If the tax structure is not smart enough, then the next big Internet thing will be the offshore intermediary. It's pretty easy to write an app that automates this whole process. Drop it on Jamaica and avoid all taxes. Better yet, get a name like WalMart behind it and see how "brand equity" overcomes what would normally be politically problematic. It's pretty easy to see how this process could (and, I argue, WILL) develop. So now its up to our resident regulatory brain surgeons to redefine taxes. A national sales tax? That's NEVER worked. But its an easy model for some country bumpkin from South Carolina to say "hey, um, let's do this!!" At a local level, sales taxes are great. From a state level, they're difficult to manage but still effective. At a national level (and even international)?? Fuggedaboudit.
So, what's a country to do? Catalog and Internet sales are booming (well, compared to the GDP of a small African country, but it makes good headlines!). You could tax the sellers, but that makes producers move off-shore. You could tax the buyers, but that only works until an international billing address is found. I think, instead, we need a new model (sorry, I haven't thought it through yet...no real headlines here, no matter what my Econ degree says).
Oh, wait. This is the big flame opportunity: to tell me to my face that you're going to tax every Internet purchase and use this to fund teaching is the strongest sign of disrepect I can think of. They're full of shit and they know it, and this pisses me off terribly. Any initiative at your national, state or local level that's done with the intent of "providing funds for teachers" is lying to you (except for bonds...). Vote against it. Instead, look to vote in legislators who will allocate their budgets towards education. That's the only "tried and true" method of increasing funds. BTW, I'm including initiatives like STATE LOTTERIES in this list of worthless stuff. More money has gone to the administrations for the California State Lottery and the California Board of Education than to any of California's schools.
Moderate Democrat, Berkely Alum. Troubled youth.
---- Please be nice in case my Slashdot karma ~= my real life karma.
This story was on slashdot.org at least a month ago.
This is nothing new. In Illinois they introduced the lottries with the promise the money collected would go towards "education" - Ha ha!! Well, we (citizens of Illinois) are still waiting for that money. So, even if the CongressCRITTERS use education as a platform to collect "taxes" - don't be fooled.
United States of dumbAsses constitution
Section 9
Clause 1
The migration -SNIP [boring, irrelevant]- directed to be taken.
[bing bing bing bing clue alert clue alert]
****************Clause 5
No tax or duty shall be laid on articles exported from any state.**********
[bing bing bing bing end of clue for clueless]
History would tell you that there have been a lot of ppl that have neverbeen exposed to Christianity. Hence they are rotting in Hell because they happen to have been born in Africa in 1404. That's some compassionate god (or is it suppose to be God) that you have. You cannot enter heaven because you were born in the wrong place and time.
How many lives have been lost (killed) in support of religion? Which religion has contributed the most loss of lives? Okay, Catholics caused the crusades, but we can blame that on Pope Urban #2. The follow crusades just honored his vision. But of course, you don't like Catholics. But why are they called Christians. And how did that low-life Kennedy get elected as he a tool of the Pope. And why is the Pope Polish. God decreed that only Italians could be Popes.
Thank God that Jesus was a Jew.
You're mostly right, except that MS's pricing strategy is one of the oddities of the modern business world. Pretend they were normal. They see the cost of computers go down from an average of $2000 to an average of about $1200. This means their demand curve has shifted (since the complimentary good--actual computers in this case--have fallen in price). A perfectly competitive firm would just sit there since they're not supposed to be making any profit and it doesn't behoove them to shift prices. But not even Bill Gates would claim they fit the description of "perfectly competitive". A normal non-perfectly-competitive company would then lower the cost of their good, since the demand curve has shifted. And yet for some reason they've chosen to keep the price of their product at exactly the same price that it's been at for the past several years. It boggles the mind--actually they did use this in their defense, though I doubt anyone was convinced.
You need to recheck your facts about our teachers before you spew garbage. For every good, hard working, and memorable teacher, there are 20 idiots like you.
How sad.
Let's assume for the sake of arguments that
there would be a sales tax on the net.
--> This would not apply to products going
outside of the USA.
As for products going to Canada, many US companies
are allready charging TPS to Canadian customers.
This is an arrangement between the Canadian
government and companies who want to do business
in Canada. Check Barnes and Noble and JC Penny
if you don't believe me.
Anyone who has take an AI class should understand and be able to explain why $50 is worth more to someone who has $100 than it is to someone who has $500,000.
New York too. The fact is that the lottery money does go to the schools, but to make up for it the politicians cut the normal budget for the schools (they're getting it from the lottery now! And anyway, our median IQ is still 100! Let's go spend the money on our campaigns.)
--
Win dain a lotica, en vai tu ri silota
Yes...But currency changes and additional overhead become an issue that may negate the savings in tax.
Well . . . first off, the "surplus" is sheer bullshit. Its based on a 10 year economic forecast. The odds of it being accurate are about the same of the odds of Microsoft suddenly casting aside its nasty business practices (lets just say a snowball has a better chance in hell . . . though it always could happen). Additionally, if any company did their accounting the way the government does, the accountants would be thrown in jail. Do you know that things like Medicare and Social Security don't count against the national debt or count as spending? Well . . . obviously we are spending big $$$ on them, and we are not reporting them in our ledgers. What does that do to the projected surplus? I doubt there will be much of a surplus at all.
But you may be wondering what all this has to do with the Slashdot article. The fact of the matter is, the government is already to big and bulky as it is. With the worst case scenario, they should just freeze taxes (not levy any new ones), and they should spend their money smarter. You would be amazed at how much waste there is in the government. There are tons of agencies whose functions overlap and who can be downsized.
The representatives claim that education is in a crisis may be true, but that still doesn't give them the right to tax net usage (which I doubt is very feasible anyway). Why don't the dipshits stop building 20 million dollar airplanes and dragging us into every squabble on this mudball and spend that money on education instead?
...and anyone who has taken arithmetic should understand and be able to explain why $50 is the same to someone who has $100 as $250,000 is to someone who has $500,000.
Put another way: my 5% is the same as your 5%.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Taxes go down all the time but people don't sit around and exclaim joyous phrases for months on end the same way people bitch about tax increases. Here in Massachusetts the governor is trying to lower the income tax from 5.95% to 5%. People rarely, if ever, talk about it. It makes the news maybe once every few months.
If it were a tax increase every person on the sub would be bitching about it. Every issue of the Boston Globe would have an article about it.
People have selective memory.
[BTW, 100% of your income going to one tax or another is not communism. Understand what you are talking about before you sling around words intended merely to incite an emotional reaction.]
In case you're wading through the wailing and moaning of the "I like a nice society, but I don't want to pay for it" crybabies, and you feel like a change of venue, you might want to check out this editorial in Network Computing. It's pretty reasonable. (Hence, it was not posted on slashdot when I submitted it.)
"Our three major weapons are..."
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Direct Quote
"Section 8. The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United
States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
To borrow money on the credit of the United States;
To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian tribes;
To establish a uniform rule of naturalization, and uniform laws on the subject of bankruptcies throughout the United States;
To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures;
To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States;
To establish post offices and post roads;
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;
To constitute tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court;
To define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations;
To declare war, grant letters of marque and reprisal, and make rules concerning captures on land and water;
To raise and support armies, but no appropriation of money to that use shall be for a longer term than two years;
To provide and maintain a navy;
To make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces;
To provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the militia, and for governing such part of them as may be employed in the service of the United States, reserving to the states
respectively, the appointment of the officers, and the authority of training the militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
To exercise exclusive legislation in all cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten miles square) as may, by cession of particular states, and the acceptance of Congress,
become the seat of the government of the United States, and to exercise like authority over all places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the state in which the same shall be,
for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings;--And
To make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United
States, or in any department or officer thereof. "
Nothing about payment of educators. Hell, if you include a strict interpertation of the 10th Amendment, the power to use tax money for anything not on the list is reserved for the states.
They do have the power to collect income tax though.
"Amendment XVI
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or
enumeration."
Americans for Fair Taxation is a group promoting the replacement of federal income tax with a federal sales tax on retail goods.
One of the goals of the group is the repeal of the 16th amendment (the amendment which gives the federal government authority to tax income directly). They also plan to disband the IRS. The proposal is backed by Representatives John Linder (R-GA) and Collin Peterson (D-MN)
I have mixed feelings about a national 23% sales tax. Mostly, I'm afraid that we'll enact the sales tax and never get around to repealing income taxes. At this point, though, I'm starting to think just about anything would be an improvement over the status quo.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
Yeah, and I'm sure that when they take that extra $7,000 and try to buy groceries during the summer they have no problems whatsoever at the supermarket. Not that it matters to you; I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you think teachers hibernate during June, July, and August.
By your logic, if the only work you do all year is $100 for an hour's Perl scripting, why, that's like making $192,000! So where's your Ferrari, dipshit?
Ha! Here in Milwaukee, not ONLY did we get a baseball park that no one wanted, but the cranes BUILDING the park collapse, kill people, and delays the opening.
*sigh* I guess we get the government we deserve.
Here in Canada have taxes on evrything... On clothes, on beer, on book, on gas, so im not surprise your governement try to suck money out of internet... Im sorry!
Im out, i must stop thinking the tax collector just pass by...
:::If someone say its free, he probably trying to sell something:::
You ignored the fact that she's aspecial ed teacher, which places extra responsibilities.
I do know for a fact that she has a masters. I doubt she makes $23k. I have no idea what she makes, nor does she know what I make. She's been teaching for 15 years, so I imagine it's more than that.
The amount of planning time is usually very limited, as she's keeping track of 15-25 children in the ages of 7-10 with learning or physical handicaps. I have no idea how that relates to high school or junior high teachers, but I do know she comes home with plenty of work to do. Plus the frequent meetings with parents. Plus the children who show up who she has to rate and see if they need to be in her class or not. This is for a good sized (maybe 15-20k students from K-12) school system.
Teaching isn't a profession that's glorious, easy, or going to make you the next Bill Gates. Perhaps that's my point.
Why is slashdot so often a place where we can read about things that have not happened?
Today a wretched bill was not passed in the Senate or the House, and wasn't passed or even scheduled for a vote in its originating committee. Furthermore, these things will likely not happen.
How's that for a more accurate headline?
This is almost as ridiculous as the story posted earlier about how there was no news last week from Amiga. Thanks!
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
You're already most likely triple-taxed on your income, anyway (city/state/Federal).
Well, once you get enough deductions to beat the std. exemption (like mortgage interest) you can deduct state and local from fed - not sure how that'll work out w/ a fed internet sales tax, along with all the states trying to collect mail order sales tax. However, it'll make things a little more complicated and once again those who remain ignorant will pay for it and those who study it will be able to save. Also, any internet tax scheme will definitely add to a business' overhead and those just marginally skating by will go under. I can see the spam now.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Saying teachers get 3 months to goof off is total bullshit. Both my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and now my cousin are all teachers and I can tell you from experience that pretty much all summer is to a teacher is 3 months of work without pay. And maybe a vacation to see a little of the family you've had to neglect for 9 months. Any teacher worth his/her certificate works almost all summer on lesson plans, getting books, buying supplies (often with their own money), fixing up the classroom, and generally getting things going so when children of unthinking, ungrateful people like you get to school, they can start the teaching immediately and not have to wait a month for the teacher to do all the foundation work "on the clock."
Saying teachers get 3 months to goof off is total bullshit. Both my grandparents, my aunt and uncle, and now my cousin are all teachers and I can tell you from experience that pretty much all summer is to a teacher is 3 months of work without pay. Any teacher worth the paper his/her certificate was printed on works almost all summer on lesson plans, getting books, buying supplies (often with their own money), fixing up the classroom, and generally getting things going so when children of unthinking, ungrateful people like you get to school, they can start the teaching immediately and not have to wait a month for the teacher to do all the foundation work "on the clock."
Hm. It's not a GOP proposal, though, unless Sen. Hollings has suddenly chosen to defect.
The other thing is that this isn't your average sales tax. Odds are, most people buying online aren't your average pauper -- you're affecting a different market. How many people buy their basics (like groceries, etc) online? Not too many, so far. So it'll be hitting those who buy their books or cars online, in constrast to those who go down to their local Albertson's or Fred Meyer's.
This also hits the people who want the latest from fashion catalogs, or those who buy computers (caveat. Big computer companies probably won't be heavily affected, because they tend to have presences in many, many states).
That's in constrast to your average in-person-transaction sales tax, which hits those in everyday transactions and *is* blatantly regressive. Then again, so is the lottery, with the fundamental differences that a) the latter is completely voluntary, and b) it's mathematically a bad transaction...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
The same thing happened in CA. Well, the money DID go to education. However, the money previously going to education was now "freed up" to be spent elsewhere. Lottery $$$ just substituted a big chunk of the educational budget. The total school budget remained the same. Just gov't business as usual.
>They are horrible
And what do you base this crap on? Norm referenced test scores? There's a glaringly obvious problem of sample sets when comparing public & private schools. In short, higher average test scores of private school students do not imply that your child will learn more or perform better on tests (two different problems, btw) than they would by attenting a public school.
First of all the education system is so fuxored as it is we should be starving it like we did NASA for years to force and induce growth. Systems always get screwed up when they contain inflexible close-minded people or where money lies like the medical industry. Times are changing though, in the computer industry you need talent not the want of money to succeed, this is demonstrated by how many kids think microsoft certification will mean a easy buck and they're being rejected like mad because they have no experience. I see many industries shifting toward this in the future. We should be starving schools not giving them MORE money. We throw money at schools and get jack back. or perhaps isnt this the way the govt wants it to be? all the more stupid people who cannot question authority.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
I want grassroots organization here. Something must be done and sitting here ranting in a fricking slashdot thread does nothing!! Nothing at all. I'm located in Los Angeles and am very interested in starting a localized slashdot activist organization. Anyone in the area who would like to join me send me email at chind@hotmail.com We cannot sit here and just let the gov't take away all our rights. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The internet is shattering every power structure including government. If you think mp3 was a bloody fight just wait till you get the dying cries of the gov't. Its not going to be pretty. We can subvert the government with software and hardware by making it open source and using simplified designs so people can do it themselves just as many people with playstations installed their own mod chips. PLEASE! Before all our rights are gone. :(
Hail the future forth reich
http://www.livejournal.com/users/cixel
Not according to utility value,l actually. The entire $100 of someone who has only $100 is going to be used for survival. It's utility value is higher. The 'second' $250,000 of someone who has $500,000 does not have the same utility value - it is going to probably going to be applied to nonessentials (perhaps invested, it is true.)
In other words, the value of money is not a linear function.
The 16th Amendment was merely proclaimed to be ratified.
-- $SIGNATURE
public school education is going down the drains because: 1) society doesn't give a rats ass. 2) the economy doesn't really need much of an educated class anymore. While the Industrial revolution needed strong bodies and dim minds, the service economy needs bodies. Mind optional. The real way to make money is not by working for it. That only provides seed money... 3) Sure, there will always be a demand for technical jobs. But there is still demand for COBOL programmers, too. Does not mean that they all can, will, should, or need to be filled. 4) think of all the trash you grew up with, your friends who scoffed at you because you chose to study instead of go out, when you grew up. How many of those were there compared to you? The math is left as an excercise for the reader. Teachers somehow don't fit too much into this. They've been castrated anyways. "Oh, can't fail Johnny, because his dad might make a big stink in the Principal's office! The Principal REALLY hates explaining why the failure rate isn't going down per parental expectations". Too many parents just don't give a shit. So they blame it all on the others who still do.
high property taxes and an income tax.
...but wouldn't said tax in MD be more akin to a duty, which is expressly forbidden for the states to enact, by the Constitution?
Umm... this would probably fit under "general welfare". Ya gotta factor in nice catchall phrases like that.
We don't "need" taxes, because we don't need the government. The government is a convenience or a habit. Almost everything it buys with your taxes you could buy yourself, at least if you worked together with voluntary organizations to get the things you all wanted. And you'd save money and freedom at the same time.
Yeah, right. I'm sure they will have a separate tax pool for education. They don't have a separate tax pool for Social Security.
Money for such a task would go into the general pool, and thus be used anywhere and everywhere. Saying otherwise is counting on bleeding heart gullability. While I am very interested in funding education, doing it with a special Federal tax is not going to happen, no matter what they say.
Besides, states and municipalities do it pretty well, thank you. IMArrogantO, the Fed should keep its fingers out of things that the states are competent at.
Thought 2, about a specific Internet tax
IIRC, the bill taxes Internet and catalog sales. Why you tax something based on the way it is sold is beyond me, unless it is to get the word "Internet" in there. Remember, the word "Internet" means more money--maybe the bill is trying to go IPO? Or maybe Congress is? That would legalize buying Senators, at least...
If they just taxed interstate sales, this would make a lot more sense to me. This would be applied to most Internet commerce, catalog sales, etc. It also gets around the definition of "Internet commerce". Interstate commerce is pretty well defined. And regarding non-US sales, standard tariff law and/or NAFTA already regulates this. I live in a zero-sales-tax state (NH), and this makes sense to me.
Thought 3: regarding constitutionality
Article 1, section 8, US constitution: the Fed has the right to tax us, and to regulate interstate commerce. I don't see congress overstepping constitutional bounds here.
--The basis of all love is respect
The original poster may have exagerated, but I have to agree with him that teacher training is a joke, and, statistically, they score a lot lower on standardized tests. This does not mean, of course, that every teacher is stupid. A very bright friend of mine is working to get his teaching certificate so that he can teach in the inner city schools. He constantly complains about how inane the teacher training curriculum is, and how lacking in basic reading, writing and arithmetic skills some of his classmates and working teachers he has observed are. True, teachers don't have to be Einsteins, but if a significant percentage of them don't even understand what they are supposed to be teaching, then we have a problem.
-----------------------------------
Stephen Molitor steve_molitor@yahoo.com
Close the public schools! They are horrible and detrimental to kids anyways! Private schooling baby!
Reasons not to panic:
* If you already pay state or local sales tax on the merchandise, that amount (up to 5%) is credited towards the tax. So it's not additional to state/local unless your s/l taxes are below that amount...
* Retailers that do business in your state, and are subject to taxing jurisdiction of the state, qualify as 'local merchants' and are excluded.
* The bill *does* specify a fund for education spending. Nominally, salaries, but states w/ above the average (mean, presumably) in teacher salaries (although it says nothing about adjustment for cost-of-living... !) can use the money for other educational purposes.
* It is an excise tax that only applies to products both bought and sold within this country. It's not attempting to tax international sales.
Reasons to go nuts:
* The funding can be withheld, basically at the Secretary's (read: President's) discretion. Read: blackmail opportunity.
* It includes a vague reference to excluding non-local transactions. Possibly, that'd make for an interesting political poker game as to what sort to exclude -- so more patronage.
How odd. Puerto Rico's explicitly included to benefit from the tax, but they won't pay it...
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
Ahem, the US const. GRANTS specific powers to the fed govt, all others NOT SPECIFIED are reserved for the states and locals. Cheezus, if the const. has to spell out everything the feds CAN'T do it would have to be infinitely long!! It's a documents designed to LIMIT the power of a fed govt.
Then again, in practice the const. seems to be pretty much null and void where prohibited by law anyway.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You claim your mother works 50-60 hours per week? What does she do during her 2-3 hours of planning time per day? I know she gets at least an hour to plan and another 45-60 minutes for lunch. In addition to that, she can work for the 15-45 minutes in each class that she gives busy work (that sentence is more of a joke, it just seemed that all of my teachers always did that).
inflexibility
In a way, you're right about this pain. I agree with you on this fact, but I disagree strongly with your example. About the phone calls, lunch times, and vacations, the restrictions teachers have aren't that different from what any factory worker would have. I know, because I've been there/done that. Bad example. My mother (an 8th grade teacher) isn't allowed to go to the bathroom from 7:05 AM until 1:35 PM. She can't drink orange juice or coffee (or anything else!) in the morning, or she'll get in trouble with her principal for leaving the classroom. This is cruel and inhuman, but it's school policy. You should have claimed inflexibility was a problem because of idiot bureaucrats like the school board or principals.
salary
You expect me to believe the $23K number? Even here in Alabama, experienced teachers with a PhE can make over $50K, and new teachers can make almost $30K in most districts. The only people I see making that little are teaching assistants who aren't certified.
NTE
Wrong! You do not need a masters to take the NTE in NY.
Wow, the ability of slashdot readers to take comments out of context still amazes me. The guy was talking about comparing salaries. You have to scale the teachers salary to compare it to other fields, because teachers work less than half of the days of the year (172 in my state). $23K/year for a teacher is equivalent to $46K/year in engineering (usual 100 hour 7-day work week). Geez. The previous poster and everyone reading knows you can't buy groceries with $0, so why post i?
It's intra, not inter. ... 4: carried on between ... 1 a: within :-)
inter- prefix
intra- prefix
(From Webster's 9th New Collegiate}
HTH
Teacher's salaries vary wildly depending on what state and county you're in. My mother in law, who taught in PG County, MD for something on the order of 30 years, was making less than $50K when she retired. Meanwhile, where I grew up in PA, it wasn't entirely unusual to meet public school teachers who's salaries topped out near the six-figure range.
This is a particuarly bad area on which to apply anecdotal evidence. Public schools get the teachers they can afford, using the money from the property taxes the district residents can afford, allocated by whichever boneheads with delusions of grandeur can manage to get elected to the school board. IMHO, the wild variance of teacher salaries, competency, and school quality is an argument for more federal involvement in the school system, not less.
Then again, I'm a commie pinko liberal. What the hell do I know?
Everybody, we stil live in a democracy!
If you are not happy about the idea of taxes call your senator and register your opinion! Send an e-mail! Tell them what you think! Sometimes it does work!
This bill at this point is in the Senate Finance commite. Go here for a list of representatives on that committee. If enough calls are made the bill can be killed at the committee level.
Believe it or not our reps do listen to what we say. So make sure you make your opinion know if your reps doing something you don't like.
Teach a man to dish and he will gossip for life.
Ahh, but you show your own ignorance Sir AC. The reason M$'s prices go up and GNUs stay the same has nothing to do with efficiency. It has to do with ecconomics, specificly, supply and demand.
People demmand M$ products, for whatever reason, as dumb as such a decision may seem to some users of Linux. Thus M$ can charge more because there is demand and people will pay. This is called business. Charging what people will pay for your products and services. If the price goes up, that is supposed to mean that there is a limited supply. Of course, this is software, but there are boxes, books, and CDs to make. That takes meatspace resources. And hey, they are in business to make money. If people will pay thier prices, they are not out of line in charging them.
Now, if people were to decide Windows was not worth the money and vote with thier wallets M$ would start losing money. This is not something they want. So the price will probably come down to represent the accuall demand for the products. Or it could go up in a short-sighted attempt to boost profits. This is a market correction, but it will only happen if the market demands it by causing the business to lose money.
The difference a government program has is that they can force you to pay any price they want for thier services. And you can't go someplace else to get those services, so there is no reason for them to satisify you or anyone other then themselves. They can charge $10 to deliver a letter if they want, and you have no choice. You may cite FedEX, but it is illegal for them to deliver any non-critical mail. And yes, I mean AGAINST THE LAW. If it is found they knowingly do that they are in violation of federal law and can be brought to court over it.
Now, of course they only charge $.33 to deliver mail right now. But the price has gone up over and over with no noticable increase in quality of service to me. That means they make more money for no more work. If a business did that, and there was competition, customers would use the business that offered the best service for the lowest price. With government you don't get that choice. They will force you to do it thier way, at gunpoint if nessicary. If you don't believe me try not paying any taxes for a year and see how far you get. They will seize your property, and if you refuse to vacate they will bring the police in to remove you. If you defend your property, the guns come out. If you look, it's easy to find the gun backing up every government program and every tax.
Would this escape the tax? The web store could be operated outside the US. The credit card is also charged outside the US (at the time of customer purchase). The web store then batches up hundreds of orders and then phones/faxes/carrier_pigeons them to their warehouse in Texas which then ships the list of goods to the list of addresses. Texas warehouse sends a single bill for $X every month to the web store for goods delivered out over the month. Since nothing was "imported" there cannot be an import duty, yes?
Ummm... So how does a sales tax just hurt the poor? Poor people do not buy as much stuff as rich people (especially on the internet). I don't see many people buying water, food, shelter on the internet. How would this hurt the poor?
I'm not for a internet tax, but atleast it is more fair than income tax.
Software prices actually do go down for old products -- or, perhaps, you're saying that your local stores sell old software at full price?
Also, occasionally something like Quattro Pro gets marked down... it does happen, one somebody wants more market/mind share.
Only the dead have seen the end of war.
buddy, only people I know not working at least 50 hours a week in the business world are admins, secretaries, receptioninsts, and non-exempt people. With some of those folks working for 23k too. Lotta people work hard, teachers jsut have it easier They certainly are not getting 3 months of paid vacations a year.
If memory serves...(all to often it doesn't) the Florida lottery money was intended to go towards 'special' programs and services (ie magnate programs etc) and not regular costs like teachers saleries and administration costs etc.. Unfortunately that's exactly what the politicians in Tallahassee started to do with the money (use it for regular school costs so they could lower taxes and get reelected) until they were sued over the matter and forced to use the money according to the Lottery laws original intent. At least I think they were forced to start using it the way it was intended. I didn't follow it very much after that. (I tend, like many do, to suffer from a certain dissafected apathy.) This kind of behaivor is just SOooo typical of politicians. Disgusting!
Life Sucks! Then You DIE!!!
Hm, ok well whether it is a good idea or not (I vote not), they [the government] can tax thingys like that... and I agree that the government has got to get money some how... But what about the talks about taxing e-mail because the postal service isn't making as much money as they'd like to?... well you really can't tax outgoing e-mail can you? Sure your ISP can say "hey according to our logs you send 25 messages", but if that's the case, use a free e-mail service based in England. One of the biggest problems with the whole taxation issue is that the people making the laws about this kind of thing are 60 and 70 and 80 year old men who can barely use a VCR (not to say that it's impossible for a 79 year old man to use a computer...but you get the idea)... I guess my point is that most of the politicians don't understand the technology they are trying to tax, and my other one being that no matter what you tax, there is always going to be a way to get by it - such is the flexibility of the internet. [id.]
--Ask a silly person, get a silly answer.
Now people, remember...opposing this tax means that you want teachers to starve to death. Not only that...you also hate children...and kittens...let the demagoguery begin!!!
I can see a justification for interstate taxes, as there's a good chance that things being shipped are making use of federal roads, and other infrastructure.
However, I don't see the point in taxing "the internet", per se. I mean, if you're going to do it, be fair about it...tax every out of state package, be it mail order, fax order, internet order, phoned in, whatever. But if that were the case, I wouldn't want to mail order something from out of state, who had a local store, and so, pay both state and federal tax on it.
Right now, I'd rather get my prices online, and actually call in my order. It gives me a better appreciation for the company I'm actually dealing with. That's mail order, so assuming that they really do keep it a strict "internet" tax, I'll never be paying it.
Depending on how it's worded, what's to keep you from putting everything into your 'shopping cart' or whatever metaphor you want to use, and then give a call to complete the transaction, giving them some unique indentifier from the web page, and the appropriate billing information? Would that be taxed, too?
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
It costs $79.99 in a store, so you must owe someone $3.99.
Maybe I'll just buy my teacher sister-in-law a beer instead.
George
If it works for govment, it should work for pro sports teams too, right?
Uhh... you pay property taxes, which usually go to schools. You rent? WEll, you still pay the property tax, it's rolled into your rent. But as for your silly line of me-me-me thinking, why do you pay insurance, because you know your rates subsidize drunks, maniacs, foolish teenagers, etc. Oh, you're with one of those companies that insures only "low-risk" drivers. Well, get a ticket or accident and see how loyal they are to you. Why do you go to the hospital, because part (most, probably) of your bill really goes to pay for the patients the hospital HAS to treat anyways regardless of their ability to pay? Fuck all the ones who "can't"? Wow. Profound.
The main issue here is control and survival. I'm involved with my city and village governments (two houses) and they are wondering when they're going to be squeezed out. And well they should. With the information revolution, we need only two out of three levels of government, the three levels being federal, state, and local. Local will lose out.
Local is losing out quickly in Michigan. The counties used to do the road maintanence stuff, not anymore. Now, there just one more contractor competing against all the private construction companies. The school districts pay no attention to local officials, it's now state inspectors insuring compliance with federal regs. Same with police hiring and supervision stuff.
The immediate effect of the Internet and info tech is to clobber a layer of government. Local will disappear.
You seem to have a few facts out of line - car registration tax here is $70-odd for a year - hardly excessive. The standard of road maintenance is just as poor as in most of the USA.
What Texas does have is high sales and property taxes. They always get you one way or another........
Youa re incorrect to say that a national level sales tax is unworkable - this is what most countries who levy a sales tax have (c.f. VAT in the UK).
As it is, the US has this quaint system whereby sales tax is split over something like 7,000 geographical areas, each with different scope and rates for it. There is a whole little software industry in the US devoted to generating sales tax calculation software beacuse it is so complex a problem.
You know I just have to comment on this. I am so sick of hearing how teachers are underpaid and they deserve to be treated like professionals, etc... they got it good for what they put into it!
What a load of CRAP!!! Here area a few facts for you:
-they only work 9 months out of the year, with 3 months vacation. given a starting salary of at least $23k, thats like 23/0.75 = 30k a year? starting?
-any dumbass can get a elementary edu degree. in fact take a look at the people who are in the curriculum. it is a known fact that graduates with an eled degree scored in the lowest rankings of ACT and SAT tests before coming to college of any graduating college students.
After spending 5 years in college and seeing first hand what kind of effort eled and secondary ed majors put into earning their degree I am not shocked at all to see how pre-college U.S. education is going down the drain. every single one of the people I knew in those curriculums spent far more time partying and screwing off while still earning good (B and higher) grades.
So many of them were bone stupid its not even funny. I ROTFL ever time I think about the time one person told me how hard the math class she was taking was. basically it was about how to teach kids math and how to demonstrate things like addition, subtraction, etc....
and what scares me is that these folks are teaching, evaluating , and ranking our kids.
If teachers want to be treated like professionals , they need to have a professional program. 4 years undergrad, 2 years professional school. a *verbal* comprehensive test over all subjects any teacher should know. they should have to be experts in child psychology, group sociology, etc...
Do another search on terms like "common wealth", etc.
Introduced by Sen. Hollings from South Carolina and currently before the Finance Committee:
S.1433 Sales Tax Safety Net and Teacher Funding Act
Note that this is only a bill, and has not passed committee. There is nothing at this point to distinguish this bill from any of the other hundreds of proposals submitted by "our" representatives every year. No need to panic just yet, unless you are from South Carolina. Here is the contact info for Senator Hollings:
Ernest "Fritz" Hollings
And here is the webpage for the Finance Committee so you can see whether your senator might be influential in this process. If so, please contact him or her!
Senate Committee on Finance
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
Secondly why should I pay a tax for public schools if my children are in private schoool?
Typical american. What if you didn't have money to send your kids to private school ? Give the poor kids a chance.
ACYou forgot one last one: Fuck you, fuck me, fuck em all ways, ah, that's the way it should be. --Lionel Richie
no you monkey-nutz, if they are going to get a professional education, i would definatly say they deserve a professional salary, say at least 40k starting, then moving upwards.
>lots of semi-literate, idiotic consumeroids.
Now ya all have the pieces, and here be the whole puzzle.
The military-industrial complex needs soldiers. Men(and women) who can kill the rebelling US citizens.
Hence the Quake mobs are semi-literate and idiotic. Just like the US citizens.
Perfect training for after y2k.
So congress wants to lower income taxes and enstate a sales tax on the internet. The income tax reduction would benefit rich and employed people while the regressive sales tax would hurt the poor and unemployed. That sounds like something a republican congress would do. Wait a second. The congress is republican.
They're trying to reduce income tax revenue while simultaneously trying to increase sales tax revenue. I always heard about the republican's knack for feeding the rich and taxing the poor. An income tax reduction proposal followed by a sales tax increase proposal is as blatantly pro-aristocracy as humanly possible. They're just using the internet's novelty to cover up yet another regressive tax.
Nice point. I've always thought there should be some connection. For example, any Internet tax should help pay for networks or computers, and any gas tax should be applied to improving roads. Taxing one item to pay for an unrelated item seems too much like taxation without representation to me.
$23K/year salary
I visited an asst. dean of education at a local college. In his office, he had a nice book of the starting salaries and requirements for teachers in each county (and some cities)in the US. I found no where that required 2 years of professional school. I call BS. And $23K? All of the top pays I saw were $45K+, even in Mississippi, Alabama, and Arkansas. Do some homework before spouting-out garbage.
Under the current system the problem is the number of jurisdictions Internet retailers sell in, and the dificulty in enforcing the 'Use' tax that many states have to supplement sales taxes. Use taxes require the buyer to pay the same rate of tax as the sales tax in your local juridiction on any purchases made away from home or by mail-order/Internet. Probably 99.5% of people have never even heard of these taxes let alone paid them. (Except if they ever bought a car out-of-state, then registered back home)
States are allowed to collect sales & use taxes under the Internet Tax Freedom Act (the moratorium mentioned in the article) as noted on this Congressman's FAQ on the Internet Tax Freedom Act.
>Right, but why are taxes always going up? The private sector can do most things better, because it has to be efficient to survive. The private sector does not have the option of raising taxes for more funding. Funny, when's the last time Microsoft software prices went down? Hell, when have you ever heard of the price of any software going down? Even GNU software's prices have stayed the same! ;-) Yet another Slashdot ignoramus spouting off about something they clearly don't know about.
I'll bet you right now that this ends up working like the Missouri Lottery did:
The Missouri lottery is proposed, with the profits to go to education. Voters give it a begrudging okay, wanting to help their schools. Profits come in, and are added to the education budget. An equal amount of money from another source is removed from the education budget.
Now the schools have exactly as much money as they did before the lottery, no more. Nobody lied, at least not outright, but the increased budget isn't in the school system. Aren't new taxes fun?
Here in California, the chimpanzees (also known as "Voters") legalized the lottery after the various organized crime syndicates went wild advertising how it would "help fund education".
So what ended up happening? The state and federal funding for California Education dropped by almost the exact amount as is brought in by the Lottery. No change, except the tax burden was shifted to the lower class/uneducated--those most likely to "beleive" in the lotto.
This is no different -- except it may be a tax shift to the middle class, since presumably most people shopping through catalogs or on the internet are middle class.
Another ploy by a southern democrat to put a "good face" on a tax, without telling us about the inevitable shift. Disgusting! Throw them all out of office, I say!
Taxes are necessary...it takes a million little bills and makes them just a few and conceptually are intended to make our lives easier. However, how the taxes are implimented are the screwy part. There really needs to be more uniformity and consistency (am I being redundant?) in how the taxes are levied and spent. Right now each state is a little country with Big Brother being the overseer and everyone has a different way of doing things. There's little communication between states on implimentation issues among other things. Hell, our county courthouse is just now starting to get computers - which are the most convenient means of communications. There really should be a central forum where all this stuff can be hashed out by all states in unison. But there's so many variables, different needs, ideas, agendas, etc it can be a quagmire to just approach. Too bad we can't take a year, tell everyone to go home, sort the whole thing out and start over with a clean slate... :)
You do not have a Constitutional right to freedom from taxation. Right to free speech? Check. Protection from unreasonable searches? Check. Right to not be taxed? Not in there.
We need taxes. Sad but true. Nobody likes them, and few people like the government. But taxes are necessary. Especially sales taxes, which help fund local and state governments.
Local governments depend on sales taxes for 36 percent of their annual budget. They use that money to do practical, everyday things like:
* Pay for teachers salaries
* Put police on the roads
* Or, for those who hate the police, they put firemen on the roads.
* Hey, let's be honest, they build the roads and other necessary infrastructure with that money
* Put on your local Peach Cobbler festival
When people talk about government excesses and waste, they are seldom talking about local governments, they are talking about the Feds. It's okay to hate the federal government. That's almost the national pastime.
I would like to add that the taxation bill discussed here is no a good idea. It is poorly thought out.
The money would be collected by the federal government and used to to fund grants for teacher salaries exclusively. What if you need money for road improvements or more police? You're out of luck.
Also, I think that it is too early to tax the net. While we will need to do it eventually, e-commerce is not a large enough piece of the retail pie to make taxing it necessary yet. I'd vote to let it grow more before we take the drastic step of implementing taxes.
Just my $.02.
HipNerd
Hipnerd
It strikes me that the only reliable means of enforcement for a bill of this kind is to bring government into the loop on every transaction. But consider that commerce over the internet is at least supposed to be conducted over SSL. So... unless the gummint is prepared to accept the receipts of electronic businesses and take on faith that they are accurate, the only way that a bill like this could be enforced would be to require the IRS to snoop on secure transactions.
If a bill of this kind ever makes it out, the IRS might mandate that every secure sale also be encrypted to their published key and sent to a massive Audit-bot hub. Imagine the incentive to crack that key! But even if no third party gains control of the information, the blow to personal privacy would be immense. Not only will they know what you're buying, but also when, with what credit card, to what address, etc etc.
Another means of enforcement (and I'm sure this sends guilty erotic shivers up and down some spook's spine) is to require that secure transactions be performed using a key-escrowed or otherwise governmentally-crackable protocol. Then they could perform random audits. Of course, this capability would never be abused...
-konstant
-konstant
Yes! We are all individuals! I'm not!
fuck the government. fuck the lame public school system. fuck all these worthless socialist programs. i work for my god damned money, so should everyone else. i don't need more of it to be pissed away by a anti-freedom government who doesn't give a rat's ass about it's people. public schools are a shitty learning environment. they oppress the students with so much lame and useless bullshit rules it's amazing. i guess all of this comes about because of the influence of christianity, which is a lame and worthless religion which is not molded by "god" or any higher being, but rather by governments and people who wish to use it to oppress others who might be "different." fuck the general populace, if they all fell off the face of the planet tomorrow then great, i won't miss much except the whining and oppression. thank you.
There is now a petition against senate bill S.1433 at e-thepeople.com This is addressed to Sen. William V. Roth, Jr, the chairman of the Senate Finance committee, and will also be addressed to other key members. If you care about internet taxation, head on over there and sign it.
Finally, it doesn't hurt that the most heavily populated areas of Oregon enjoys fairly comfortable weather year round, and (IIRC) a fairly low crime rate.
When my family moved to the Midwest, our percentage of spendable income to wages went up by about 10% just in the reduction in taxes, even though where I live now has sales tax on basically everything ('though at a lower rate on food.)
...Open Source isn't the only answer -- but it's almost always a better value than the alternatives...
>Do some homework before spouting-out garbage.
You are the one spouting garbarge. In my first hand experience the yearly *bonus* of a tech job in the bay area is over half the yearly salary of a teaching job in the area -- even when the teacher is more highly trained and works harder than the tech.
Then consider a $10-20 per student class budget for the entire year, and you find teachers spending their already pathetic income on classroom materials.
He was referring to the entire government - not just the schools.
Any store having assets in US would have to charge the 5% sales tax, or risk having their assests confiscated. The warehouse would have to be a completely seperate business entity from the store, or risk confiscation of assets. The warehouse might then have to charge sales tax to the offshore company negating any possible savings.
This is just another example of the ignorance of our gov reps. If he's selling mp3s, how are they going to track it? There's no way. If the customs office somehow can institute a block on an overseas "tax dodger" he'll just re-route through another server address. There's just no way the gov can chase people around the 'net fast enough to be effective.
As far as domains go, he can simply register with any overseas dns registrar.
Good judgement comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgement.
- W. Wriston, former Citibank CEO
My parents scraped up several thousand dollars a year to send me to a bottom-echelon private school from kindergarten through eighth grade. They weren't overtly religious, but since they both worked and didn't have time to home school, the only options available in my small southern Missouri town were St. Paul's Lutheran School and the public school system.
I found it very interesting that the public high school I attended used the same freshman physical science textbook that I had used at St. Paul's in seventh grade -- and many of the manufactured fools who went to public school had trouble reading it. None of the parochial graduates had that problem, because a privately funded school was more than able to provide a quality education without resorting to armed robbery.
35 out of 236 people in my high school graduating class (1994) have graduated with four year degrees. 10 of the 12 kids that graduated from St. Paul's have (and one died in high school!). 91% vs. 3.9%? I sense a strong statistical trend. Please don't say that money was a factor; the head of the richest family at St. Paul's picked her son up each day in a used Ford Taurus station wagon. And I worked my ass off to get through college on my own.
Americans today seem to want to be given things. We are all too stupid to see that nothing on Earth is ever really given; my parents paid more in property taxes to support the local school district than they paid to St. Paul's. So did 15,000 other people in my town, not to mention state and federal funding (none of which St. Paul's recieved). Only about 600 of those 18,000 actually used the schools at any one time. Do the math, if you're able; public schools don't work. It's not about burning more money, however it is extorted. It is about government doing the things that government knows how to do (like bombing Europe) and teachers doing what they know how to do (like teaching science). Mixing government and education results in Europeans learning science and Americans bombing schools.
... and there is no doubt, that one day he will be
where the eye of his telescope has already been
The 10th Ammendment to the US Constutition states that whatever is not explicitly authorized for the Federal Government is reserved for the People and for the States.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the Federal Government given any authority over education.
If the Federal Gov't passes any law regarding education, then they have violated the 10th Ammendment. If they send any money to the States for education, then they have violated the 10th Ammendment.
It won't be the first time our Constitution was ignored and trampled upon. It won't be the first time it has been violated.
1) There is no logical connection between the proposed tax and the proposed use.
OFF-TOPIC
2) You want all teachers to have good grades, 4 years of undergrad, 2 years of professional school, and THEN make $23K/year with fixed pay increases and without performance incentives? Pick two: fast, good, cheap.
heheh! I thought he was talking about Florida... I guess we all got hit with the same scam, eh?
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Just think if they didn't waste so much money by purchasing Microsoft garbage they'd have more, a lot more, money to pay their employees rather than squander it on worthless, buggy, trash from Redmond. This tax would certainly be uneeded if they didn't bend over for Gates.
That kills online and mail order commerce. Might as well head on over to the local computer store and just pay the state sales tax if this passes. You would think they'd find better ways of paying teachers salaries.. like.. oh I don't know.. maybe tax the people who use schools!? I use roads and I have no problems paying taxes for that priviledge. If I were to use schools I wouldn't have a problem paying a seperate tax so that my children could be educated.