States make little progress on system to collect Internet sales tax

Kansas City Star ^ | Sep. 23, 2007 | Jim Sullinger

[Graybeard58]

Little line? I got a whole page, which I promptly tossed.

[ReignOfError]

Large retailers already have to pay sales tax if they ship to a state where they have a "business presence."

A real world example: A couple of years ago, I bought a factory-refurbihed iBook. It was available from the Apple store online, and also from a small reseller online. But because Apple has stores in Georgia,they were required to charge sales tax. The other company wasn't.

So I saved a hundred bucks. And a thousand-dollar sale, instead of going to a retailer who pays taxes and creates jobs in my community, went to a company that does the same in California.

It's not a simple question of paying taxes or not. It's a question of a current tax system that discriminates against brick-and-mortar small businesses, which are still a major driving force in the economy, even if the dot-coms get all the hype.

[ReignOfError]

Collecting sales tax on Internet sales is like trying to gather up all the planet’s sand with a colander.

That's absurd. Local governments collect tax on nearly all sales across a store counter. and those are still the vast majority of all retail sales. Every major supermarket chain has systems that can track the whole patchwork of sales taxes for all of the stores it runs. K-mart, Sears, Walmart, Blockbuster, Starbucks don't seem to have a lot of difficulty collecting sales tax and making sure it's handed over to the right officials.

It might be difficult, impossible, or not worth the effortto try to track virtual sales, like downloaded software or music (or, of course, porn), but for any physical gods, you've got both a delivery address and almost always a credit card billing address. Pick one and assess the tax there. Set up a geographic database of sales tax rates by address -- I'd be surprised if one didn't already exist.

[The Ghost of Rudy McRomney]

I deal on E-Bay all the time, but-I only pay with money orders. Probably still traceable, but they’d really have to work for it.

[ReignOfError]

I deal on E-Bay all the time, but-I only pay with money orders. Probably still traceable, but they’d really have to work for it.

They ship, right? And I don't think it would be at all difficult to trace the address where the money order was issued. PayPal might be a little more difficult.

Most pay Pay sellers are gonne be too much hassle to try to collect. But why should an eBay seller not collect the same sales tax that a local pawn shop selling the same used goods would?

[Diana in Wisconsin]

As you know, one of my income streams is internet sales of books, music & movies. The minute they make me responsible for collecting sales taxes is the minute I find another way to make some extra income.

Luckily, our state governments are too stupid to actually put two and two together...for now, anyway. *SHRUG*

Just how broke are we, as a country, that we need even MORE money bilked out of businesses and consumers? Not very. We have PLENTY of tax dollars to waste each year on really, really stupid things. I’m not giving them a dime more.

A quick look through this website will clear things up for anyone as to how much of our money is flushed down a rat hole each and every day:

http://www.cagw.org/site/PageServer?pagename=homePage

[maine-iac7]

Collecting sales tax on Internet sales is like trying to gather up all the planet’s sand with a colander.

or herd cats