They ought to change it to the "Anti Dog-eat-dog Act" so the parallels are even more obvious.
Hard-working creative enterprising individuals built up business that operate by means of the internet. NO help from al gore or anyone else in government.
So naturally, government wants to tax it to death and control the hell out of it.
Goodbye GOP, you support this tax bill and you are dead to me. That's 6% in Maryland, w House GOP collecting it for our lib Gov Martin O Malley..
Lets see how many in GOP who were willing to roll us off the cliff to protect the billionaires now vote for this screwing of us.
After all all of our taxes would of went up then too.
It’s probably $24B now, because they could sell pot over the internet and tax the hell out of it...
Well, haven't we come full circle? All of a sudden it is proper not only for 57 states to impose their tax schemes on a company operating anywhere in those United States? Not to mention enough counties and cities to bring a whopping 9600 tax schemes to bear?
Obviously the above is not fully researched but the nub is there for someone to look up the case law involved and perhaps take a novel stand against the tax grab. Or perhaps get usury laws back on the books.
The economy is anemic. The unemployment rate is high. Yet, our geniuses in D.C. want to increase taxes on internet sales across state lines! Raising taxes, especially in this economy, is a terrible idea.
#1 Higher taxes are a drain on economic activity. Does anyone seriously believe all of the lost internet sales will return dollar for dollar to “brick and mortar” businesses?
#2 The cost of compliance isn’t part of the tax itself, but there’s a definite added cost to track, calculate, and remit state, county, and municipal sales taxes. The cost of compliance is another drain on economic activity.
#3 Reduced sales means certain items will no longer be economical to produce. Looking for a pair of fuzzy dice for your classic car? You may be one of only 1000 people nationwide who want fuzzy dice. Meaning? A large internet retailer may be able to consolidate enough demand to make the dice economic to produce, but if demand drops, those dice may not be cost effective to manufacture given the available customer base. This means it may be harder to find low demand, specialty items. BTW, these items aren’t likely to ever be stocked in “brick and mortar” businesses simply because there’s not enough local demand in any given area.
Bottom line, this tax is going to create a drain on the economy and have ramifications beyond the most obvious one of higher sales prices for internet transactions.
LAst year, I spent a little over $1200 at Amazon. This year, I spent almost $5000.
Maybe THAT is where they got the increase they note. I had to pay $250 in use taxes this year, vs less than $100 last year.
BTW, when the headline can’t get facts straight, it doesn’t speak well for the article. There is NO TAX INCREASE. This bill has NO TAXES in it. It is a TAX COLLECTION bill. The taxes are already due.
You might as well claim that if you drop one of your deductions on your W-4, you got a “tax increase”.
The reason it raises more tax money is that it catches tax cheats.
Also, Amazon isn’t the only company that knows how to calculate sales tax. In fact, there are companies that actually sell that software. And of course, there are hundreds of companies that collect sales tax online for all or most states. And they aren’t paying Amazon.
Amazon wants this solved because the state-by-state push is getting expensive for them to litigate, and they want to make sure all their competitors have to collect taxes (by competitors, read companies that have significant sales, because the bill won’t cover mom-and-pop low-volume businesses).
Hell, give me a week, I’ll write you a program that can tell you what your tax is based on your address. Because, you know, every state already has thousands of businesses that have that covered for the state, all you need to do is use 50 state’s worth of programs, and feed the data into the right state based on address.
Of all the arguments against this, the idea that in 2013 we have a problem with the SOFTWARE is the most ludicrous. It’s the Free Software Foundation era, people. Nobody is going to pay Amazon 2.9% per transaction to run a stupid tax program.
BTW, look to Paypal. They’ll certainly have this up and running on day one, so all transactions online that go through PayPal will have this. So it might well drive more businesses to use PayPal, which many already do because the real drag on business is the 2%+ taken off every transaction by credit card companies.
And note — Amazon has it’s own credit card, which many of it’s users use. A mom-and-pop store can’t do that, so Amazon has a competitive advantage there, as do other big-box retailers who get volume discounts from banks, or run their own credit cards.
I don’t think Congress can set tax policies for the states.
Isn’t that an overreach into the state’s sovereignty?
Tenth amendment stuff. Look for a lawsuit.
Nothing new here - big business has always supported regulations that hurt them less than their smaller, nimbler competitors.
Download and store any technical/agricultural information (wherever free for downloading, how-tos: DIY stuff) that you might use in the future on CDs/DVDs—especially projects that will save on energy bills. Make a list of contact and ordering information for out-of-state vendors of low-priced things that you might need in the future. Then consider cutting Internet service at some point in future for an extended length of time. Might have to do it anyway, as the economy continues the slow crash. Starve the B.
Several billionaires who support both political parties have publicly supported various Internet tax and population monitoring schemes. Big business has had emissaries pushing for local government regulations against new, small manufacturing shops, private property rights and small agricultural operations for decades, at least.
I will sue on the basis that this law is not equally applied.
Stores are not force to collect and remit taxes to the tax area their customers live in. But if I sell on the internet that is exactly what they want me to do.
So I want the law applied equally.
So every time someone buys anything in that over priced gift shop in Washington DC I want them to have to ask for proof of where they live, and the store has to collect and remit taxes to that location.
I want the House of Mouse to have to collect VAT to send to France. I want the Starbucks in the UN to have to send sales taxes to 193 different countries in the world.
You want to turn me into a unpaid tax collector for the world?
You're are going with me.
BTW in real life “brick and mortar” businesses are told that when they buy something it is up to them to make sure sales tax is properly paid.
If I get a invoice for an item that needs sales tax paid on it, I have to note it and the amount and send a check to the state on a monthly basis.
If I am audited and I have not done so I will be fined and they will "estimate" how much I should have paid and I will be charged that amount.
And what happens to the vendor who didn't change me sales tax? Nothing. It is not their job to make sure I pay the taxes owed by my company. It is mine.
So once again they are pushing for me to do something even the “brick and mortar” businesses are not made to do.
I do believe I see an equal protection violation there.
They ought to call it the “Accountant Full Employment Act.”