Posted on 05/14/2013 9:09:31 AM PDT by Winged Hussar
Amazon has started making deals with individual states, where it became clear it was too expensive to fight lawsuits.
Amazon has programs that they are afraid would subject them to the “Nexus” rules. In some states, they simply cancelled those programs when threatened. But those programs make Amazon money, or they wouldn’t run them. And in California, those programs made Amazon a LOT of money, so they couldn’t jetison them.
So instead, they made a deal. I think they also made a deal with Texas, and maybe they were working on a deal with Virginia, where Amazon owns a subsidiary which does their shipping, and claims that this does not put them “in the state”.
Anyway, Amazon has joined the push for the bill, since they figure they are being beaten up too much on a state-by-state level, and want to “level the playing field”.
Amazon knows they can compete against the smaller online companies, so they figure if Amazon is going to get sued by states, better to have a law requiring everybody to collect sales tax — the states are going after Amazon because they are the biggest.
Note Amazon has had the ability to collect sales tax for a long time. They collect for any of their affiliates who operate in your state, for example, so if you buy from their Toy store with Toy’s R Us you will probably get charged tax.
Here in California is it used to fund retirements and none working jobs/people. Very little us used for services any longer. Taxpayers do not owe old hacks a free ride.
You have been supporting this law every time it comes up - and in many instances you have been correct - in this you are wrong.
A small business in Delaware is not set up to collect sales tax and by your support of this law you are basically telling them to suck up the extra cost or lose business. Mighty capitalistic of you — NOT.
Why not support a law that requires all businesses collect the sales tax of the location of residence of all customers in their stores, regardless if they are located in brick and mortar or cyberspace?
Amazon has already conceded to collecting sales tax in Virginia - not sure if it has yet taken effect, but if it hasn’t it will soon.
And it is a tax that is already due. This isn’t a new tax. It is an enforcement mechanism for an existing tax, because most people who buy online fail to file their taxes for those purchases. They are committing crime, sometimes a felony, but they get away with it because it is a very hard crime to police.
Have people been skirting the Mail order catalogue taxes for the last 100+ years then????
One nice thing about people skirting online sales taxes in other states is that it works as pressure on those fiscally stuipid states to cut their own state sales taxes so they become more like the states that don’t have a state sales tax....
Remove that and the greedy SOBs in the state houses in states that don’t have sales taxes may be given more politcal pressure to start state sales taxes in currently tax free states.
You are correct. I am in Texas.
Yes and no.
Delaware has no state sales tax, per se, however it does have what is known as a gross receipts tax, which is actually a hidden sales tax.
I lived in Delaware for 21 years, and now live in Virginia, but only an hour away. All of my friends swore I would be doing all of my shopping “back home” because of Virginia’s sales tax, even on groceries. They were all wrong, especially on the groceries. I shop in the same chain supermarket here as I did when I lived in Delaware and after being here for 10 years, the prices here are just reaching what I was paying there. Even after the sales tax, I’m still paying anywhere from 10-20% less. The only time the sales tax is noticeable is in places like Dollar General or Family Dollar.
So what? That is not a conservative criteria for determining government action or inaction.
Two businesses want to sell an item to a person living in Maryland. In a world without any government influence, the two businesses would compete on an equal footing, and would win business based solely on business market factors.
That is how it should be, and a law that puts us back to a level playing field, from the government interference perspective, seems preferable to one that does not.
So yes, currently because of differences in state laws, a company in Delaware has a competitive advantage over a company in Virginia, solely due to government interference in the market. If a change in law puts the same burden on the Delaware company as already exists for the Virginia company, I don't see that as a bad thing (I see the entire interference as bad, but not the removal of the disparity formed by uneven application of government regulations).
You have been supporting this law every time it comes up
I'm not sure I support this particular law. I support the concept of better enforcement of the sales tax laws, because our modern society has raised a generation of Americans who seem to love the idea of breaking the law. I think there are better and worse ways to accomplish that, and would strive if I were writing a law to eliminate the burden on business, which I would also do within a state if I could -- by having the state reimburse business for collecting taxes.
Why not support a law that requires all businesses collect the sales tax of the location of residence of all customers in their stores, regardless if they are located in brick and mortar or cyberspace?
I do. That is exactly what I support in principle, that all business collect sales tax based on the residence of the purchaser, as it will be applied to that purchase.
However, in practice that is unworkable, because not only would that require collecting address information which is otherwise unnecessary for in-store purchases (note an online purchase needs a delivery address), but also the rules about sales tax are based on location of "use" of the product.
If you buy something in Maryland, and "use" it in Maryland, you would pay Maryland sales tax, whether your reside in maryland or not. (like if you bought fast food). What if you were driving, and bought a burger? Then you drove on and ate it. Would you pay tax based on whether you started eating before or after you crossed a border?
Since the work of traveling to another state makes doing so solely for the purpose of avoiding sales tax meaningless except for high-cost items, it seems prudent to let that slide. As it is, companies charge the in-state sales tax to all comers anyway, so there is even less incentive except if you live in a high-tax state next to a very low or no-tax state like Delaware. And even so, you have to buy something really expensive to make up for the cost of gas these days.
BTW, have you ever gone to an online store and noticed that they won't sell to certain states? There are laws in some states that already enforce certain regulations on certain products, and companies who don't want to get caught up in that web have decided not to sell products into those states. So this is not a foreign concept.
Yes. Interestingly, that issue has been around long enough that some states do something about it.
For example, in Virginia, if the ONLY non-taxed items you buy are from mail-order catalogs, and you buy less than $100 worth of products, you are exempt from paying any “use tax”. Seems arbitrary and unfair to me, and I’m pushing to have that clause stricken from the law, since we should all get the same treatment.
Virginia also made agreements with large furniture warehouses in North Carolina, to report the sales to virginia residents. They used that information to go after people who didn’t pay their sales tax.
But mostly, the catalog sales were “in the noise” relative to in-state sales. The online sales are a different matter, reaching over 5% of total sales — $262 billion dollars in 2012. At an average of 5% sales tax, that is $13.1 BILLION dollars of sales tax lost, or about $291 MILLION average per state.
Whether you like or dislike the Bitcoin idea my point is that wherever there is MONEY growth the Government immediately appears on the scene trying to regulate, control and slice themselves a piece of the monetary action.
We had better find a way to STARVE the beast and soon.
"A" generation? You've got to be kidding. Avoiding onerous taxes, particularly the very regressive sales taxes, has been going on since the inception of the sales tax.
I think there are better and worse ways to accomplish that, and would strive if I were writing a law to eliminate the burden on business, which I would also do within a state if I could -- by having the state reimburse business for collecting taxes.
Fat chance of that
BTW, have you ever gone to an online store and noticed that they won't sell to certain states? There are laws in some states that already enforce certain regulations on certain products, and companies who don't want to get caught up in that web have decided not to sell products into those states. So this is not a foreign concept.
BTW, are you aware of what started that practice? It came about because states with ridiculous tobacco taxes started suing online tobacco sellers to get their customer lists in an effort to collect "their" tax. That caused many to either stop selling in some states and many more others to just go out of business. That is exactly what is going to happen here because greedy governments think my money some how belongs to them. And you don't seem to have any problem with that.
Is "avoiding" onerous taxes anything like "avoiding" annoying high prices by shoplifting? Because it seems you are "avoiding" using the word "criminal violation of the law".
And when did conservatives care about "regressive" taxes? Don't we want everybody to pay the same tax? Isn't it the liberals who want a progressive tax system where the rich pay all the taxes and the democrats get off legally free from the "burden"?
Sure, there are always criminals. You see them robbing the store, or picking pockets. They are committing fraud. They steal pencils from their employer, and only pretend to put money in the kitty when they take snacks.
But it is only recently that there has been a wholesale movement, even among conservatives, to actually brag about committing felony violations of the law, simply because you can get away with it. My generation wasn't like that. I'm not like that. I pay my "use tax" because it is the law, and I obey the law. I sign that income tax form, and I'll be damned if I'll sign my name to a fraudulent document -- because I care about my own reputation.
And yes, I think the complete lack of concern for the rule of law IS a recent thing, and is largely due to the last 40 years of liberals destroying our society through public education.
And yes, I am fine with businesses making a business decision that, on a level playing field, they cannot compete, and therefore choose not to try. Meanwhile, I am certain that a new crop of businesses will be happy to take their place, because they know how to use a cheap software program and modern internet tools to collect and remit sales taxes. In fact, they'll be companies who will spring up to do this job. Expect Paypal to have it built into their system. Expect more companies to hook up with Amazon, who will do it for them.
No company should have an unfair competitive advantage simply because they can help people cheat on their taxes. Aiding lawbreakers can be a lucrative business.
bump
It’s infuriating to hear people on this site parrot the government’s talking points about “fairness” and “helping out Main Street” when it’s nothing but a big fat money grab. All the “mom and pop” stores that exist today can’t exist without selling online themselves.
This tax is nothing but a sop to big business and taxers over consumers and small business.
“Everyone should pay the same tax” is the most stupid thing I have ever heard. If my state has lower taxes than the state I purchased from or vise versa, forcing me to pay the difference is astoundingly stupid.
Competition is a great thing, trying to make everything equal between states by heavy-handed authoritarianism is NOT
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