Posted on 07/19/2012 1:16:16 PM PDT by IbJensen
“Instead of downsizing, states have decided to just look for a new tax scheme to fund the leviathan. They see online sales as the way to go. iTunes downloads will be next.Congressional Republicans are helping.”
Congressional Republicans led by Senator Mike Enzi of Wyoming have begun negotiating behind closed doors with liberals like Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois to raise Americans’ taxes. They introduced their internet tax as an amendment to a Senate small business bill, but that bill stalled. Now they are confident they can sneak the internet tax into a lame duck session of Congress, just in time for Christmas shopping.
The tax sounds innocuous enough. The tax is hiding under legislation called the Marketplace Fairness Act. The Act purportedly just harmonizes state laws so internet sales are also taxed. After all, it is not fair that Amazon does not charge all its customers sales taxes. It puts them at a competitive advantage over mom and pop shops.
Heck, I don’t shop online to avoid sales taxes. I do so for convenience and because I hate people and don’t want to interact with people in a store. (kind of kidding) I don’t really care if I have to pay sales taxes online. It just sounds so fair.
As we’ve learned from Barack Obama, beware politicians peddling fairness. Republicans doing this are about to open a pandoras box and, behind closed doors, they admit they know it. Are you ready for your downloads from iTunes to be taxed?
The nation has thus far successfully shielded the internet from Washington taxation and regulation for decades, and the Marketplace Fairness Act would break the floodgates open. Even more troubling, the Marketplace Fairness Act establishes a pretty solid precedent that the federal government can step in to regulate state tax policy. After all, this legislation attempts to exert federal regulatory power over state internet tax policy with state complicity.
Once Congress has opened the pandoras box of federally authorized internet sales taxes, it is only one step away from taxing internet downloads, not just goods purchased online.
But here’s the other troubling thing. The Marketplace Fairness Act, for the first time, establishes a national sales tax. It does so by hiding behind the states. They told us the individual mandate wasn’t a federal tax either.
Here’s the situation. As you may know, the Supreme Court has long held that a business has to have some physical nexus in a state to be subject to sales tax collections — an storefront, distribution center, etc. This is based on the fundamental principle of no taxation without representation.
States have tried to weasel their way around this, but each state taxes goods in different ways. Some taxes, for example, don’t tax baked goods, but do tax candies, even if made in a bakery. So your cake is not taxed, but if you buy fudge at the bakery it is. And it’s not just states, there are over 7,500 different local tax systems, many with special tax holidays or exemptions for different products. Trying to move these varied tax systems to the internet would drive up the burdens of businesses online by forcing compliance with the various taxing schemes of 50 states.
That actually puts a heavier burden on online vendors than brick & mortar local vendors, who only have to comply with the taxes of the state they reside in. Then there are the compliance costs. How does a candy company in Georgia that sells fudge to someone living in Iowa handle a tax dispute with Iowa tax authorities?
MFA would destroy the concept of states as laboratories of democracy that allow businesses to move between states based on better business environments. Today, a business located in New Hampshire charges no sales tax, but if MFA passes, overnight they could be forced to collect taxes for dozens of states with no escape.
Now, let me explain what is really going on here. States have grown huge and bureaucratic. Instead of downsizing and becoming more efficient, states have decided to just look for a new tax scheme to fund the leviathan. They see online sales as the way to go. iTunes downloads will be next. Congressional Republicans are helping.
But consider that there is a carve out for businesses that sell less than $500,000.00 a year online. As Senator Jim DeMint notes this is a pretty good admission that the law will be a burden on businesses.
Proponents of MFA also like to brag that Amazon now supports their internet tax bill after years of opposition. That’s true, but there is a simple reason why: Amazon’s future business model of same-day delivery requires them to have distribution centers in nearly every state in the nation. You see, MFA won’t affect Amazon, because like Target or Walmart expanding to every state, Amazon will be forced by current law to collect sales taxes. So of course Amazon now supports MFA, this is nothing more than a big corporation using Washington politicians to punish their competition, like the many small business sellers on Ebay.
Senator Enzi and the Republicans joining him should be ashamed that they are willing to open a new front in Congress’ quest to tax everything. The Marketplace Fairness Act should really be called the Marketplace Fleecing Act.
The Democrat party is evil personified; however, the Republican party is truly the stupid party larded with left of center imbeciles.
Its simple. They are politicians. You have some money left and they want it.
JUST IN TIME FOR ELECTION !!!
Phone call, email time !
The GOP has become more than just stupid and gutless — their close resemblance to democrats becomes more apparent with time.
What IS important to all of them is to keep their cushy jobs.
Obama appears as though he’s the top of the pack in the Muslim-socialist world; the leader “who can have it all”, anything, as long as he is true to “Jihad” and Karl Marx. At least that is how it appears if you just go by what he is doing.
He is enjoying his perks while putting the pieces into place to “subjugate” the American people. He is obviously not “home grown”, and we do not know where he got his fundamental character formation do we? In fact, we do not know much since he was “maneuvered into office” by those who did not follow laws of our country. Pelosi, in particular, certified him eligible, which he isn’t. Maybe she felt that we have to elect the new President before we look and see who he is? (Like voting for a lousy bill so she can know what’s in it.)
Why the Americans in congress are supporting all this is a mystery. Maybe they are under a threat? Nothing else can explain it except totally abandonment of morality and ethics. They swore to uphold our constitution, and they have busied themselves destroying it at every turn.
The more I think about it, the more inclined I am to support a legitimate third party whose intent it would be to truly represent the people who matter and leave the other two parties in a stupor.
The Senate can plot all they want to, all tax bills must originate in the House.
LLS
And there are still people who believe that we can elect more Conservatives and cure the ills from within the GOP. The GOP is complicit withe the DEMs in running this country into the ground.
Congress is a criminal organization that should be prosecuted under the RICO statutes. Al Capone on his best day was a two-bit nobody compared to Congress. Electing more Republicrats or Democans makes no difference; they agree on everything, especially taxing us into poverty.
IF SECESSION NOT BE, THEN REVOLUTION MUST.
This morning I caught “Morning Joe” to see Barney Franks sitting down with Rep Mulvaney from South Carolina announcing their bipartisanship effort to save Defense spending scheduled to be cut. They were “buddy-buddy” talking about the importance of working together...blah...blah...blah. Mulvaney was one of the big Tea Party successes in 2010, defeating Dem John Spratt. I hope this Kumbayah crap is not going to catch on!!!!
That's a very good and important point.
The tax is hiding under legislation called the Marketplace Fairness Act. The Act purportedly just harmonizes state laws so internet sales are also taxed. After all, it is not fair that Amazon does not charge all its customers sales taxes. It puts them at a competitive advantage over mom and pop shops.
It caught on a long, long time ago.
These reprobates in both parties are buddies. Republicrats reach across the aisle to grope the Democrats (in a nice way, I think) and continually attempt bi-partisanship. The Disciples of Satan laugh about the overly attentive Republicrats but use them for what they truly are: useful idiots.
These two parties are America’s problem. Since they’re called lawmakers they grind out laws like the NYT grinds out newspapers. Actually these days the DC printers are much more active than the Slimes.
They drown us in their lawmaking. They have finally proved to the most skeptical that they have rendered themselves dangerous to America and, with the phony commie muzzie at the head of the dying fish have become America’s Enemy Number One!
Let’s cut DC off from the rest of America; build a wall, electrify and fence. Then locate the central government in Omaha, Nebraska.
I hope this comes to the attention of more conservative commentators and bloggers. If we wake enough people up, we can stop this.
I hope this comes to the attention of more conservative commentators and bloggers. If we wake enough people up, we can stop this.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.