Cat Fight
Posted on 01/20/2011 8:08:45 AM PST by SmithL
Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner is making another run at forcing major online retailers, including Amazon, to collect sales tax on California purchases.
Skinner, a Berkeley Democrat, said Assembly Bill 153 could generate between $250 million and $500 million for the state. Proponents are hoping a new governor and some corporate firepower, including Amazon rival Barnes & Noble, . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
This is precisely what is called special interest legislation.
Using the coercive power of government for your own selfish purposes. Despicable.
Fascist economics.
Amazon will simply shut down California “associates” as they’ve done in Illinois.
It’s in the DNA of every Dumbocrat to tax everything.
I know it will certainly affect my Amazon purchases. They won’t be happy until they really shut down the economy, will they?
Cat Fight
It only seems fair, of course I’ll be looking for these retailers to start including shipping charges at their local stores.
They’ve done it here in North Carolina, too.
Follow the money: check which legislators are taking bribes, I mean “campaign contributions,” from the relevant parties, and let them have it.
Look I hate taxes as much as anyone, but why should internet retailers be free from charging the sales tax that puts brick and mortars at a competitive disadvantage?
MUCH better, would be to eliminate sales tax altogether.
I paid California tax, I think, on my last purchase with Amazon. The pkg that went to Colorado was priced differently than the one that came to me.
This behavior is known as rent seeking behavior. It is an ugly example of the vicious cycle of legalized corruption among big labor, select corporations, and politicians (mostly Democrats).
I do not object to taxation of internet sales per se. I would like to see replacement of federal income and payroll taxes with a national sales tax including web sales. However, the left would like taxation of web sales in addition to our onerous tax structure. In addition, the left would like to allow the states to impose a very complex taxation scheme on web retailers.
A Berkeley Democrat says it all.
Berkeley City Council is currently working on voting for Berkeley city employees to be able to have a sex change operation on the public taxpayers dime.!!!
What an enlightened cesspool!!!!
I am pretty sure that you have never done the bookkeeping that leads to sales taxes.
In Calif, there are 58 counties. It has been discussed back & forth there to charge the sales tax of the country to where the product is going to be shipped...which is a myriad of accounting nightmare.
The last I knew, the location of where it was shipped from was the taxing source.
But I have been gone from there for some time, so I don’t know what the current rules are. Perhaps someone from Cal could enlighten us all.
Meanwhile——I think there are over 2000 counties in the USA & all of them could have sales taxes—except Oregon. Then there is ovelapping City taxes. Perhaps someone here could say tht they would have no problem handling that bookkeeping/accounting.
I would not try to touch it.
No more taxes!! Enough is enough!!!
“but why should internet retailers be free from charging the sales tax that puts brick and mortars at a competitive disadvantage?” - Because internet retailers in another state use none of the state services those taxes are supposed to be paying for. They are not in your state, you have no right to tax them.
“I am pretty sure that you have never done the bookkeeping that leads to sales taxes.”
####
Well, I calculate and pay sales tax on my particular business monthly.
In any case, complexity in administration does not answer my question as to why only brick and mortars are required to charge sales tax. It shouldn’t be too hard to simply charge the going rate in the locale the item is shipped to.
Again, I do NOT want that to happen.
Let me also state that I have enjoyed tax free internet purchases (and good old “mail order” before that), for years at a level probably in excess of the vast majority of the general population. So I have no axe to grind here. Internet sales tax would actually hurt me.
Yeah I had actually typed out that rationale in my original query, but decided to scrap it.
Well then, we won’t shed any tears then when the brick and mortars in our area dry up and blow away due to competitive disadvantages, will we?
I pay tax on Amazon purchases. As far as I’m concerned the point-of-sale for an on-line purchase is either the state of the buyer or the state where the seller pays its taxes, but not both. I think the Dems want to tax both, but I’m not sure of that. This issue confuses me, since I do pay tax on at least some Internet purchases.
Nothing wrong with sales/consumption taxes... Kalifornia is just run by idiots.
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.