And it isn’t me.
Tax free internet shopping days may be numbered
If tax-hungry politicians get their way, the days of ordering items over the Internet and not paying sales tax may become just a fond memory.
Right now, if a California resident orders something from Seattle-based Amazon.com, for instance, he or she won’t be charged sales tax at the time of purchase. That’s because Amazon doesn’t have offices in the state of California.
Pro-tax politicians want to change this by allowing California to force Amazon to collect and submit sales taxes–and they may have found an ally in a U.S. Congress that’s controlled by Democrats.
“MAY have found a friend” in the Democrats? They haven’t found a thing that isn’t a government entitlement program that they don’t want to tax.
It won’t be until after the election, but no matter who gets into the white house, this going to happen.
But this line is the clincher
Verenda Smith, government affairs associate for the Federation of Tax Administrators, framed the decision as a moral one of sorts: “Do you want to be a good American, or do you want to be an American who wants to cheat your government deliberately? It’s a harsh way to look at it, but it’s true.”
Methinks someone has a serious case of needing to retake herself a civics class and learn about interstate commerce. If I was a resident of CA and had driven, flown, rode a train or walked to WA to buy a book, I wouldn’t be paying sales tax and there is no reason out of state folks should be paying because of the World Wide Web.
Found @ SomePoorSchmuck
If I was a resident of CA and had driven, flown, rode a train or walked to WA to buy a book, I wouldn’t be paying sales tax and there is no reason out of state folks should be paying because of the World Wide Web.
Actually, that’s not entirely true. No, you wouldn’t be paying sales tax in CA, but you would be paying sales tax in WA.
Here’s the thing: Is it a sales tax or a purchase (or use) tax? If it’s a sales tax, then it should be collected in the state in which the sale took place…not the place that the purchaser resides.
I haven’t read the proposed law, so maybe it addresses this issue, but unless it is addressed I don’t see this happening:
I used to run a sole proprietorship business. I had to file a sales tax return monthly for all sales I made and remit the amount collected. If this law were to pass, every company that sells items to out of state purchasers would have to file sales tax returns in each and every of the 50 states in which a purchaser resided. 50 different forms, with different rules, different tax rates, different exceptions etc etc etc.
For large businesses that can afford armies of accountants and pay for special accounting software, it would be expensive, but doable. This would absolutely kill the huge number of “mom and pop” online commercial operations.
I know I’ll be lobbying against it and I hope everyone else does to. At worst, sales taxes should be assessed in the state in which the business is physically located. That way at least there’s only one rate, one form and one set of rules…that the business is already dealing with for in-state customers.
This collecting sales taxes for the state in which the purchaser resides is unworkable IMHO.
I also see a constitutional challenge possibility if this were to pass. I don’t see how a state could possibly have any regulatory authority over a business in a different state.
Of course, as federal law, they could use the catch-all commerce clause, but the current supreme court is not the supreme court of a decade ago. The “sure thing” nature of a commerce clause argument is no longer guaranteed.