There are states where the sales tax rate changes town to town, county to county and borough to borough. How the heck are online retailers supposed to keep up with THAT?
Or the gazillion exceptions and exemptions in the PA sales tax code?
The International Council of Shopping Centers??????
oh well anyway. Here de Vat, here come de Vat everybody ready cuz here. one de VAT!
Once everybody is "chipped" the calculations will be automatic.
Screw the Kulaks, the Big Multinational Corporations will make out just fine.
However, if it does happen, I guarantee that there will be companies that 'will do all the tax calculations (and collections) for you' for a fee.
Simple. A new tax on top of all the others!
I was thinking of that too, being in a PA county tht chrges more than the state norm of 6%.
Sadly, they will probably do this badly.
First, they will exempt businesses with less than “X” dollars of sales. That will take care of a lot of the business.
If they were smart, they would then put into the law a requirement that states have to sign up to be part of this new program, and that in order to sign up, the state has to provide an online resource that will provide current tax rates by zip code.
Or the law can require that the state set a single rate for this type of collection, and the money is remitted to the state, who can then figure out how to send parts of it to jurisdictions within the state.
It’s not like we live in the horse-and-buggy days. If you are doing internet sales, you have a computer and internet access, so it should be trivial for a state to set up a web-based server that will provide tax rates by zip code.
“...and borough to borough.”
I made this point on a thread a few days ago. In my suburban town it is even worse - my half pays a Rapid Transit Tax as it has lots of bus stops and a large central bus “station” type area. The other half (more rural) had only a few bus stops, and doesn’t pay the tax. (Same zip code).