Free Republic

Even a trip to iTunes for a new song or movie might soon be within the grasp of Illinois’ tax collectors. Imposing the state’s sales tax on downloaded songs and movies surfaced as a new money-making idea Tuesday from Gov. Quinn’s administration to help bail out the state, which has a $13 billion deficit. Quinn also proposed selling off a portion of tobacco settlement proceeds to raise $1 billion; requiring banks to divulge the accounts of tax scofflaws to arm the state with a potent new tool to collect unpaid taxes, and extending for four months deeper into the next...

The Obama Era has become a protracted, nightmarish Whack-A-Mole game of tax increases and bureaucratic self-enlargement. In sector after sector of American life, another scheme to expand government and wrench more earnings from Americans’ pockets pops up. Its next targeted sector? The Internet. Digital Goods and Services Taxation RECOMMENDATION 4.20: The federal government should investigate establishing a national framework for digital goods and services taxation. The National Broadband Plan is focused on increasing beneficial use of the Internet, including e-commerce and new innovative business models. The current patchwork of state and local laws and regulations relating to taxation of digital...

Internet sellers who don't report their sales will no longer be under the radar. Starting next year, any bank or other payment settlement company that processes credit cards, debit cards, and electronic payments such as PayPal will have to issue information returns telling the IRS what merchants receive. The new returns are Form 1099-K, Merchant Card and Third-Party Payments. Purpose of Reporting The IRS believes that many online sellers fail to report their transactions. Some don't report because they mistakenly believe that Internet sales are invisible. Others do so because they are trying to evade taxes. The IRS has found...

Tyranny is afoot. And this evil arrives in the guise of secondhand books and cheap Chinese trinkets. So beware. Actually, if anyone ever needed an obvious illustration of how government overreach can damage an economy, he need look no further than the Colorado Legislature's foolish attempt to wheedle a few extra bucks out of consumers via an Internet sales tax. After legislation forcing online companies to collect sales tax passed, Amazon.com moved to protect its consumers and long-term interests by severing its ties with Colorado. Unfortunately, this meant closing its associates program, which involved an estimated 5,000 jobs. Amazon's actions...

The political battle over taxing online sales made through retailers such as Amazon.com intensified Tuesday, with Democrats saying the state should not back down from trying to collect money it's owed and Republicans arguing the new law should be repealed. The hardened stances came a day after Amazon said it would end its relationships with thousands of online affiliates in Colorado who send business its way through blogs and niche websites and then earn commissions on each sale. Republicans immediately blamed the Democratic-controlled legislature for passing a bill that attempts to collect the state's 2.9 percent sales tax on online...

Amazon’s move to drop its Colorado associates so soon after Gov. Ritter signed a new law creating a so-called “Amazon tax” is regrettable – but not shocking. There were plenty of signals that repealing a tax exemption for online retailers would face legal challenges and possibly just such a move as Amazon launched today. The Post editorial board was among critics who warned the new law looked awfully problematic for such little gain . John Hickenlooper missed a golden opportunity in not weighing in on this tax. Score one for McInnis. Suddenly he looks like the prescient one while Denver’s...

DENVER – Amazon.com Inc. cut ties Monday with Colorado online businesses that help it sell products because of a new state law aimed at getting out-of-state, online retailers to collect sales tax. The move hurts businesses — many of them small, home-based operations — that earn money by using their Web sites and blogs to link customers to online retailers. Colorado has at least 4,200 such businesses, known as affiliates or associates, accounting for about 5,000 jobs, and most of them rely on Amazon to some degree, according to their trade group, the Performance Marketing Association. The group's executive director,...

Carly Fiorina has a problem. She accuses one of her opponents of supporting taxes on the Internet when she has a long-held record of supporting the same. ABC News 7 investigates her history supporting Internet taxation going all the way back to the year 2000. They missed her saying she supported Internet taxes in late 2009 at the Web 2.0 Conference. YouTube video link

Shopping online can be a way to find bargains while steering clear of crowds—and sales taxes. But those tax breaks are starting to erode. With the recession pummeling states' budgets, their governments increasingly want to fill the gaps by collecting taxes on Internet sales, which are growing even as the economy shudders. And that is sparking conflict with companies that do business online only and have enjoyed being able to offer sales-tax free shopping.

If you enjoy buying music from iTunes, movies from Amazon.com's Unbox, or computer software from anywhere, be warned: the halcyon days of tax-free digital purchases may be over. With retail e-commerce sales now estimated to exceed $130 billion a year, and iTunes song purchases topping 5 billion, state politicians and tax collectors have begun to levy new fees on digital downloads. Call it the iTax. In 2008 alone, at least nine states have considered digital download taxes, and at least five of those states have enacted them into law. Nebraska's governor signed a digital download tax bill into law in...

Massachusetts residents may have to pay sales tax on items ordered on the internet, although officials involved in the decision say nothing definite will be decided in the immediate future. A law signed by Gov. Mitt Romney last month includes the state in the Streamlined Sales Tax Project, a group founded in March 2000 that discusses common problems with collecting sales tax, including those from internet sales, according to Tim Connolly, communications director for the Mass. Dept. of Revenue. The department will represent the state at the meetings, beginning with one held in Indianapolis on May 19 and 20. “What...

Williams and Reznor were trying to follow the lead of Radiohead by distributing music online without the backing of a label. Like the British supergroup, Williams made the album available for free in one version but he also offered the option of buying a higher-quality digital download for $5. The promotions were groundbreaking and plenty of people predicted that a profitable outcome would convince many musicians to drop their labels and use the Internet to distribute their own artistic creations. And then Reznor ended the hoopla last week when he reported on his blog that 154,449 people had downloaded NiggyTardust...

The Board of Equalization – which oversees collection of many state taxes – is one of the least-known important state agencies. But if the board gets its way, it could soon be both high profile and highly unpopular. That's because it wants the Legislature and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to give it a staggering number of new employees – 325 – over the next three years to serve as tax detectives hunting down the businesses and individuals who buy goods on the Internet but fail to pay the state's “use tax.” What's that? You weren't aware that you owed the state...

New Yorkers going Christmas shopping online at Amazon.com will find an 8.375% surprise at the virtual cash register, courtesy of Governor Spitzer, who is moving aggressively to collect Internet sales taxes that have gone widely unenforced. Under a new policy, major electronic retailers...

The company that lets you find “it” is now needing to find a way to stop Congress from ruining its business. Proposed legislation, if made law, is threatening to require all sellers of goods to disclose your name, address, and phone number to all potential purchasers. This would be a huge blow to the company and to the partners who sell products on the eBay site.In an email sent at 9:27 PM yesterday, eBay sent me a message that warns of legislation that could harm sellers: Dear [James],We wanted to let you know about proposed legislation in Congress that could...

Time is running out for the Internet taxation moratorium. The current ban expires Nov. 1, after which states and municipalities can swarm Internet users with new e-commerce levies (and they will). There is even talk of taxing individual e-mail messages. Congress should extend the ban. This widely popular legislation has been extended twice over nine years and has enjoyed wide bipartisan support. It flew through the Senate by a 93-3 margin when it was renewed in 2004. Everyone from Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York Democrat, to bill sponsor George Allen, Virginia Republican, supported it. In the House, its 134 cosponsors...

Meeting last week in Wyandotte County, officials from 22 states had hoped to move closer to their goal of collecting sales tax on all Internet purchases nationwide. At the end of the two-day meeting, they left empty-handed. Right now, many Internet vendors collect sales tax voluntarily at the urging of some states, but not all do. The patchwork of sales tax laws currently presents a burden on interstate commerce that courts have ruled unconstitutional. To solve the problem, several states — including Kansas — have joined the “Streamlined Sales Tax Project.” The member states are working to simplify sales tax...

Germany taxes the internet The power to tax is the power to destroy. The internet has proven rather a bother to many of those with power, allowing anyone with a computer to reach a worldwide audience. Now, our friend David Kaspar, of Davidsmedienkritik, a fine site keeping track of media and events in Gemrany, brings news of Germany’s plans to tax the internet. Germany’s 16 states agreed on Thursday to introduce from January 1 a licence fee of 5.52 euros (3.70 pounds) a month on computers and mobile phones that can access television and radio programmes via the Internet. Any...

Records from online vendors will help the state target buyers who didn't pay levy. California consumers and retailers who thought they had dodged sales and excise taxes when they bought cigarettes from out-of-state Internet and mail-order vendors are about to get smoked out. As part of a sweeping effort to crack down on such purchases, the state Board of Equalization has obtained 450,000 invoices from out-of-state Internet tobacco sellers showing untaxed sales to California residents over the past three years. It also has secured another 65,000 shipping records showing deliveries of 250,000 packages of untaxed cigarettes to Golden State residents...

TRENTON, N.J. -- The budget dispute that closed New Jersey's government and threatens to shutter Atlantic City casinos centers on the governor's plan to increase the state sales tax. He says a 1-cent increase will earn New Jersey $1.1 billion. Lawmakers, fearing a voter backlash, either don't want to raise taxes, or want to use some of the revenue for other spending. But more than half of the money Gov. Jon S. Corzine wants to raise by increasing the tax is already owed to the state. And no one is collecting it. State estimates show New Jersey loses about $600...