Posted on 10/07/2006 1:14:09 AM PDT by HarmlessLovableFuzzball
Beginning this week, New Jersey residents purchasing music and videos from services like Apple's iTunes and rival digital downloads e-tailers encountered something they'd previously only found at bricks-and-mortar counterparts: a sales tax.
Democratic Governor Jon Corzine proposed the sales tax expansion earlier this spring to help the state to recover from a $4.5 billion budget deficit, an ABC News affiliate in New York reported recently on its Web site. The changes, along with a sales tax rate hike from 6 to 7 percent, took effect on Oct. 1.
According to a CNET News.com special report completed in April, 15 states and the District of Columbia already included media downloads in their sales tax regimes, and a handful of others--New Jersey included--were contemplating similar moves.
Garden State officials didn't stop at downloaded music and videos for the newly taxed set. New Jerseyans must now pay taxes on data processing; tanning, massage and tattooing services; limousines; and flooring and carpeting installation, among other things.
These idiots in Trenton even made the shipping and handling rule idiotic - I run a business that has a small internet site. Not all shipping and handling is taxable, only that portion of the s&H for items that are taxable is taxable-get it? So if we send out some clothing (not subject to tax)and some office suppy items (subject to tax)only the portion of the shipping and handling devoted to the office supplies is taxable. It was so nice of them to tell us we can use either the % of cost on the order or the %of weight of the items to determine the taxable percentage. Of course, my commercially prepared e-commerce program has only two settings - tax shipping, do not tax shipping. So now we have to figure the tax manually until the software vendor does an enhancement.
I don't feel sorry for NJ, they got what they voted for even after being warned.
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