Posted on 04/25/2013 5:55:21 AM PDT by sickoflibs
WASHINGTON (AP) — You don't see this very often: a majority of Senate Republicans voting to make people who buy stuff on the Internet pay state and local sales taxes.
The Senate could vote as early as Thursday on a bill to empower states to require online retailers to collect state and local sales taxes for purchases made over the Internet. Under the bill, the sales taxes would be sent to the states where a shopper lives.
On Wednesday, the bill passed a test vote in the Senate, 74 to 23, with 27 Republicans voting in favor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., vowed to pass the bill this week, before senators leave for a scheduled vacation.
"This is a matter of equity and fairness," said South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican. "The same people who are selling the same products should be paying the same taxes."
Under current law, states can only require stores to collect sales taxes if the store has a physical presence in the state. As a result, many online sales are essentially tax-free, giving Internet retailers an advantage over brick-and-mortar stores.
It is part of GOP orthodoxy to oppose higher taxes, a central issue that divides Democrats and Republicans. That's why the bill faces an uncertain fate in the House, where some Republicans regard it as a tax increase.
But supporters of the bill insist it is not a tax increase. Instead, they say, the bill merely provides states with a mechanism to enforce current taxes.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Yep, like the Income Tax was only for the top 1% of incomes...
Whoops, sorry folks. We need more money. Who would have guessed?
I would assume the money would go to the state and then it would be up to the state as to how those taxes get spent within the state.
Firms Will Regret Deal With Devil On Internet Tax
Investor's Business Daily | 24 April 2013 | Editorial
Government: Non-Internet businesses claim a looming, unprecedented collection of state sales taxes on their online competitors is not a new tax. They will regret their pact with the devil tax collector. The new Internet sales tax legislation currently being steamrolled through the Democratic-controlled Senate with White House support is not some kind of untax, a government revenue version of the Uncola.
It's not that "certain je ne sais quoi, fresh, clean, no aftertaste!" The National Retail Federation imaginatively claims "this is not a new tax" and claims that non-Internet stores "cannot compete on sales tax," and therefore "Congress needs to address this disparity." Calls to "tax the guy across the street," however, always come back to haunt the first guy. For some time, though, Amazon.com — obviously judging the tax as inevitable — has stood together with the non-Internet, pro-tax businesses; eBay, on the other hand, remains committed to "protect small online businesses, not potentially put them out of business" via new taxes.
This is not a new issue, and it's no surprise, considering the perennial greed that is second nature to government. In 1992 the Supreme Court, in its Quill decision, unanimously prevented North Dakota from audaciously collecting sales taxes from a company with no physical presence in the state but whose North Dakota customers used its software to place orders.
Full story source:
“They are tired of losing sales to the Internet.”
Then make your own Ebay or Amazon account? What’s the problem here?
I have lot of friends at the Fabric district who sell on both marketplaces as they have the initiative to realize you can ship to someone a hundred miles away instead of relying on walk in customers for your business.
I just need do a 180 on my ebay sales and purchases.
Rather than refuse to ship to overseas, maybe ONLY sell and ship to overseas.
F these bass turds.
Just how is a state supposed to “go after its (sic) own citizens who aren’t paying their use tax” without creating a complete police state?
Duh.
And no, we’re seeking to avoid any income tax. A sales tax is a better way in our “free trade” economy to spread the tax load. The thing that is most infuriating about income taxation now is that the GOP has pursued a “cut taxes” agenda to a point where a near majority of income earners pay zero tax. Everyone should pay something, and sales taxes are the best way to insure that no one escapes taxation.
Hmm. Excellent point.
This bill will have huge unintended consequences, i.e., creating more sales in other countries.
It’s just like the out-sourcing disaster. The more you tax and over-regulate, you more you drive business out of the U.S. Will they never learn?
You’re mixed up on this one. First, “its own” isn’t a grammar error, but is correct.
What Wyoming is dealing with is its own citizens rejecting its “low tax” system. It is an internal problem to Wyoming. It is not a nationwide problem. It is a Wyoming problem.
Here in Illinois we have a spending problem. Our government is socialist and crony capitalist. That is an Illinois problem. We don’t have a revenue problem, but a spending problem.
I cannot speak to Wyoming’s problems, but let Wyoming solve them. Instead you’re calling for more government and more invasiveness. The Senate bill undermines federalism. We need states to compete.
As has already been clearly stated in this thread:
1. Any brick and mortar store can gain an online presence.
2. Brick and Mortar stores are suffering from bad local/county/state tax and regulatory policies that make it expensive to do business in those locales.
3. America has a federal, not a national government. Federalism means states compete and pay for their good or bad decisions.
4. Liberty is undermined and reduced as federalism is undermined and reduced.
That’s it.
Let Wyoming fix its own problems. The truth is that Wyoming’s politicians don’t have the political will to go after your free-rider problem. So they’re asking America’s Senate and House to nationalize their problem.
It’s just another crony capitalist bailout. It won’t help either the Brick and Mortars to be more competitive or our individual liberty.
You’re thoughtful and I know how you feel, but if you came from Illinois you’d see the problem for what it really is.
Wow. Both of my D senators voted NAY.
Montana.
Learn a foreign language, so Microsoft will mistake you for a foreign worker and (re)hire you.
you saw your sales declining because people were using the Internet to avoid sales taxes that your customers have to pay,
...and just what valid study are you going to quote as your proof that it wasn’t a failing economy that caused your sales decline? This whole business is based on the myth that there is a pot o gold at the end of the internet rainbow. I haven’t found a single business that is still in business that is complaining about lack of income. This is all a media blitz based on leftist “lets get more revenue” talking points. And Shazam ain’t it working good?
At least we have Boehner to protect us in the House.
He makes good decisions:
Didn’t mean to ignore your reply. What you are saying in consumer goods does apply but many major markets that have expanded reach by the internet do supply items through wholesale and manufacturing outlets that do require tax be applied by the wholesaler — my industry, construction, is a good example. To avoid tax being applied to the entire cost of a finished structure, most or the time sales tax has to be paid by all suppliers for every material purchase.
When this was an extension of what was done for the mail-order business, which made up 3/4 of one percent of the retail market sales, it was a good thing to get a new market segment underway, but now internet sales make up 5.2% of all retail sales and when you balance that against cars, gas, groceries and other items that don’t have a significant market on the interstate internet, you have a much bigger percentage in the true examination.
My big concern is to eliminate excuses for new taxe types and new tax rates, this modest change for something that never had an official exemption and keeps the tax at the State level meets that concern for me.
The problem is not with capturing the uncollected sales/use tax, it’s the method.
What they are proposing shreds the concept of jurisdiction based on physical presence. The MFA allows all the states to reach across state lines and force business that have no connection to that state to act as tax collector as well as be subject to audits and legal liability for any errors.
That’s the problem. All of this can be avoided by simply using origin based sales tax which does not need Federal enabling legislation, nor does it subject business owners to the legal jurisdiction of states in which they have no presence. At our expense I might add.
The states don’t want to do the simple, legal and constitutional thing because they don’t want the competitive pressure this will put on their tax rates because origin based sales tax allows shoppers to discriminate between high tax, low tax and no tax states.
I am further rubbed raw by the MFA because I live in a non tax state and this represents a substantial burden on my business because I don’t need to collect sales tax in my place of business but now must comply with the laws of 45 states that I don’t live in.
Origin based sales tax is not an additional burden because no one would be subject to any states jurisdiction except those they have a physical presence in. Which is exactly how it is now.
This is a bad law enacting a complicated scheme that tramples on basic and settled legal principles of jurisdiction that is typical of democrat created legislation.
It will have unintended consequences that we will all regret if we let this camel’s nose in the door.
There are better ways to accomplish the collection of sales and use taxes.
I do own a brick and mortar and I use internet sales to replace the waning local sales.
Actually having an internet presence increases local sales and local customers can buy online and pick up their order prepaid and ready to go. Shazaam!
Your falling sales are cause by your failure to adapt.
Some very good points.
Conservatism is all about change only through careful considered reform and your points directly respond to that.
Because it's not raising revenue for the federal government. It's allowing states to collect sales taxes.
A 2 dollar bill I won't spend cause I collect them, lint, and a stick of gum.
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