Actually, businesses really support this bill. They are tired of losing sales to the Internet.
I’m still waiting for the gubmint to collect an import duty on million dollar software that is coded by East Asians in India and then smuggled via the internet wires into the United States without paying import duty on the manufactured product.
My job was off-shored because of billion dollar marxists like Bill Gates watering down the salary in my field.
(Actually, businesses really support this bill. They are tired of losing sales to the Internet.)
You are right. It’s too bad that consumers don’t ever seem to be represented by anybody in Congress.
???
They support amnesty and path to citizenship for illegals too to get the $$$ w new workers in the nearer term, and they don't care that longer term those same new voters will vote for Dems to crush them.
Their interests are not
You are right it is a temporary loop hole that was allowed to exist so that a new market model could get a toe hold and flourish. Two decades is enough.
Conservatives believe local government is best. Conservatives believe in federalism.
Having a local state tax that has faulty enforcement for a new market to emerge is one thing, but it does make states more dependent upon the federal money flow because part of the normal commerce that is occuring escapes taxes.
The state has less income from the commerce in the state and becomes more dependent or introduces NEW forms of taxes rather than what was approved.
We now have established national businesses that are killing the local retailers that employ local people. If the large internet monsters could exist off shore or in India to insure maximiziing profits they would.
I like local government that I can more easily control with my neighbors — I don’t like Federal Government. I like local services such as fire, police, sewer treatment, property and contract rights courts. I don’t like EPA, Department of Energy, and all the Federal bloat.
Why do we want to hamstring the local government and thereby create a void that the unlimited Federal Government can fill?
Taxes are “takings” I agree, but when the feds spend they aren’t limited by what is voted on — they just spend more money by printing it.
In Ca, Amazon has been charging sales tax since last year. I’m still more likely to buy on Amazon because of superior selection and convenience, it just costs me more, so I buy less.
This bill puts small businesses at a huge disadvantage. Amazon will not have a problem with transferring taxes to 50 states, but a Mom & Pop will.
The real solution is to tax using the Georgist model. But then, governments would have to function on what they earn on their contribution to society. They wouldn’t like that.
Anyone who supports increasing my taxes, whether that person is businessman or an otherwise conservative Senator or Governor, is a filthy pig who should be forced to chug motor oil till he vomits up a lung.
Governor Daugaard can go straight to hell and he can take his store owners with him. Store owners want to hire illegals to work for cheap and to tax internet sales to drive down competition. Screw them.
From the article: “That’s why the bill faces an uncertain fate in the House, where some Republicans regard it as a tax increase”
Regard it as. Hmm, I guess that depends on what the meaning of “increase” is. The author of that piece should be kicked in the gonads, if he has any.
Yup.
Especially here in Wyoming, where we have no state income taxes and the state and counties depend on sales taxes for funding government.
Ad valorem taxes can’t support the entire budget, and we’re more fiscally conservative as a state than most others. The Dakotas are perhaps the only other states that are as tight with the taxpayer’s dollar as we are.
No doubt businesses that don’t have internet sales like the idea of sales taxes on interstate commerce. However, you seem to assume this will be good for those local businesses. That’s a big assumption. Why?
#1 More taxes means fewer sales. In other words, this isn’t likely to improve the economy. It will depress it.
#2 There’s a reason why states call them use taxes instead of sales taxes, because states are not constitutionally permitted to tax interstate commerce. In other words, use taxes tax the use of the items, not the sale. One way to get around this is to have the federal government collect the tax and then remit the proceeds to the states. Otherwise, this tax is unconstitutional.
#3 Sales taxes may have state, county, and local components. The compliance costs of keeping track of all these different rates and accounting for all the money will be a drain on economic activity.
#3 A lot of people probably like the convenience and better informed purchasing power of shopping from the comfort of their homes and don’t feel like having to drive somewhere to shop. Is it worth putting up with traffic, weather, etc. to save less than 10% on a purchase? Not necessarily.
#4 There are many products that don’t sell in nearly enough quantity to support local sales. For example, how many people need a door handle for a 50’s Chevy? Meaning? No local business is going to stock these items regardless. If fewer people purchase fewer of these items, they will be less likely to be manufactured.
I can think of only one advantage for this new tax. Government will suck more money from the free market. If anything, the states should be trying to cut taxes to be more competitive and improve the economy.
NO, businesses do not support this bill and they are NOT losing sales to the internet.
Absolutely nothing stops any brick and mortar store from selling on the internet. I do.
Pretending this is about fairness is crap. Business owners too stupid or lazy to figure out how to sell on the internet are now whining that somebody stole their cheese. It’s BS, what they are really demanding is protection from competition.
The worst part of this bill is that it makes many small businesses liable for sales tax collection in states that they have no physical presence in (unlike the big box stores who all have their own websites). This is about big business using the power of government to hamper smaller competitors.
Messing with the concept of nexus based on physical presence to establish legal jurisdiction enshrines taxation without representation and further erodes our freedom.
It’s a bad law that is stupidly written and creates a complex system while ignoring the simple fix that requires no federal legislation whatsoever.
States have always had the power to enact origin based sales tax and have their businesses charge sales tax on ALL sales whether physical or virtual, basically making internet shoppers virtual tourists who must pay the sales tax on purchases made in the state they are visiting.
It’s that simple. but politicians prefer a complicated system that asserts vastly more control while eroding a basic legal concept of jurisdiction based on physical presence.
So stop spreading the lie that it’s about fairness or that business wants this. Some do, but not for honest reasons.
Then they need to re-examine their value proposition.
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.