Taxing online purchases
By tovarichpeter Follow Sun, 15 Jul 2012, 7:52pm 1,066 views 14 comments
In South San Francisco CA 94080
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If I'm paying state taxes in another state, do i get to vote there?
What's that talk about no taxation without representation?
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HEY YOU says
You would be paying taxes in the state/city that you reside. If you are paying taxes in another state, then you are a resident of that state and will be paying sales tax there.
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Bull-fucking-shit! Physical stores use up valuable land, require people to burn gas to get to the store (way more than shipping uses), congests streets, cause pollution, and require local cops and firefighters to protect them. E-stores do not!
E-commerce is better for the environment, better for America's national security (by diminishing our reliance on foreign oil), better for traffic, and better for cutting municipal expenses. Of course, e-commerce should not be taxed by local and state governments.
The only school of thought that justifies states taxing their residents on Internet purchases is the school of thought that says the states OWN the people who live in it. Since the state owns you, it is entitled to a cut of all your spending.
If the state doesn't own you, it is only entitled to tax residents and local businesses that the state provides service to. The state isn't providing services to Amazon.com. Nor is the state providing any additional services to you when you buy something from Amazon. You already pay for all your services via your residential taxes (or part of your rent to your landlord's taxes if you rent).
But the local, state, and federal governments have all become accustomed to thinking of you and your family as their property, and that's what you are, state property. They own your ass.
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Clinton, MA
Technically, "Use Tax" has been on the books of every state I can think of since just about as long as there's been a sales tax. Use tax has always required the purchaser to pay directly to the state what would have been paid in sales tax when they're the "final consumer."
And its been an issue since just about forever, long before "e-commerce" in places where one jurisdiction has a sales tax and one abutting it does not. As in, MA has a 6.25% sales tax, NH has none. PA has some screwball system of sales taxes, I think defined at the county or city level, DE has none. Or anything bought via catalog from a company like LL Bean. Outside of ME, no tax (though I'd heard they're going to start opening retail stores, which would give them "nexus." I know one was planned for CT. No idea if it ever opened.)
Technically, if ever did any of the above and reported "0" on the use tax line of your state tax return, you just perjured yourself. E-commerce has just made this more visible. And the chance of perjuring yourself that much greater. (See the verbiage under the signature line; I know MA, CT, NY, NJ at a minimum all have stuff about a "complete and accurate return" with some synonym for "knowingly" in there as well.)
What I'm not getting is:
(a) How a state can force a business not registered to do business there to act as their "agent" in collecting the tax. And that's all sales tax is, an "agency" tax collected for the state by merchants for the convenience of the states.
(b) How the state's passing these laws can simply ignore a SCOTUS ruling, since whatever that mess the article describes is not a statute yet. (And forget the "commerce clause" as grounds for getting something like this declared unconstitutional. SCOTUS has made that more bendable then Gumby, meaning it means whatever they want it to mean.)
'Course going the other way, I believe Amazon has warehouse(s?) in TX, and they've always claimed these were a different company from the one actually selling stuff, and therefore they had no requirement to collect tax in Texas. Which seems like a very iffy argument to me, since both companies have common control, etc.
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Make the internet free, and or stop taxing the connection on my bill, then maybe after a long bitter fight. But other wise, I'm in the Dan Bull eph'n Shit camp.
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lostand confused
If I reside in one state & pay Ad valorum tax in another state, do i get to vote in that state's elections? HMMM
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Dan8267 says
I like to see Amazon make that argument in Canada, Mexico China, Russia, Europe or any known country in this world. The fact of the matter is if a company economically exploits a market, they will be subject to the tax rules of the jursidictions, In the united States, it is unique from the perspective, the federal limits the state jurisidictions power.
Elwood P Dowd says
Becuase the state's are expanding the definition of nexus. In New York, NC and CA, the issue the state believes is if the company enlist agents to direct sales to your website they are really just extension of the company's staff in that state and deriving economic benefit. These cases have been won at the state level like New York (which interprets the federal law).
The state just pass laws to avoid amguity and doee apply to small business anyway, These are getting sued. This is mult-billion annual issue so if the state's are sued so be it. At least they are spending millions for billions (annually).
It's not clear cut the laws are violating federal court ruling because the essense of the facts are different. The state court are legal counsels and experts in these matters and obviously interprets federal law. I laugh hard when a citizen believes they know the legal lanscape better than a state judge that spends their career understanding these things and make a decision as they understand them.
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I was going to start a separate thread, but I'll just tack this on here. With online retailers beginning to collect sales tax, and the recent Visa/Mastercard ruling, does anyone think we'll see a Cash Renaissance? The credit card ruling means that stores will now be able to levy a surcharge on credit card transactions (previously, retailers could only offer cash discounts). I normally get 1% kicked back via my card, but an additional two percent for cash might be incentive enough keep some Jacksons in my pocket. Of course, first, retailers would have to muster the courage to charge more for accepting plastic (they run the risk of consumers going elsewhere).
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What's next, a 'shit' tax -- every time you take a dump you have to pay 50 cents or so?
Ya know, I would probably support something like that.
From the Chapter 2 (PDF): The world is divided into two categories of people: those who shit in their drinking water supplies and those who don’t. We in the western world are in the former class. We defecate into water, usually purified drinking water.
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Naw, we won't have a shit tax...nobody is keeping count to tally the tax owed on a per-shit basis.
Instead we'll have a tolite paper tax (in addition to sales tax). It will be on a per-square basis. Each 4 inch by 4 inch sheet will be taxed.
But libs love taxes and will say "we don't give a sheet". IOW - screw you!
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I said: The credit card ruling means that stores will now be able to levy a surcharge on credit card transactions
Correction: A surcharge is illegal in California and several other states. Cash discounts, however, are allowed. How much would you need to save to be convinced to go to CASH ONLY.
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SFace says
Why? Does the state own the market or the people in it?
I can understand taxing Internet connections since ISPs all use public land and/or the public electromagnetic spectrum, resources that are very limited. So taxing ensures that the public is compensated for the use of these public resources. But that argument does not apply to the content of the bits on the network.
Hell, what if we the people all become residents of Delaware like all corporations. Then we'll get credit cards with DE addresses and buy everything sales tax free since Delaware has no sales tax. As more and more of our purchases are services and electronic goods, this will become increasingly compelling.
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Ruki says
If government could tax shit, Washington D.C. would only fund the government.
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Again, calories tax!