Amazon May Soon Need to Collect Sales Tax

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Politicians are once again making a push for sales tax on items you buy over the internet, regardless whether or not the company has a presence in that state. :(

Over the past year an escalating war over online sales taxes has spread to Texas, Connecticut, California, and dozens of other states. Later this month the battle will reach Capitol Hill. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) says he plans to introduce a bill, called the Main Street Fairness Act, mandating that all businesses collect the sales tax in the state where the consumer resides.
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Sucks, but they won't stop until everything we do makes the gov money in some way. Soon you will have to pay a tax to cut your grass
 
I like how the author noted that Amazon might not ultimately be hurt by having to collect sales tax but neglects to mention the possible impact on other online retailers who are not as big.
 
Snobok said:
I like how the author noted that Amazon might not ultimately be hurt by having to collect sales tax but neglects to mention the possible impact on other online retailers who are not as big.
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Sort of like local places who get hurt by the internet and large B&M shops?
 
Team Obi Juan said:
Sucks, but fair, IMO.
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My only problem is this:

Imagine what this will do to small businesses? This isn't just about Amazon. How many small internet businesses can afford a dedicated tax person to make sure tax is collected for all 50 states, tabulated and disbursed to each state separately. This will kill a ton of INTERNET businesses.

LOCAL businesses have direct access to the customer (no shipping needed), they take up space (land) in that state and consume local resources (the very reason sales tax is collected). On the other hand, internet businesses consume no local resources and must ship the item.

So I think it balances itself out now the way it is. Internet only businesses are stuck having to ship items / etc. and lose sales to people that need it now. B&M stores get all the local business and the "need it now" crowd but have to collect taxes (because they use local resources)

Just my opinion.
 
k1pp3r said:
Sucks, but they won't stop until everything we do makes the gov money in some way. Soon you will have to pay a tax to cut your grass
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Yup. And a driving tax per mile.


Soon you will have to pay a tax to submit your taxes.
 
If the USA did sales tax like Canada then this issue would not even exist. We have federal and provincial sales tax, you only pay both if you bought the product in the province you reside in but everyone pays federal tax on a product no matter which province you reside in.
 
That's how politicians and especially democrats view it. It's the governments money. It's just a question of how much they'll let you keep. For some reason they think the #1 job of the federal government is to make as much money as possible.
 
What happens if these online companies relocate out of the country, then they can't collect sales tax.
 
i wonder if this thing will bring more products to be sold in the street?????
 
If they do enact this, since it involves crossing state lines, it should be a flat percentage of say the normal base of 4-5% for Federal..... since the remainder is usually local or state add-ons. That would be the fair thing to do.
 
Will HURT local business more, like in new hampshire- no sales tax- if i want to make a large purchase (~500+ dollars) i'll spend the 30 minutes it takes for me to drive over the border to go to the local store there and pay No sales tax (saving 6.25%) .... and if the bill is internet only sales- it will be declared unconstitutional because it will exclude local sales.

no biggie it'll get shot down.
 
Jasonx82 said:
My local sales tax is 9.75% :(
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This.. to be fair it needs to be the same across the board, but us poor saps in LA County get near 10% sales tax. Its the main reason I buy out of the county or online.

California wouldn't be driving business out of the state if they didn't have the taxes so damn high.
 
In reality this will probably NOT hurt small business, outside the current advantage of not having to charge sales tax.

Most small business contract out their commerce, or their hosting company provides the service. These e-commerce solutions will update their software to account for tax, probably with little maintenance needed by the business.
 
Lets dump the internet into the ocean in protest like our forefathers! :D We'll all dress like pirates and/or ninjas...
 
Last year the same Main Street Fairness Act bill went nowhere in the House.

H.R. 5660 would allow the 24 states who have adopted the “Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement” to require out-of-state sellers to collect tax, whether they have a physical presence of any kind in the state or not.
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Those 24 states are...

Full Members - Arkansas Indiana Iowa Kansas
Kentucky Michigan Minnesota Nebraska
Nevada New Jersey North Carolina North Dakota
Oklahoma Rhode Island South Dakota Vermont
Washington West Virginia Wisconsin Wyoming

Associate Members - Georgia Ohio Tennessee Utah

lulz, suckas.
 
RiPpLeeFFecT said:
This.. to be fair it needs to be the same across the board, but us poor saps in LA County get near 10% sales tax. Its the main reason I buy out of the county or online.
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??

To be fair to your local stores it would need to be the same as your local stores. Right now you 'outsource' your purchases to the internet to save "near 10%" over buying locally.
 
k1pp3r said:
Sucks, but they won't stop until everything we do makes the gov money in some way. Soon you will have to pay a tax to cut your grass
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you don't pay tax to fill up your lawnmower's gas tank?
 
Steve said:
My only problem is this:

Imagine what this will do to small businesses? This isn't just about Amazon. How many small internet businesses can afford a dedicated tax person to make sure tax is collected for all 50 states, tabulated and disbursed to each state separately. This will kill a ton of INTERNET businesses.

LOCAL businesses have direct access to the customer (no shipping needed), they take up space (land) in that state and consume local resources (the very reason sales tax is collected). On the other hand, internet businesses consume no local resources and must ship the item.

So I think it balances itself out now the way it is. Internet only businesses are stuck having to ship items / etc. and lose sales to people that need it now. B&M stores get all the local business and the "need it now" crowd but have to collect taxes (because they use local resources)

Just my opinion.
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Most businesses have accountants or consultants doing tax work and payroll work for them anyways. I'm also sure that smaller business that uses a third party e-commerce web tool (host provider, Amazon, etc) will be given an upgrade to include automated tax injection, similar to where you put in your zip code and it calculates your shipping cost.
 
I'm OK with a Federal sales tax if they completely drop the income tax. Otherwise, I'm being taxed both ways to hell.
 
Steve said:
LOCAL businesses have direct access to the customer (no shipping needed), they take up space (land) in that state and consume local resources (the very reason sales tax is collected). On the other hand, internet businesses consume no local resources and must ship the item.
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By this logic it would seem then the online businesses should collect a Federal Sales Tax since they're using multi-state (nation wide) resources.

I'm actually not opposed to that, get rid of our current Fed tax system and just have it sales / import taxes
 
In California my wife and I currently pay

8.85% sales Tax
approx $2000.00 a year in State Income Tax
approx $650.00 a year in State Disability Insurance Tax
18 cents + 6% on every gallon of gas we buy Tax

We've never been on Welfafe, had Government assistance, we don't use ANY government programs State or Federal. In fact I'd say the only public things we use are the parks for my son to play in and the roads. When my Son was born I didn't even use my 30 days DI, which I should have becuase I've been paying my entire working life into that stupid program.

That's a lot of money for us to pay just to live here and of course I'm going to buy everything possible online to avoid even more taxes.

That being said, if Amazon has to start charging tax to us I don't really know how that will affect us. I'd probably cancel my Prime and buy a lot more things used to avoid the tax.
 
I'm okay with an internet sales tax "ONLY" if the state doesn't have an income tax. Double dipping is bullshit and there should be one or the other, but not both. Either tax me for what I earn or tax me for what I spend, but don't tax me for both.
 
thyshallsmite said:
this will murder a shit ton of small businesses, also ebay will be hit heavily too.
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This. Its got far more reaching issues that aren't being addressed as per usual thanks to congress again.

While its likely going to be an unavoidable path its going to complicate online transactions. Taking away one of the biggest benefits for doing sales business online.
 
J So said:
In California my wife and I currently pay

8.85% sales Tax
approx $2000.00 a year in State Income Tax
approx $650.00 a year in State Disability Insurance Tax
18 cents + 6% on every gallon of gas we buy Tax

We've never been on Welfafe, had Government assistance, we don't use ANY government programs State or Federal. In fact I'd say the only public things we use are the parks for my son to play in and the roads. When my Son was born I didn't even use my 30 days DI, which I should have becuase I've been paying my entire working life into that stupid program.

That's a lot of money for us to pay just to live here and of course I'm going to buy everything possible online to avoid even more taxes.

That being said, if Amazon has to start charging tax to us I don't really know how that will affect us. I'd probably cancel my Prime and buy a lot more things used to avoid the tax.
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You don't live in San Mateo county obviously our sales tax is higher. Right now where I live it's 10.25%.

I'm leaving Cali and moving to Texas. Texas was rated number 1 for business startups and California was ranked number 50. I'm a small business owner.
 
djstarfox said:
I'm OK with a Federal sales tax if they completely drop the income tax. Otherwise, I'm being taxed both ways to hell.
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Yes yes yes yes yes. Repeal the 16th Amendment and have a national sales tax. Remember folks, we've only been paying income tax since 1913 and that was only supposed to be levied on the top 1%. My how things have changed.
 
Heres an idea for government. Instead of trying to squeeze more and more money out of us, how about STOPPING THE SPENDING!

Government will never do without... You will.
 
Steve said:
My only problem is this:

Imagine what this will do to small businesses? This isn't just about Amazon. How many small internet businesses can afford a dedicated tax person to make sure tax is collected for all 50 states, tabulated and disbursed to each state separately. This will kill a ton of INTERNET businesses.

LOCAL businesses have direct access to the customer (no shipping needed), they take up space (land) in that state and consume local resources (the very reason sales tax is collected). On the other hand, internet businesses consume no local resources and must ship the item.

So I think it balances itself out now the way it is. Internet only businesses are stuck having to ship items / etc. and lose sales to people that need it now. B&M stores get all the local business and the "need it now" crowd but have to collect taxes (because they use local resources)

Just my opinion.
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Not that I think that the government can afford to spend any extra money right now, but honestly it is an outrage that the government doesn't supply retailers with the means to track this crap. If they want to collect their insane sales taxes they pass, they better well cough up the money to track it so that businesses don't have to.

That said, the solution sounds simple: update to a federally maintained database that makes all this crap automatic for the retailer. Federal power over reach? Maybe, but if you want to collect local taxes from online you sure as hell better be prepared to make it as easy for businesses as possible.
 
i guess they need to make this apply to catalog sales as well - they are excempt and all an online site is just an electronic catalog. and the point that is this will hurt small businesses because they will need to know the current tax rates for every jurisdiction in the US. or the alternative is that some one will set up shop just outside of the US and ship from there - most of our goods are foreign made any how.
 
Money grubbing fucks. How bout they spend the time to figure out where they are pissing the money into oblivion rather than figuring out how to get more while the country is still suffering the effects of recession and the unemployment rate is still high as fuck.

My god these people are absolutely mind bogglingly retarded.
 
pgwalsh said:
You don't live in San Mateo county obviously our sales tax is higher. Right now where I live it's 10.25%.

I'm leaving Cali and moving to Texas. Texas was rated number 1 for business startups and California was ranked number 50. I'm a small business owner.
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Nope, I'm up here in Sacramento.

I'd love to move to Texas. I don't think I've met a Texan I didn't like which is quite the opposite of what I encounter here. The problem is my entire family and my wife's family live in Sacramento county and my wife and I have good paying jobs that we both love. It's difficult to leave.
 
you use more than you think - the FDA to make sure your food is safe to eat and drugs are safe to use, the post office to deliver your mail, the federal gov't also helped inthe development of the internet, police and fire and the military to protect you, the EPA to make sure your air is not quite as chunky as it could be, then there are the schools
 
stevejg61 said:
you use more than you think - the FDA to make sure your food is safe to eat and drugs are safe to use, the post office to deliver your mail, the federal gov't also helped inthe development of the internet, police and fire and the military to protect you, the EPA to make sure your air is not quite as chunky as it could be, then there are the schools
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Let's see FDA.. Federal... Post Office.. Federal... Military... Federal.. EPA Federal.. Schools, not used them my kid isn't old enough but we're planning on sending him to private school anyway so moot.

Now the PoPo and the Fire Department, that's a lot of money I pay for them then huh?
 
stevejg61 said:
you use more than you think - the FDA to make sure your food is safe to eat and drugs are safe to use, the post office to deliver your mail, the federal gov't also helped inthe development of the internet, police and fire and the military to protect you, the EPA to make sure your air is not quite as chunky as it could be, then there are the schools
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This. http://datavizchallenge.org/viz/56
 
dandirk said:
Most small business contract out their commerce, or their hosting company provides the service. These e-commerce solutions will update their software to account for tax, probably with little maintenance needed by the business.
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It's not about the e-commerce platform accounting for taxes (which is straightforward), but the actual reporting and deposit process can be quite complicated. When you're doing it for one state, it's manageable. You can generally do it at the same time you do all your payroll deposits and reports, so you're just adding some extra steps. When you need to do it for fifty...yeah, not so simple anymore.

For Amazon, this isn't a dealbreaker. They can write software to automate it and hire people who're knowledgeable in this department. They have the resources to do it and can technically accommodate it. For a small online business, this is a death sentence.
 
J So said:
Nope, I'm up here in Sacramento.

I'd love to move to Texas. I don't think I've met a Texan I didn't like which is quite the opposite of what I encounter here. The problem is my entire family and my wife's family live in Sacramento county and my wife and I have good paying jobs that we both love. It's difficult to leave.
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Ah yes... Sacofcrapamento. Well I grew-up in the bay area and it was once a wonderful place. Now it's full of cold angry people with too much money and attitude. Nothing against rich people at all, but the people on the peninsula are just plain rude and forget about morals. I hear day in and day out of people cheating on each other, it's sad. If I walk down the street here and smile at someone, they'll think I want something from them. If I do the same in Texas the smile back and say hi.
 
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