Senator Wants Internet Sales Taxes

Monkey34 said:
Hate to tell you, but it's coming eventually (later better than sooner), but coming none the less. Get used to the idea now, so when it happens you aren't so pissed.
Click to expand...
This is the unfortunate truth. When there is a clash between constitution and taxation, the undisputed winner is always taxation.

And everyone who buys stuff on the internet should be up in arms about it, but they will be propagandized by TV and radio pundits telling them that they've just been freeloading for years and are no better than lazy welfare recipients who refuse to give society what's due.

If we write our congressmen, nothing will be done; they will claim to have the law on their side. If we refuse to pay the tax, it will result in violence in the form of police custody and imprisonment.

We've reached the end of the slippery slope--it's just a cliff now.
 
Just remember that GE made billions of dollars last year and didn't pay a cent in tax.
 
I don't see any Constitutional violations. Our founding father was very clear: no taxation without representation. We pretty much all already agreed on sales tax and we pretty much already agreed that untaxed internet purchases must be reported when you file your tax returns so you can pay it.

I would imagine sales tax from B&M stores are in decline while more and more sales are being made online.

Most of us aren't paying our taxes as required and with the growth of online sales and perhaps the decline of B&M sales is hurting the sales tax pot. We have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Wasteful spending doesn't help, I get that. But you can't pick and chose the crime that suits you or you're no better than your Congressman.
 
whiz187 said:
I just don't understand why you guys keep putting "Turbin Derbin" back in office, the guy is a Village Idiot. We Californians are just as stupid, we keep putting Boxer, Feinstein, Waters and Pelosi back. And for all of you that live in Nevada, where dead people vote, don't feel left out, you have "Dirty Harry" representing you once again. Is that flag the astronauts planted on Mars still there?
Click to expand...

Illinois is a vast Republican state with only two (albeit densely populated) Democratic strongholds. Chicago and Springfield. Unfortunately for most of the state, these two areas are enough to swing it. And because they've been in power so damn long, it's nearly impossible to dislodge them. Too many people have been indoctrinated.
 
Steve said:
Look, if you live in a state with sales tax, it always has been your responsibility to claim your internet purchases on your taxes.
Click to expand...

Out of state businesses are not the problem. In state residents shirking their tax burden and politicians spending more than they have are.
Click to expand...

Did... did some of you actually acknowledge the tax gap and use tax? A real, significant breach of following current laws even in deep red states like Texas and Arizona, but without enough enforcement to be effective in closing the gap (budget cuts, etc.)?

Well said, kudos, I'm so proud.

Umm, I mean... I don't agree with every law, and it's my money even if the Fed issues it, so I'm opting out! I'll just barter, it isn't taxable*! Try auditing a blank return, thugs!

* It is.
 
Maybe it's just time to get rid of sales tax? In Montana we have an income tax (similar to your Federal tax) that they take from our check each payday, then we get a chunk back at the end of the year. You pay taxes on your wages, not the money you spend. Or your children spend, who don't even have a job.
 
Things like this make me happy I live in a state without a sales tax. At least my money goes away in one big chunk.

And I find that I purchase more from B&M stores here too, since there's no hidden fees tacked onto the listed prices. I just think of the higher prices like paying for same day shipping and easy return shipping if the item is defective. :D
 
robble said:
Just remember that GE made billions of dollars last year and didn't pay a cent in tax.
Click to expand...
The NY Times article you're getting that from ended up being false. GE pays taxes just like every other company in the world.
 
Lol I just realized that Durbin is doing this in retaliation for Amazon last month. Probably was mentioned earlier in the thread...
 
Any discussion of tax increases is absolutely fucking pointless if spending at the state and federal level are not curtailed. The days of the freebies needs to come to an end. Then lets talk about taxes when legislators can get their fiscal shit straight.
 
I guess there is a reason that the senator who proposed this has the first name of Dick.
 
I also give props to Phoenix333's post (#65 in this thread, I believe). :cool:

If this Dick guy gets re-elected, then the citizens of Illinois need to take a hard look in the mirror. Just like the NV schmucks who re-elected Reid. :mad:

harry-reid-finger.jpg
 
Dreaz said:
Economics fail 101. Looks like someone missed the entire point of taxes.It's cool to get angry though. Americans sure pay a lot in taxes and don't get nothing back /waves rifle.
Click to expand...

Looks like someone missed the entire point of my thread, but in the interest of enlightened discussion, I'll clarify a few things for you.

The point of taxes is for the government to receive funding in order to provide for basic services that are of necessity to all the citizenry within the government's jurisdiction. Congress has the power to levy taxes by vote on a federal level, the state governments have such power on the state level, and so on and so forth. I'm not disputing that, and I never said I did. Nobody's looking to cut fire and police service, so let me head you off before you even jump on that bandwagon.

The point of my post is that government abuses the money they do get, and they don't need any more money when they cannot manage what they receive in the first place. The money an individual earns belongs to that person, not the government. It is not their money, it is that individual's money, or if a company earns money it is the company's money. Dick Durbin doesn't get a cut just because he thinks someone has money and he doesn't like it. Unless you're a proponent of Socialism and the forced redistribution of wealth you understand the concept of private ownership of property. If you are in fact a proponent of Socialism, especially Western European style Socialism, then I feel sorry for how much you've been mislead over the years. It is not nor has it ever been the government's roll to tax people punitively simply because someone has more money than someone else.

Now as for Dick Durbin and Illinois... Tell me how taxing businesses so heavily that they flee from your state helps the citizenry? Tell me how spending more money than you take in helps the country in any way? Let me clue you in on something. When you take money from someone, they lose incentive to make money. When you take even more money the more they make, they lose incentive to work harder. Do you know how often I hear people complain about getting bumped into the next tax bracket? Why is that? It's because they get taxed more than they would be when they made less. They actually LOSE money by making more! So why bother? Why work harder, why start a business, why do anything but sit on your butt and draw unemployment or welfare checks? After all, those rich bastards have too much money and they're so greedy so let's soak the SOB's! Let's stick it to them! Then, when it's election time, let's scare the people by saying the other guy is going to take away your Social Security, your welfare, your WIC, or whatever government handout you're getting at the time. If you think this isn't how it works, look at the fellow who said I should move because of my state having a state income tax. That's what business does when they get taxed excessively - they move elsewhere! Individuals cannot do that as easily, but my point remains - nobody likes getting taxed, and the more taxes you have to pay, the less money left for yourself.

See, I know how the nanny state works, and it's contemptible, immoral, and utterly sick. Excessive taxation is economic suicide. Reduce taxes across the board and you see higher revenue even at a lower tax rate. Why? Because businesses can invest, people can spend more, and people will take more risks. Cut government spending along with it, and you can balance the budget and end up with an actual surplus for a fiscal year. You've heard the phrase "Government is best that governs least"? That means give people the means to stand on their own feet, to pursue their own dreams, and get the hell out of the way. You don't do that by raising taxes and spending trillions on pork projects that do nothing but make people feel like they're doing something about problems that government has no business trying to solve. The only reason people in government claim to care about the poor and downtrodden is to keep a voting bloc in place so they can stay in power. As long as people are miserable and reliant on a government handout they'll vote for whoever promises to give them that handout - especially if they have no alternative. That's what the Democratic party in the United States has done for decades, and it disgusts me to no end.

If you think I fail at economics, go right ahead and keep holding to that opinion, but it is a wrong opinion. I understand the fundamentals of supply and demand, and the effect of taxation on the economy both locally and as a whole. The zero-sum game is a myth, and Keynesian economic theory is an utter failure in practice. Government needs to get OUT of trying to manage the economy and let the market take care of itself. The only way that's going to happen is if enough people wake up and start throwing career politicians like Durbin out of office and start electing real leaders that are willing to make the heavy spending cuts that will bring government bloat under control. The Tea Party movement is a good first step, and once Obama is replaced with a fiscal conservative in the White House maybe some real reform can finally happen.
 
Phoenix333 said:
Looks like someone missed the entire point of my thread, but in the interest of enlightened discussion, I'll clarify a few things for you.

The point of taxes is for the government to receive funding in order to provide for basic services that are of necessity to all the citizenry within the government's jurisdiction. Congress has the power to levy taxes by vote on a federal level, the state governments have such power on the state level, and so on and so forth. I'm not disputing that, and I never said I did. Nobody's looking to cut fire and police service, so let me head you off before you even jump on that bandwagon.

The point of my post is that government abuses the money they do get, and they don't need any more money when they cannot manage what they receive in the first place. The money an individual earns belongs to that person, not the government. It is not their money, it is that individual's money, or if a company earns money it is the company's money. Dick Durbin doesn't get a cut just because he thinks someone has money and he doesn't like it. Unless you're a proponent of Socialism and the forced redistribution of wealth you understand the concept of private ownership of property. If you are in fact a proponent of Socialism, especially Western European style Socialism, then I feel sorry for how much you've been mislead over the years. It is not nor has it ever been the government's roll to tax people punitively simply because someone has more money than someone else.

Now as for Dick Durbin and Illinois... Tell me how taxing businesses so heavily that they flee from your state helps the citizenry? Tell me how spending more money than you take in helps the country in any way? Let me clue you in on something. When you take money from someone, they lose incentive to make money. When you take even more money the more they make, they lose incentive to work harder. Do you know how often I hear people complain about getting bumped into the next tax bracket? Why is that? It's because they get taxed more than they would be when they made less. They actually LOSE money by making more! So why bother? Why work harder, why start a business, why do anything but sit on your butt and draw unemployment or welfare checks? After all, those rich bastards have too much money and they're so greedy so let's soak the SOB's! Let's stick it to them! Then, when it's election time, let's scare the people by saying the other guy is going to take away your Social Security, your welfare, your WIC, or whatever government handout you're getting at the time. If you think this isn't how it works, look at the fellow who said I should move because of my state having a state income tax. That's what business does when they get taxed excessively - they move elsewhere! Individuals cannot do that as easily, but my point remains - nobody likes getting taxed, and the more taxes you have to pay, the less money left for yourself.

See, I know how the nanny state works, and it's contemptible, immoral, and utterly sick. Excessive taxation is economic suicide. Reduce taxes across the board and you see higher revenue even at a lower tax rate. Why? Because businesses can invest, people can spend more, and people will take more risks. Cut government spending along with it, and you can balance the budget and end up with an actual surplus for a fiscal year. You've heard the phrase "Government is best that governs least"? That means give people the means to stand on their own feet, to pursue their own dreams, and get the hell out of the way. You don't do that by raising taxes and spending trillions on pork projects that do nothing but make people feel like they're doing something about problems that government has no business trying to solve. The only reason people in government claim to care about the poor and downtrodden is to keep a voting bloc in place so they can stay in power. As long as people are miserable and reliant on a government handout they'll vote for whoever promises to give them that handout - especially if they have no alternative. That's what the Democratic party in the United States has done for decades, and it disgusts me to no end.

If you think I fail at economics, go right ahead and keep holding to that opinion, but it is a wrong opinion. I understand the fundamentals of supply and demand, and the effect of taxation on the economy both locally and as a whole. The zero-sum game is a myth, and Keynesian economic theory is an utter failure in practice. Government needs to get OUT of trying to manage the economy and let the market take care of itself. The only way that's going to happen is if enough people wake up and start throwing career politicians like Durbin out of office and start electing real leaders that are willing to make the heavy spending cuts that will bring government bloat under control. The Tea Party movement is a good first step, and once Obama is replaced with a fiscal conservative in the White House maybe some real reform can finally happen.
Click to expand...

Great post! :)
 
ianken said:
That's what folks always say. Yet we live in a time of unprecedented low taxes in the USA yet somehow times are not as good as they used to be back in the 90s.

Just why should goods sold via a mouse click be exempt from sales tax? What is the logic there? The whole "the internet is new and it will destroy eCommerce" argument is bullshit today. I live in Redmond WA, I pay tax on every Amazon purchase. BFD.

Corporations constantly whine that they need less taxes while paying zero effective taxes to begin with. Wake up people. Stop bending over for corporate America. The taxes you don't pay bite you in the ass elsewhere. You want trillion dollar defense budgets you better ante the fuck up.
Click to expand...


Unprecedented low taxes in the USA,???? really?

Apparently you dont know anything about the tax rates in the early 1900's before World War 1.

After World War 1 happened, taxes took a drastic spike, before then IIRC they sat in the neighborhood of 7%.

Then WW2 occurred , and taxes took another fairly drastic spike upwards, and stayed up until around Kennedy was in office, and since the USA had become a Manufacturing superpower, lowered taxes across the board since we had some incredibly large national revenues, and when he lowered the taxes, the income for the government went up again.

Wikipedia has this info under USA tax rates or something.

the 1960's were incredible for budgets of the government.Huge surplus's.

However now the United States doesnt do as much of the manufacturing, and exporting like we did before. All the other nations are finally developed, so its harder to sell the product to them, when they can make it for themselves.And suddenly we are becoming service industries.

People working service industries paying people in the service industries.
Corporations if their taxes are raised, raise the pricing on their product.

Corporations, never pay the taxes, its passed on to the consumer.

Cigarette packs are 4 dollars a pack in Illinois now, 1/4th of that is tax. If the magical corporations ate the tax on cigarette packs. wed have 3 dollar cigarette packs.

So why you people want corporations to pay higher taxes, is beyond me, you must live in magic fairy land where corporations dont pass on that cost to the consumer.

Corporate taxes for consumer goods production corporations is the most ridiculous thing you "want" to have increased.

Jesus Christ.
 
Journier said:
Cigarette packs are 4 dollars a pack in Illinois now, 1/4th of that is tax. If the magical corporations ate the tax on cigarette packs. wed have 3 dollar cigarette packs.
Click to expand...

Boo friggin' hoo. Stop smoking if it bothers you so much.
 
Methadras said:
Any discussion of tax increases is absolutely fucking pointless if spending at the state and federal level are not curtailed. The days of the freebies needs to come to an end. Then lets talk about taxes when legislators can get their fiscal shit straight.
Click to expand...

QFT!

Using the feds own numbers the cost of living has increased 165% since 1980 but during that time revenues the Federal government have collected increased by over 420% (1.5 times the rate of inflation) but federal spending increased 630% (50% faster then revenues increased and more then 3.8 times the rate of inflation.)

These numbers show a simple truth, the current budget mess isn''t due to a lack of taxes but to much spending.
 
Journier said:
Unprecedented low taxes in the USA,???? really?
Cigarette packs are 4 dollars a pack in Illinois now, 1/4th of that is tax. If the magical corporations ate the tax on cigarette packs. wed have 3 dollar cigarette packs.
Click to expand...

Follow the money, while only 1/4 is actually a tax most of the rest goes to pay various settlements and fees to various levels of government.

Not to turn this into a debate on tobacco but it's ironic how so many politicians sit on their high horse decrying cigarette companies for making a 'profit off killing people" but not only do US governments as a whole make more off cigarettes then any tobacco company but they also seek money to help with their re-election from many of those same companies.
 
Phoenix333 said:
Do you know how often I hear people complain about getting bumped into the next tax bracket? Why is that? It's because they get taxed more than they would be when they made less. They actually LOSE money by making more!
Click to expand...
You and the people you talk to apparently don't understand that we have a progressive taxation system where it is *only* the *marginal rate* which increases with your income. The situation you've described will not happen.

Phoenix333 said:
Reduce taxes across the board and you see higher revenue even at a lower tax rate.
Click to expand...
Most economists believe tax revenue is some function resembling a Laffer curve, which is to say depending on where you currently sit on the curve revenue can either go up or down.

Phoenix333 said:
If you think I fail at economics
Click to expand...
Well you don't understand some very basic principles of western taxation schemes...
 
No objections to an internet sales tax, but think they are going to loose more money trying to enforce it then they are going to get.
 
The government will always waste some money. In the 1950s and 60s they had Communist hunts, the arms race, and Vietnam. Many officials enforced Jim Crow, especially sheriffs, governors, police.

They also built the highway system, schools, colleges, hospitals, parks and museums were funded.

Job growth was not stifled by taxes or union participation.
 
singe_101 said:
The government will always waste some money. In the 1950s and 60s they had Communist hunts, the arms race, and Vietnam. Many officials enforced Jim Crow, especially sheriffs, governors, police.

They also built the highway system, schools, colleges, hospitals, parks and museums were funded.

Job growth was not stifled by taxes or union participation.
Click to expand...

Well if you want to go back that far, according to the government the cost of living increased approximately 643% between 1960 and 2010 (this numbers roughly matches up with the change in income as well for both average income and median income.)

Now during that same period of time revenues for the federal government climbed from $92.5 billion to $2.1651 trillion and increase of 2,341% or 3.64 times the rate of inflation. On the otherhand spending has gone from $92.2 billion to $3.721 trillion or an increase of 4,035% which is 6.25 times the rate of inflation?

If it wasn't so serious it would almost be funny to see these rates of every increasing spending and then think of all the times I've seen those responsible for this spending bashing Doctors,, drug companies, insurance companiesand any number of other businesses because their prices are increasing faster then the rate of inflation.

I guess this hypocrisy falls right in line with the fact that if a company "cooked their books" the way the federal government does they everyone in charge would end up in jail.
 
I'm a big believer in the reason the USA is so broke today is the constant wars we are engaged in, and if we don't have one going we usually get into another one in short time...or like now, how many do we have going? Like 3 or so? We are most likely about to be in another one as well I believe, hell I've lost count over the years. Also the amount of government spending is completely out of control, and is showing absolutely no signs of slowing down what so ever in the foreseeable future. It is in fact increasing more and more daily now. A extremely large portion of our taxes are not providing more services or benefits to our citizens anymore like they are supposed to be doing, they are mostly being used for the opposite. America is apparently "Team America World Police!" now and we will get nothing in return for all of these wars we have going from the citizens of those other countries, they mostly all still hate us and how long do we think it will be after/if/when we leave before they just revert back to like they were beforehand and all gang up on us. We are wasting large portions of our money on things that will not do anything for any of our citizens. With all the money we've invested into other countries thus far we could have invested it into ourselves and be a major production force in the world again, and have the industry that we need in order to keep ourselves from going broke like we are now. Anyways....that's my little rant.
 
Journier said:
Cigarette packs are 4 dollars a pack in Illinois now, 1/4th of that is tax. If the magical corporations ate the tax on cigarette packs. wed have 3 dollar cigarette packs.
Click to expand...
I hate to break it to you but you are taxes less now as a percentage of price than you were in the 60's for cigarettes.
http://www.who.int/tobacco/en/atlas35.pdf

I was invited to an American Heart Association conference a few years ago and they had an interesting statistic.....for every 75 cents the government collects in taxes it pays $1.03 in health care and lost wages due to smoking complications. Everyone thinks the government is making money on tobacco taxes but they're trying desperately to recover the enormous costs they incur when everyone gets sick from them. You can argue all you want that it's a sham but the simple fact is that taxpayers are getting shafted because we're picking up the bill. They should tax cigarettes higher until they break even IMO.
 
^^We are at the point where we are damned if we do or if we don't.

When we do nothing it's, "Why is the US not doing anything."
When we do something, "Why is the US meddling, or why are they doing this way we want it done that way."

We really should do nothing. Just disengage ourselves as much as is reasonably possible from the rest of the world. By "we", I mean the US government. The average man already cares little to nothing for things that happen outside the US.
 
jimmyb said:
You and the people you talk to apparently don't understand that we have a progressive taxation system where it is *only* the *marginal rate* which increases with your income. The situation you've described will not happen.
Click to expand...

That's funny because I know people it has personally happened to, and none of them make over $40,000 a year. Below a certain income level only a certain portion of your income is taxable. The amount that is taxable increases as earnings increase. I could dig up some tax schedules from the 1990's to prove my point but I'm not really that interested in proving a point when I've already lived through it and seen it for myself.

Most economists believe tax revenue is some function resembling a Laffer curve, which is to say depending on where you currently sit on the curve revenue can either go up or down.
Click to expand...

Well there's your problem. You're listening to economists that are a bunch of theory boys educated in Keynesian economic theory that don't have real-world understanding of how it works. Reaganomics worked, and would have kept working if George H W Bush hadn't screwed it up by breaking his campaign promise to not raise taxes. Before Reagan you had Carter with double-digit inflation, and afterward the Bush-Clinton era that went right back to out of control government spending and higher taxes. George W Bush was not a conservative, and Obama is spending the country into oblivion. Go ahead and believe these economists if you like, but it does not take a college education to figure out that if you have less money you spend less money, except in the case of government, which spends money it doesn't have because it can just raise taxes later after the next election cycle.

Well you don't understand some very basic principles of western taxation schemes...
Click to expand...
I understand all too well how western taxation schemes work. Look you want to go green, just scrap the US tax code and you could save enough trees to regrow the entire Amazon rain forest in a decade. What you need to do is throw out all the BS that's been taught about economic theory and go back to basics. Talk to a small business owner and ask them about how tax laws affect them. Talk to working families. Hell, talk to a business CEO and just ask point blank "Would lowering corporate income tax spur job growth and investment in your company?" and I guarantee you the answer will be a resounding "YES!" Ask if lowering state taxes would give incentive for a company to move operations to that state, or stay in that state, and see what answer you get. It's not that hard to understand. Joe Citizen gets it because Joe Citizen works a real job and lives it. It's the people in government that listen to these economic theory boys that have never worked a normal job in their lives that don't get it, and its these fools that have been screwing everything up.
 
Phoenix333 said:
That's funny because I know people it has personally happened to, and none of them make over $40,000 a year. Below a certain income level only a certain portion of your income is taxable. The amount that is taxable increases as earnings increase. I could dig up some tax schedules from the 1990's to prove my point but I'm not really that interested in proving a point when I've already lived through it and seen it for myself.
Click to expand...
Please dig them up. You don't understand how progressive taxation works. You will not lose money by having your income push you into the next tax bracket. These are marginal tax rates, which only apply to the money earned in that bracket.


Phoenix333 said:
Reaganomics worked
Click to expand...
Right, so you're telling me that Reaganomic's worked and yet you the theories of one of the key members of his Economic Policy Advisory Board?


Phoenix333 said:
I understand all too well how western taxation schemes work.
Click to expand...
You don't even understand how progressive taxation works, nor a key concept that Reagan's economic policies were based on, despite advocating them.
 
Phoenix333 said:
That's funny because I know people it has personally happened to, and none of them make over $40,000 a year. Below a certain income level only a certain portion of your income is taxable. The amount that is taxable increases as earnings increase. I could dig up some tax schedules from the 1990's to prove my point but I'm not really that interested in proving a point when I've already lived through it and seen it for myself.
.
Click to expand...

jimmyb said:
Please dig them up. You don't understand how progressive taxation works. You will not lose money by having your income push you into the next tax bracket. These are marginal tax rates, which only apply to the money earned in that bracket.
Click to expand...

I gotta agree with Jimmyb. You don't seem to have a clue how the progressive tax works.

Let's say you earn 40,000 exactly and you paid 10,000.00 tax (example).. (25%)
Now say new tax bracket at 40,001. (30%)
Someone else earned 40,002. They pay about 10,000.60 . The new tax bracket rate only applies to the income over the bracket.
 
robble said:
I gotta agree with Jimmyb. You don't seem to have a clue how the progressive tax works.

Let's say you earn 40,000 exactly and you paid 10,000.00 tax (example).. (25%)
Now say new tax bracket at 40,001. (30%)
Someone else earned 40,002. They pay about 10,000.60 . The new tax bracket rate only applies to the income over the bracket.
Click to expand...

12,000.60
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top