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The days of buying online to avoid paying sales taxes may soon be over...
*****A bill is expected to be introduced to Congress this week that would force retailers like eBay and Amazon.com to start collecting sales taxes on behalf of states from people who shop online or through mail order.
*****I do a large amount of my shopping on-line, not to avoid paying taxes but for the convenience. Less time shopping equals more time to work and generate income. I think this is a fairly typical scenario.
*****The focus so far has been on catching all the nasty people who purchase on-line items, but very little has been said about the on-line sellers. Technically the laws already state that we are to keep our receipts and pay state tax at the end of the year. Does anyone do this? Well, no - because most people don't even realize this is required.
*****Not very many people are alarmed by this bill but if you ask folks who have mom and pop on-line businesses what they think you'll get another story. Both my husband and I operate on-line businesses. If we were required to collect and pay taxes for every state in the union it would probably close our businesses down. Compliance with a dizzying complexity of state laws would be an impossibility.
*****Multiply that by the huge number of small businesses that operate on-line and the hit to the economy will be enormous. If we don't make money - we don't spend money. And if we don't make money or spend money, the government isn't collecting any taxes at all. Simple!
*****It reminds about the advice to thieves. Would you rather steal $100.00 a day every day for the rest of your life or....would you rather steal $1,000,000,000.00 in one day and get caught?
Thieves get caught because they get greedy!!
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Read others:
*****State governments — now suffering from spending binges, fiscal mismanagement, and exploding budgets — are starving for new tax revenue. read more
10 comments:
yeah, what did happen to that??
Tracy - into the same cesspool that all his "promises" go...
Actually there is a line item on the CA state tax form for the taxpayer to enter the total purchases one has bought online. I don't know how they check it but the sites I used in the last year already collect the state tax.:(
AA - I've heard that about CA. I'm sure all those folks in Cally that buy stuff from me are in 100% compliance with that little rule ;-)
The greatest harm will be to the on-line sellers. It will be impossible to comply. My profit margin is so slim that I would simply quit selling online.
Well, you are looking at the effect of the internet taxes (basically to shut down small private enterprise operations) as a bug not a feature.
The whole point is to make the operation of a small business so onerous that people will stop starting them up.
Nothing so vexes our leadership class as the idea that "little people" might try to be the masters of their own destinies. That's reserved for the likes of the Kennedeys and the Rockefellers, you know.
Mark - as I learned from people (the type who were in need of high priced legal eagles, the more complicated they make things, the easier it is to scam the system.
Well, that is the other part of the equation -- all these rules and regulations mean more business for lawyers. Everytime I get angry over something the Obama administration is doing, I stop and think, "hey, this is going to be very good for business."
With apologies to Frank Capra, remember, everytime a new law gets passed, a lawyer gets his wings!
Yet another promise flushed down the toilet. It's getting ridiculous. It's as though if there is any money to be made by the decent citizen, Uncle Sam lurks around the corner, ready to grab it.
I'm hoping to see more "mom and pop" brick-n-mortar shops open. I'd love to see a movement toward supporting people's businesses and saying no to huge conglomerates.
But see they're aren't taxing the hard working Americans just you Greedy Business Owners.
Just joking, we're in the same boat.
Would you consider selling in print ads? Would you still be required to collect taxes for all 50 states, or could the onus still be on the purchaser?
Is there a computer program that EBAY allows to attach to your store to make things simple? So that the stores can pay the sales tax automatically via paypal etc?
when I order from LLBean online I do not pay sales tax...because they don't have any stores in TX...If someone in Maine were to buy online from them they would pay Maine's sales tax cus they have a store (I'm assuming) in Maine.
So how does this work for businesses without stores?? I would expect that you would charge the tax that is applicable in your area...as that is what you have to pay. So I would pay Colorado's tax if I bought from a Co-based internet store....right??
What I bet would happen is like shipping costs. There'd be a basic charge put on all sales to cover the highly variable shipping.
interesting thought.
oh, and you BELIEVED him????!!!
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