Internet Sales Tax Is Coming - Comments Page 3

As already stated How will the state pay for all the additional cost of computers, cash distribution, software and manpower. As for wanting to know name & addresses all they should need is a zipcode unless they view your purchases for a year and then create a "Back tax bill w/penalties" for say 7 previous years. But typical goverment they see incoming dollars but not the outgoing dollars needed to manage the incoming dollars. How about a dumb idea have say Amazon give them the info for a year see how much they would have collected and see how much the locals would actually receive and do a realistic guess at the cost to admin the program. My guess is if they actually take the cost of the program from the proceeds they may not get as much as they think they will make and if they are short well increase the tax that citizens pay.

Such a tax will not affect my online purchasing. I live in a fairly rural area and I shop on line for convenience. Before the Internet got so pervasive, I shopped by mail order. Those companies DID collect sales tax for the most part. So, no big deal regarding how it affects me. The cost of administering such a system is another matter. How do the mail order folks do it?

My take on part of this load of used food - the states will take the tax monies to pay the costs of collecting these ding-a-ling taxes but the ammount collected won't be enough to cover costs. My goodness golly gee whizz! Somebody is thinking with what they sit on and I don't mean a chair. What will they think of next?

I live in MA. We have no sales tax on clothing or food items. I buy a lot of items online from brick and mortar stores with an online component - lack of items in the stores makes that a necessity. And, because most stores have a physical presence in my state, I pay sales tax on the non-excluded items. On the other hand, I can return them to a store for free. I don't mind paying sales tax across the board; that's not why I buy online. On the other hand, it's a huge burden for small online retailers who already have to pay a percentage to credit card companies and the like. Now they will have to spend their time and resources to collect and distribute taxes to multiple states. That may not be a problem for Amazon, but how about those who just happen to sell more than the maximum allowable - just because sales are more than $1,000,000 doesn't mean that profit is that high!

An easier solution. Get rid of the sales tax completely and raise the tax rates of a graduated state income tax. Sales taxes are disproportionate as they tax the very poor at the same rate as the very rich. Since states have a mechanism for collecting income tax already it will reduce the cost of collection.

It's about time, overdue in fact, for an internet sales tax. but as usual, congress and the states are going about it all wrong.
There should be one flat tax, say 6 or 7 percent, collected from all buyers. Based on the state of delivery, that state gets a large percentage of the tax, say 5%. The Feds get 1 or 2 percent and administer the nationwide program and divvy up and report on the funds collected into the Fed treasury.
no different than Fed income tax, or corp tax.
Stop this multi-tax craziness!

re; internet taxes on business sales, $ 1 million is too small a size to impose to collect the tax. It should be tiered say 0 up to $1 mil, 3% up to 5 mil, etc., with a full 6 or 7% over 412 mil, just like the small business categories we have here in Jersey, as an example.
all businesses are not created equal of the same. like everything else, it should be a progressive tax.

@ Jorge wrote:

"I don't clearly undestand how this bill can affect us, who live at the rest of the world (outside the US).
Must we be concerned or not??"

I occasionally buy from eBay UK and Amazon UK, and, even though I reside in the USA, if the seller collects the UK "VAT" (Value Added Tax, Sales Tax by another name) then I have to pay it. It is not shown as a separate line item, but is in the product price shown.

So I would imagine that it is quite possible that US sales tax might be collected from overseas customers also. Although that does beg the question which county would receive the tax collected.

I think the sales tax (if any) should be a set amount (5%) for all sales regardless of the purchaser's state. Let the state decide how to divide the money between its cities and counties. Making the seller determine the sales tax in each state, county, and city would be an extremely difficult and costly process.

WOW - cannot believe other websites don't mention the shortcomings and the futility of this new bill!! I did a post on this with a trackback 4U...

Approving ANY tax increase is insanity!! There are already too many suffocating taxes and fees. There is no such thing as a "progressive" tax - that's an oxymoron. One problem as I see it, is the tendency of local retailers not stocking the products that are easily available online probably because of inventory tax issues. I can only hope this ugly idea is put to rest, soon.