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how much longer will we enjoy tax free online purchases?

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SarcasticDwarf said:
True, but it is still going to be a major headache and cost for smaller businesses. I suspect that this will have a lot of unintended consequences as well. Ex: I pay/donate $5/month through Paypal for special access to a particular TF2 server. All of a sudden the person that takes in a few hundred a month needs to be calculating in sales tax and such.
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Your example would depend on whether the guy is running it as a business or if he's treating like a group of friends tossing in some cash to pay for something they share. If he's making more money than it costs for him to recoup his costs and is taking the money as profit then yes, he might have to pay sales tax but I'm not positive on how it would be viewed by all the different local laws and things because it's not a physical good. That may vary from place to place.

However, if this starts to happen paypal will figure out how much to tax you and tack it on to the purchase price. They do the same thing at brick and mortar stores. The price they show on the shelf is the pretax price then they just add a tax line on your receipt which is added on to the total. The item might say $5 on it but when you check out you pay $5 plus the sales tax. The business still gets their $5.
 
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What about ebay purchases? Will auctions/sales on ebay be tax exempt as long as they're between personal accts, or will these be taxed too?

I mean at this rate, why not tax sales via craigslist too?
 
SarcasticDwarf said:
True, but it is still going to be a major headache and cost for smaller businesses. I suspect that this will have a lot of unintended consequences as well. Ex: I pay/donate $5/month through Paypal for special access to a particular TF2 server. All of a sudden the person that takes in a few hundred a month needs to be calculating in sales tax and such.
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The laws for paying taxes on online purchases are already on the books (at least in some states if not all). The difference is, so far it's the responsibility of the buyer to report his purchases to the IRS and make the appropriate tax payments. Nobody does this.

The only way the gov't has to enforce the law is to have the seller report who bought what, and if they are going to make the seller compile and report that information they might as well have them collect the tax while they are at it.


If you don't want to burden small businesses with having to collect the taxes, the obvious answer is to voluntarily report and pay them yourself.
 
Hacp said:
If you like paying taxes so much, you are welcome to pay everyone else's taxes. Normal people don't like paying taxes so government workers can have a lofty pension.
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You're already supposed to pay sales tax on online purchases anyway. Only difference is states are wanting retailers to collect it at the point of sale as opposed to trusting people to voluntarily report their tax liability for online purchases come every April. Hard for me to get outraged about states wanting to actually enforce a reasonable tax that's already on the books. This is going to happen sooner rather than later, better just prepare yourself for it. If you don't like it, you should petition your state to abolish all sales taxes or move to one of the states that doesn't collect them.
 
satyajitmenon said:
What about ebay purchases? Will auctions/sales on ebay be tax exempt as long as they're between personal accts, or will these be taxed too?

I mean at this rate, why not tax sales via craigslist too?
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I would imagine this would depend on your state law, but in NY state I think you're still technically supposed to tax personal transactions. From when I lived there the only one I knew of that people actually paid the taxes for was private car sales. When you bought a car privately and registered it you were supposed to report the purchase price to the DMV and they would collect the taxes on it. People got around this by having the seller write two bills of sale, one with a much lower purchase price, and use that lower bill of sale to claim that they paid much less so they didn't have to pay as much taxes.
 
I don't care. The online prices will still be cheaper. Though, I imagine that all Congress would have to do is pass a law that removes the nexus requirement for sales tax collection (which was a ruling well before the age of internet commerce).
 
Bignate603 said:
From when I lived there the only one I knew of that people actually paid the taxes for was private car sales. When you bought a car privately and registered it you were supposed to report the purchase price to the DMV and they would collect the taxes on it. People got around this by having the seller write two bills of sale, one with a much lower purchase price, and use that lower bill of sale to claim that they paid much less so they didn't have to pay as much taxes.
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Here in Texas, they changed it so that if you buy a used car, you pay taxes on it based on the value of the vehicle from KBB. So if you buy a busted up car to fix and drive for $150, but based on the options it comes with it's worth $3000 in the KBB, you pay taxes on the $3000.

It's bullshit.

Taxes are bullshit.
 
I actually got a business idea where I have a physical address for people in tristates area to ship their stuff to ship there and charge then a few % to deliver them.
 
I suspect amazon, maybe even ebay, have their lobby people looking out for their interests. They know paying sales taxes would substantially help companies that do collect taxes, like staples, walmart, dell, apple.

It may be hard to implement a fair system. And how about all the stuff sold from china via ebay.

Perhaps an opportunity for a service that helps companies/people collect and pay tax tax.
 
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I'm in California so half the stuff I buy online is taxed anyway. Amazon is pretty much the main online vendor that I don't have to pay tax with. I think if it was a more reasonable 5% tax with every vendor that delivers to the US, it may get through but not in the next couple years. 2013 at the earliest. The Tea Party crazies are still pounding their chests and it would never pass through Congress in an election year. I think we'll see many state legislatures pass an internet sales tax but that's going to be a pain in the ass.
 
I'm for taxing the rich, not giving them tax breaks. The trickle down theory stuff is just bullshit, a smoke screen. The rich are fleecing the poor, it's been going on since prehistoric times. Sales taxes are NOT equitable. Graduated income taxes are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more equitable. Eliminate all sales taxes.

I also am absolutely against any per square foot property tax assessments. One person's 1000 square feet can be worth 1/100th of another person's, yet they are taxed the same amount. That's disgusting.
 
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Muse said:
I'm for taxing the rich, not giving them tax breaks. The trickle down theory stuff is just bullshit, a smoke screen. The rich are fleecing the poor, it's been going on since prehistoric times. Sales taxes are NOT equitable. Graduated income taxes are SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO much more equitable. Eliminate all sales taxes.

I also am absolutely against any per square foot property tax assessments. One person's 1000 square feet can be worth 1/100th of another person's, yet they are taxed the same amount. That's disgusting.
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Stupid people can't agree with each other on anything and we would probably still be in caves and arguing over vegetables. If the "non-rich" can just reach a similar goal and not kill each other over mundane shit, they wouldn't be so poor and helpless.

We're all busy as hell. No one wants to hold the hands of an ansty stupid person that can't reason that their method of doing things and living life is the wrong way to achieve what they want.
 
Love everyone admitting that they're tax dodgers in this thread.

And I guess people don't like roads, schools, police or firefighters. Everyone bitching about taxes, guaranteed, will be the first to complain when social services they rely on (but they're too clueless to realize it) get cut.
 
At first I was pretty against it when I read it, but now it really doesn't seem so bad. As mentioned previously, you're *supposed* to pay taxes for online purchases anyway, so something giving our state/federal government the chance to collect isn't horrid. Most of the stuff I buy online would still be way cheaper even with a 6% tax added to it. Heck, I already buy sometimes from TigerDirect and they tax in FL.
 
Hacp said:
If you like paying taxes so much, you are welcome to pay everyone else's taxes. Normal people don't like paying taxes so government workers can have a lofty pension.
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Just think it as their tip. They're providing a service to everyone so if someone don't want higher taxes then they're a cheap ass because they don't want to tip them for their services.
 
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