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PSA: Taxes on ALL ONLINE purchases are imminent

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The U.S. Senate is expected to pass the the Marketplace Fairness Act in a vote today, which will require all online retailers to collect sales taxes for the states where they ship goods.Will go into effect on October 1, 2013.
 
Yazoo said:
The U.S. Senate is expected to pass the the Marketplace Fairness Act in a vote today, which will require all online retailers to collect sales taxes for the states where they ship goods.Will go into effect on October 1, 2013.
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Yeah... That's not what it will require at all.

The Act will authorize states to require out-of-state retailers to collect sales tax if the states adopt simplified tax and reporting structures AND the states choose to require it.

ZV
 
Well, this is such a good thing! At last our benevolent overlords will have the financial wherewithal to feed themselves, they've been practically starving themselves while getting our roads fixed and keeping as many teachers, cops, and firefighters employed as possible!
 
Why doesn't this apply to all by-mail interstate purchases? Why single out the Internet? If I were Amazon, I'd just generate a cart ID and tell people to call it in like an infomercial/commercial or print up a mail-in order form for those who want it tax free.

I've been saying this since I first heard talk of "Internet tax" over 15 years ago.
 
MustISO said:
Seems like this would put the online stores at a disadvantage since they charge shipping which I always considered my "tax" for shopping online.
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yeah i don't think i can stomach both charges. I only do amazon still because most of the stuff is $25+ means free shipping.

BTW, Amazon did initially fight this many years ago. They lost then regrettably started collecting tax in NY.
 
I am fine with this. People are supposd to pay "use" tax anyways, this just changes the way it gets paid. If you don't like it, vote in your state as that is who will decide if it should be collected.

Michael
 
CZroe said:
Why doesn't this apply to all by-mail interstate purchases? Why single out the Internet? If I were Amazon, I'd just generate a cart ID and tell people to call it in like an infomercial/commercial or print up a mail-in order form for those who want it tax free.

I've been saying this since I first heard talk of "Internet tax" over 15 years ago.
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cute, but it would never fly...
 
CZroe said:
Which is exactly why I said they shouldn't single-out "Internet sales" as if their exemption was any different to age-old mail/phone order.
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Mail-order was never the big business that e-commerce has become today. Even in the days of the Sears Roebuck catalog it didn't compare, thanks to the faster ordering, shipping, and tracking the modern age offers.

E-commerce is finally getting taxed because it's too big to stay under the radar; the peoples of 45 states have decided they want to fund their governments with sales taxes, and those taxes need to be collected.
 
I wonder how long until major retailers accept bitcoin or litecoin. Will be short lived though, the government will just make bitcoin or any "alternative currency" illegal.
 
why is there a thread on this topic in both OT and P&N?

anyway, here's my post from P&N thread:

Senate ahs approved it:
http://money.cnn.com/2013/05/06/pf/t...ote/index.html

questionable in the House. Hope it fails!
if not, there's the courts. i can see the law being put on hold for years.

and i dont understand why this tax issue was brought up in the 1st place. The supreme Court has already ruled against cross state taxes in the case of mail order companies. (b4 the days of internet)
WTF?
 
ViRGE said:
Mail-order was never the big business that e-commerce has become today. Even in the days of the Sears Roebuck catalog it didn't compare, thanks to the faster ordering, shipping, and tracking the modern age offers.

E-commerce is finally getting taxed because it's too big to stay under the radar; the peoples of 45 states have decided they want to fund their governments with sales taxes, and those taxes need to be collected.
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Still, there is nothing to justify singling it out and not including all mail/phone orders, no matter how comparatively small the non-Internet orders are. The law should apply to all or nothing with the justification that e-commerce has made mail order too big to ignore. Sure, Best Buy isn't complaining about HSN or Fingerhut or whatever "As Seen on TV" product is currently being advertised on TV, but making every kind of business subject to specific laws and exemptions only complicates the matter further. The simplest target is to target ALL mail order sales for tax collection including Internet sales.

Instead of Best Buy complaining that Amazon has an unfair advantage, soon Amazon will be complaining that the manufacturer-direct parts and accessories listed in the printed product manuals is unfair. I can see it getting worse: I buy a Playstation 4 from Amazon and it comes with a catalog from Sony for controllers, cables, game subscriptions, and games. Let's imagine that I ignored digital delivery and ordered physical games and stuff. Every controller, game, or BD movie I buy comes with a newer mini catalog promoting newer/upcoming releases at the same price but minus sales tax.

In the early '90s, I noticed that my Super Nintendo had an S-VHS cable available direct that wasn't sold in stores. I called the same number (1-800-255-3700) to order my replacement Gameboy screen cover and my replacement Gameboy Pocket battery door. I continued using it for everything from refurb games/hardware, Virtual Boy stands, Gamecube component cables, empty game cases, Gameboy Advance SP audio adapter, Play Yan, and Gameboy micro link cable, etc. None of those things were available retail (well, unofficial knock-offs sometimes were), but the telling point is that a lot of the stuff they offered that I didn't order was. I do recall ordering the Gamecube Broadband Adapter directly because the stores were out of stock.
 
JEDI said:
The supreme Court has already ruled against cross state taxes in the case of mail order companies. (b4 the days of internet)
WTF?
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No, no it's hasn't.

The case you're thinking of is Quill Corp. v. North Dakota, 504 U.S. 298 (1992). In that case, the court ruled that congress had not granted states the power to tax companies which did not have "substantial nexus" in the state. At the time, "substantial nexus" was determined to be a physical presence (e.g. a distribution warehouse, retail outlet, etc.). However, the ruling in Quill contained the explicit comment that Congress was free to make new law allowing states to tax intra-state sales even where substantial nexus was absent.

Congress is now free to decide whether, when, and to what extent the States may burden interstate mail-order concerns with a duty to collect use taxes.
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- Id at 318.

ZV
 
CZroe said:
Still, there is nothing to justify singling it out and not including all mail/phone orders,
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Since the bill applies to catalog and phone sales as well, I'm not sure why you're upset about the idea of excluding something that's not actually excluded.

The ONLY exception is for "small sellers" with gross receipts under $1 million, regardless of the sales method.

Jesus H. Christ people, read the goddamn bills before bitching about them.

ZV
 
Zenmervolt said:
Since the bill applies to catalog and phone sales as well, I'm not sure why you're upset about the idea of excluding something that's not actually excluded.

The ONLY exception is for "small sellers" with gross receipts under $1 million, regardless of the sales method.

Jesus H. Christ people, read the goddamn bills before bitching about them.

ZV
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Where's the fun in that?

😛
 
Zenmervolt said:
Since the bill applies to catalog and phone sales as well, I'm not sure why you're upset about the idea of excluding something that's not actually excluded.

The ONLY exception is for "small sellers" with gross receipts under $1 million, regardless of the sales method.

Jesus H. Christ people, read the goddamn bills before bitching about them.

ZV
Click to expand...

You should say: Jesus H. Christ, report it CORRECTLY!

🙄

I asked:
CZroe said:
If this law truly does cover all mail-order shopping, this thread title and every article I've read has done a poor job of communicating that and it makes the problem worse by further differentiating online sales.
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Every single report and article I've read said in NO uncertain terms that it was an "Internet tax." Do I really have to do their research for them? If you feel so strongly, why didn't you A) Answer me earlier or B) Immediately tell everyone your discovery that contradicts all reporting we've seen/heard thus far. Why are we finally hearing this 1-day too late?
 
CZroe said:
You should say: Jesus H. Christ, report it CORRECTLY!

🙄

I asked:


Every single report and article I've read said in NO uncertain terms that it was an "Internet tax." Do I really have to do their research for them? If you feel so strongly, why didn't you A) Answer me earlier or B) Immediately tell everyone your discovery that contradicts all reporting we've seen/heard thus far. Why are we finally hearing this 1-day too late?
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Pro tip: the media is really just entertainment in the form of political theater.
 
I didn't check the last several pages but for those of you saying there's no sales tax in NH, there's none in Oregon either, but you'll make up for it in property and other taxes.
 
CZroe said:
Every single report and article I've read said in NO uncertain terms that it was an "Internet tax."
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It is an internet tax. It just happens to also be a tax on any other method of "remote sales" as well.

CZroe said:
Do I really have to do their research for them?
Click to expand...

Of course you do. The alternative is blindly accepting everything put out from companies whose goal is not to disseminate news but rather to get page views or TV viewers. How is this even a question? Are you really implying that it should be acceptable for you to cede your own reasoning ability to someone else? If your reaction to something that seems wrong is to rant about it rather than investigate the issue further on your own to make sure that what you've heard is accurate, then, however much fault the news agency may have for inaccurate reporting, yours is the greater fault for lacking the willingness to investigate on your own.

The mainstream news has NEVER been a reliable source for legal information. If we were talking about BNA dailies or something, then reliance might be reasonable, but never CNN/MSNBC/Fox News/etc.

CZroe said:
If you feel so strongly, why didn't you A) Answer me earlier or B) Immediately tell everyone your discovery that contradicts all reporting we've seen/heard thus far. Why are we finally hearing this 1-day too late?
Click to expand...

Contrary to your implicit assumption, I am not omnipresent. Nor is it my job to immediately correct people who are too damn lazy to google "Marketplace Fairness Act" for themselves and find the bill's full text (which is very short).

If this were something that were difficult to find or which required substantial industry knowledge to fully understand, it might be different. But it literally took me less than one minute to search for and find the full text of the bill to determine that the news reports were wrong.

In short, you're hearing this from me "1-day [sic] too late" because I assumed people were smart enough to use Google on their own.

ZV
 
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