What's the big deal about internet sales tax?

Internet retail sales are up to about $13 billion.

Mail order totals over $350 billion.

Tail? Dog?

I can't for the life of me understand what significant difference there is between clicking a mouse or calling an 800 number. Perusing a catalog or staring at monitor. In many cases, it's the same company.

These are both the same thing, and states have been pissing and moaning over lost sales taxes from mail order for years. And mailorder companies have been pissing and moaning that they can't afford a database of all sales taxes for as long. Brick&mortars are schizoid, since many of them are involved in all three.

Customers, naturally, hate paying sales tax under any circumstances.

It is, of course, no more difficult to come up with a scheme for collecting and distributing sales tax than ASCAP did for distributing royalties. I hear there are vast numbers of Oracle experts out of work and more Indians are coming over to take up whatever slack there may be.

The question is equitable taxation. Would anyone object to a mailorder/internet sales tax if it meant their local sales tax would be reduced somewhat? Since sales tax collection from these sales is easier for the taxpeople than collecting locally, such a thing might be possible.

I actually think the big business interest want the internet sales tax now. After all, only they will be able to afford the $50,000 software to implement the different tax regions. There are 50 states, and in my state alone, a great many parishes with different sales taxes. With my huge four figure income, it would take my entire gross earnings for several years to pay off the sales tax software. In other words, I am to have my last way of earning a pitiful living be taken from me unless I am willing to break the law.

All sales taxes should be made illegal except on luxury items. Period. It is a regressive tax, and it is immoral. We should not be adding new sales taxes but getting rid of the old ones.

But of course we can't possibly have small independent businesses competing with the big boys for even a crumb of the pie...

They want us to die and be left with nothing.

I can't live on much less without going into bank robbery. It is not an option for me to hire a programmer. I am well below the poverty level with my huge earnings as it is.

submitted the zip code of the customer and they amount and they would provide the tax amount.

So that was on the drawing boards already and fixes the problem for small businesses.

IP addresses are only loosely associated with geography and gets very sloppy within political boundarys.

Even now, I can, with the flick of a mouse, source my traffic from any one of a dozen IP address ranges, which are scattered through the world.

Click, Im in Amsterdam, click, Im in Italy, click Im in california.

you get the idea.

A sales tax might put you out of business but you and the rest of the small competition to big business probably represent a very small percentage of market share. I think big business would probably spend millions on this tax each year, which is why they are lobbying against it. You probably are in the same boat they are, just in a smaller scale.

... when the internet businesses can offer a lower price, by not having to pay sales tax?

another question is how can local govt operate, if a significant portion of sales are going to these "offshore" businesses?

Would anyone object to a mailorder/internet sales tax if it meant their local sales tax would be reduced somewhat?

Oh yeah, that's gonna happen. Is that not the same line they fed us if we allowed our states to run lotteries?

screw the internet tax...raise the income tax on the rich...that's where the real $$ is.

on goods purchased out of state. Most people don't.

the last thing the Democrats should be doing is raising sales taxes and other taxes on the middle class.

It's no surprise that places have moved to apply a sales tax to 'net bought goods.

Most states, however, have not had an internet access tax. On my Tennessee phone bill, there's a charge of about 6 dollars per month for internet access.

The two are different, but it FEELS like I'm getting taxed twice everytime I make a purchase online. Sales tax + the ramp fee.