Justin wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote on [Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:07:10 -0700]:
>> "D. Stussy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>
>>> Not quite true. If one is buying from a company in another state that
>>> has no presence in one's own state, no sales tax is collected AT THE
>>> SOURCE. However, state law may well require that the purchaser still
>>> pay sales/use tax. Such is true in California (where I am), although
>>> no one does.
>> That article Larry linked was interesting- it seems that New York decided
>> that everyone in New York with a website that has an affiliate/referral deal
>> with Amazon gave Amazon presence in NY, and required Amazon to collect NY
>> sales tax. (Which they've been doing, while simultaneously suing the State
>> of New York over this.) It also said Overstock.com cancelled all affiliate
>> deals with New Yorkers as a result to avoid the same fate.
>
> That sort of crap can put small business out of business. Do you think
> every small internet retailer can afford the nightmare of however many
> hundred tax jurisdictions there are in the US?
Actually it is unfair for other reasons. Lets say there is a small local
business down the street and you know if you walk in and buy something
they will collect the mandated say 7% tax. You notice you can get a 7%
"discount" if you order something online which causes the local small
business to loose a sale simply because they need to comply with being a
tax collector.
"D. Stussy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
>> Seriously? A business that uses computers to keep track of x# of
>> inventory
>> items, purchases from x# of vendors, etc. can't manage 50 or so tax
>> jurisdictions? (Most large retailers with POPs in multiple states, like
>> Target just use the capital city jurisdiction for online and catalog
>> shipments. If they get away with it, Mom and Pops will be able to.)
>>
>> This will a good time to be in the sales tax compliance software
>> business,
>> however! ;-)
>
> It's not 50 jurisdictions. Every COUNTY has the right to have local
> tack-on amounts. Therefore, to cover the United States, it's more
> like 1,800+ jurisidictions - for which the amount could change as a
> result of any election.
Don't stop at county. Cities can do the same in some states. As I
mentioned in an earlier post, a retail store I owned was once under the
jurisdiction of four sales taxes totalling nearly 9%. However, as the
article Larry originally pointed to suggests, this would likely be vastly
simplified for internet vendors. I already gave an example of the retail
chain Target, who (at least the last time I ordered from Target.com a few
years ago) simple applied the state capitol's rate to any purchase in that
state.
Even if not simplified, "1800+ jurisdictions" is nothing that the
appropriate software couldn't handle. For the smallest internet sellers
(just a few transactions a day), if this type of compliance software proved
too costly, a manual lookup would work. Isn't there a certain hypocritical
irony for internet sellers, who've leveraged computer technology into a
successful business model, to claim "we can't do that... keeping track of
all those different numbers is too complicated..."? No offense to internet
merchants, but annoyingly cumbersome paperwork, tax, and compliance issues
aren't a new concept to businesses. Welcome to OUR world, dot-coms! ;-)
As "George" pointed out in a different post in this thread, internet sellers
have had this "tax-free" advantage over brick and mortar retailers for a
long time, and this would be good for both local taxing jurisdictions and
local businesses, who'd be able to better compete against internet sellers
who have a 5-10% total cost advantage right out of the starting gate.
Difficult economic times aside, I have to think my local town gets more
economic benefit from books being sold by the local bookstore, than from Amazon.com.
George wrote on [Wed, 14 Jan 2009 07:17:36 -0500]:
> Justin wrote:
>> Todd Allcock wrote on [Tue, 13 Jan 2009 19:07:10 -0700]:
>>> "D. Stussy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>>> news:[email protected]...
>>>
>>>> Not quite true. If one is buying from a company in another state that
>>>> has no presence in one's own state, no sales tax is collected AT THE
>>>> SOURCE. However, state law may well require that the purchaser still
>>>> pay sales/use tax. Such is true in California (where I am), although
>>>> no one does.
>>> That article Larry linked was interesting- it seems that New York decided
>>> that everyone in New York with a website that has an affiliate/referral deal
>>> with Amazon gave Amazon presence in NY, and required Amazon to collect NY
>>> sales tax. (Which they've been doing, while simultaneously suing the State
>>> of New York over this.) It also said Overstock.com cancelled all affiliate
>>> deals with New Yorkers as a result to avoid the same fate.
>>
>> That sort of crap can put small business out of business. Do you think
>> every small internet retailer can afford the nightmare of however many
>> hundred tax jurisdictions there are in the US?
>
> Actually it is unfair for other reasons. Lets say there is a small local
> business down the street and you know if you walk in and buy something
> they will collect the mandated say 7% tax. You notice you can get a 7%
> "discount" if you order something online which causes the local small
> business to loose a sale simply because they need to comply with being a
> tax collector.
Nobody looses anything.
They may lose something.
Now, aside from that, the brick and mortar store will usually also have
a higher price. What they DO have going for them is the instant delivery
and service can be provided much more easily.
Todd Allcock wrote on [Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:17:07 -0700]:
>
> "D. Stussy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
> news:[email protected]...
>>> Seriously? A business that uses computers to keep track of x# of
>>> inventory
>>> items, purchases from x# of vendors, etc. can't manage 50 or so tax
>>> jurisdictions? (Most large retailers with POPs in multiple states, like
>>> Target just use the capital city jurisdiction for online and catalog
>>> shipments. If they get away with it, Mom and Pops will be able to.)
>>>
>>> This will a good time to be in the sales tax compliance software
>>> business,
>>> however! ;-)
>>
>> It's not 50 jurisdictions. Every COUNTY has the right to have local
>> tack-on amounts. Therefore, to cover the United States, it's more
>> like 1,800+ jurisidictions - for which the amount could change as a
>> result of any election.
>
> Don't stop at county. Cities can do the same in some states. As I
> mentioned in an earlier post, a retail store I owned was once under the
> jurisdiction of four sales taxes totalling nearly 9%. However, as the
> article Larry originally pointed to suggests, this would likely be vastly
> simplified for internet vendors. I already gave an example of the retail
> chain Target, who (at least the last time I ordered from Target.com a few
> years ago) simple applied the state capitol's rate to any purchase in that
> state.
>
> Even if not simplified, "1800+ jurisdictions" is nothing that the
> appropriate software couldn't handle. For the smallest internet sellers
> (just a few transactions a day), if this type of compliance software proved
> too costly, a manual lookup would work. Isn't there a certain hypocritical
> irony for internet sellers, who've leveraged computer technology into a
> successful business model, to claim "we can't do that... keeping track of
> all those different numbers is too complicated..."? No offense to internet
> merchants, but annoyingly cumbersome paperwork, tax, and compliance issues
> aren't a new concept to businesses. Welcome to OUR world, dot-coms! ;-)
For a small seller that only has one sale in a jurisdiction per year, it
adds to the cost basis exponentially to file in that jursidiction.
> As "George" pointed out in a different post in this thread, internet sellers
> have had this "tax-free" advantage over brick and mortar retailers for a
> long time, and this would be good for both local taxing jurisdictions and
> local businesses, who'd be able to better compete against internet sellers
> who have a 5-10% total cost advantage right out of the starting gate.
> Difficult economic times aside, I have to think my local town gets more
> economic benefit from books being sold by the local bookstore, than from
> Amazon.com.
Since consumers should be paying use taxes anyway, that's moot.
Justin wrote:
> Todd Allcock wrote on [Wed, 14 Jan 2009 08:17:07 -0700]:
>> "D. Stussy" <[email protected]> wrote in message
>> news:[email protected]...
>>>> Seriously? A business that uses computers to keep track of x# of
>>>> inventory
>>>> items, purchases from x# of vendors, etc. can't manage 50 or so tax
>>>> jurisdictions? (Most large retailers with POPs in multiple states, like
>>>> Target just use the capital city jurisdiction for online and catalog
>>>> shipments. If they get away with it, Mom and Pops will be able to.)
>>>>
>>>> This will a good time to be in the sales tax compliance software
>>>> business,
>>>> however! ;-)
>>> It's not 50 jurisdictions. Every COUNTY has the right to have local
>>> tack-on amounts. Therefore, to cover the United States, it's more
>>> like 1,800+ jurisidictions - for which the amount could change as a
>>> result of any election.
>> Don't stop at county. Cities can do the same in some states. As I
>> mentioned in an earlier post, a retail store I owned was once under the
>> jurisdiction of four sales taxes totalling nearly 9%. However, as the
>> article Larry originally pointed to suggests, this would likely be vastly
>> simplified for internet vendors. I already gave an example of the retail
>> chain Target, who (at least the last time I ordered from Target.com a few
>> years ago) simple applied the state capitol's rate to any purchase in that
>> state.
>>
>> Even if not simplified, "1800+ jurisdictions" is nothing that the
>> appropriate software couldn't handle. For the smallest internet sellers
>> (just a few transactions a day), if this type of compliance software proved
>> too costly, a manual lookup would work. Isn't there a certain hypocritical
>> irony for internet sellers, who've leveraged computer technology into a
>> successful business model, to claim "we can't do that... keeping track of
>> all those different numbers is too complicated..."? No offense to internet
>> merchants, but annoyingly cumbersome paperwork, tax, and compliance issues
>> aren't a new concept to businesses. Welcome to OUR world, dot-coms! ;-)
>
> For a small seller that only has one sale in a jurisdiction per year, it
> adds to the cost basis exponentially to file in that jursidiction.
>
>> As "George" pointed out in a different post in this thread, internet sellers
>> have had this "tax-free" advantage over brick and mortar retailers for a
>> long time, and this would be good for both local taxing jurisdictions and
>> local businesses, who'd be able to better compete against internet sellers
>> who have a 5-10% total cost advantage right out of the starting gate.
>> Difficult economic times aside, I have to think my local town gets more
>> economic benefit from books being sold by the local bookstore, than from
>> Amazon.com.
>
> Since consumers should be paying use taxes anyway, that's moot.
>
Hardly moot since one method is totally enforced and the "voluntary
admission" use tax isn't. For it to be moot both would need to be
equally enforced or equally unenforced such as I can walk into a brick
and mortar and buy something and the sales tax would not be collected
and be totally up to me to later voluntarily pay as use tax.
> I don't know about in America, but for the GST (similar to the British
> VAT) here in New Zealand, businesses legally only have to register /
> collect / return sales tax if they are earning over a certain amount
> per week. I can't recall what that amount is, but that means small
> businesses (like my own tiny business) don't have to bother with GST
> at all, although they can if they really want to claim back the GST
> their business pays to others.
>
>
Here in South Carolina, USA, sales tax is collected and paid on every
penny. When I went in business, many years ago, the sales tax (GST)
return was one page with about 8 squares on it to fill in. Then, local
fiefdoms called counties and cities/towns, discovered they could add
their OWN sales tax on top of the 5% state sales tax and get the state
to effortlessly, on their part, collect it for them. So, now every
little fiefdom across the state has its own little "section" on the
state sales tax BOOKLET where, if you have a business that travels like
mine, you are required to separate out each fiefdom's share of the
"local option sales tax" and fill in the appropriate blanks across the
ever-increasing sales tax form.
To add insult to injury, each fiefdom also taxes GROSS income on every
tiny business within its fiefdom. Notice the capital GROSS, not net.
If you business gross income were $1,000,000 and your net income after
all expenses was a loss of $50,000 because you got unlucky or someone
screwed your business, the fiefdoms will collect, depending on what kind
of business your business has been decided it was, from 1.8 to 4.2% of
ONE MILLION DOLLARS you are expected to pay them....regardless if you
made any money at all! They just don't care if you make it or
not....PAY US ANYWAY!
America ISN'T the land of plenty many of our foreign visitors and
immigrants think it is.....for those that are honest and do what they
are told. Criminals, of course, have none of these tax burdens.....
>> Even if not simplified, "1800+ jurisdictions" is nothing that the
>> appropriate software couldn't handle. For the smallest internet sellers
>> (just a few transactions a day), if this type of compliance software
>> proved
>> too costly, a manual lookup would work. Isn't there a certain
>> hypocritical
>> irony for internet sellers, who've leveraged computer technology into a
>> successful business model, to claim "we can't do that... keeping track of
>> all those different numbers is too complicated..."? No offense to
>> internet
>> merchants, but annoyingly cumbersome paperwork, tax, and compliance
>> issues
>> aren't a new concept to businesses. Welcome to OUR world, dot-coms! ;-)
>
> For a small seller that only has one sale in a jurisdiction per year, it
> adds to the cost basis exponentially to file in that jursidiction.
Nature abhors a vaccum. If such a tax law were imposed and proved
burdensome to businesses, services would spring up overnight willing to
handle all of that (for a fee, of course.) Small businesses would then be
free to decide whether to use such a service, or do it themselves- whichever
was more cost-effective.
>> Difficult economic times aside, I have to think my local town gets more
>> economic benefit from books being sold by the local bookstore, than from
>> Amazon.com.
>
> Since consumers should be paying use taxes anyway, that's moot.
First, they don't, and even the six or seven honest consumers nationwide
willing to pay use taxes would likely underreport due to lost receipts,
forgotten purchases etc. Secondly, and far more importantly, the sales tax
isn't the only benefit to the local community. Brick and mortar retailers
are both employers and tax payers themselves, which provide more benefits to
the local economy than just the collection of local sales taxes.
> the brick and mortar store will usually also have
> a higher price. What they DO have going for them is the instant delivery
> and service can be provided much more easily.
While they do usually have the higher price, they could be a lot more
competitive if the automatic 7-10% advantage internet sellers currently have
were to disappear. People will usually pay a small premium for instant
gratification and better service, but sacrifice those things for larger
savings. Add both sales tax and shipping charges to the internet purchase,
and suddenly the difference between online and local is that much closer,
and might tip more sales to the locals.
"Larry" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
> "Your Name" <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
> > I don't know about in America, but for the GST (similar to the British
> > VAT) here in New Zealand, businesses legally only have to register /
> > collect / return sales tax if they are earning over a certain amount
> > per week. I can't recall what that amount is, but that means small
> > businesses (like my own tiny business) don't have to bother with GST
> > at all, although they can if they really want to claim back the GST
> > their business pays to others.
> >
> >
>
> Here in South Carolina, USA, sales tax is collected and paid on every
> penny. When I went in business, many years ago, the sales tax (GST)
> return was one page with about 8 squares on it to fill in. Then, local
> fiefdoms called counties and cities/towns, discovered they could add
> their OWN sales tax on top of the 5% state sales tax and get the state
> to effortlessly, on their part, collect it for them. So, now every
> little fiefdom across the state has its own little "section" on the
> state sales tax BOOKLET where, if you have a business that travels like
> mine, you are required to separate out each fiefdom's share of the
> "local option sales tax" and fill in the appropriate blanks across the
> ever-increasing sales tax form.
>
> To add insult to injury, each fiefdom also taxes GROSS income on every
> tiny business within its fiefdom. Notice the capital GROSS, not net.
> If you business gross income were $1,000,000 and your net income after
> all expenses was a loss of $50,000 because you got unlucky or someone
> screwed your business, the fiefdoms will collect, depending on what kind
> of business your business has been decided it was, from 1.8 to 4.2% of
> ONE MILLION DOLLARS you are expected to pay them....regardless if you
> made any money at all! They just don't care if you make it or
> not....PAY US ANYWAY!
>
> America ISN'T the land of plenty many of our foreign visitors and
> immigrants think it is.....for those that are honest and do what they
> are told. Criminals, of course, have none of these tax burdens.....
It's little different here. The Governement recently introduce what they
call "PIEE schemes, which basically means people can pay less income tax on
their invested money's interest ... the catch being of course that it only
applies to those on the higher tax rates, so is simply another case of "the
rich get richer" at the expense of the "poor" who still have to pay their
full tax rate on all invested / saved money's interest. :-(
>
> On 2009-01-13, Larry <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Shhh...don't tell all those music Jews we bypassed in between....
>
> Just couldn't resist, could you?
>
Resist what? The music industry middlemen are all Jews.
> It's little different here. The Governement recently introduce what
> they call "PIEE schemes, which basically means people can pay less
> income tax on their invested money's interest ... the catch being of
> course that it only applies to those on the higher tax rates, so is
> simply another case of "the rich get richer" at the expense of the
> "poor" who still have to pay their full tax rate on all invested /
> saved money's interest. :-(
>
At least some of your tax money provides your family with important
services like health care and a few social programs. Our people don't
get much in return, less all the time, for our taxes. The
infrastructure the taxes should be buying is falling apart. We had nice
roads, but no more. We support a whole "government class" of
unemployable college graduates from our major universities, NASA the
Nazis setup, the world's military police force that pokes our nose into
other people's business and makes everyone our enemy, except those like
Israel we're paying $15,000,000 PER DAY to be our friends.
The further up the government food chain you go, the less it works for
the taxpayers being fleeced.
I'm sure NZ has a miniature version of our shadowy overlords who run the
government for themselves to enrich themselves and their own dreams, at
the expense of the masses. Ours is a terrible cancer that's eating our
society to the bone. Secret cults and bribing organisations like AIPAC
are rampantly infesting our government to enrich their causes.
Since the voting machines have been hacked (enter DIEBOLD into YouTube),
they don't even need to hoodwink us into voting for their employees any
more......
Larry wrote:
> "Your Name" <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>> I don't know about in America, but for the GST (similar to the British
>> VAT) here in New Zealand, businesses legally only have to register /
>> collect / return sales tax if they are earning over a certain amount
>> per week. I can't recall what that amount is, but that means small
>> businesses (like my own tiny business) don't have to bother with GST
>> at all, although they can if they really want to claim back the GST
>> their business pays to others.
>>
>>
>
> Here in South Carolina, USA, sales tax is collected and paid on every
> penny. When I went in business, many years ago, the sales tax (GST)
> return was one page with about 8 squares on it to fill in. Then, local
> fiefdoms called counties and cities/towns, discovered they could add
> their OWN sales tax on top of the 5% state sales tax and get the state
> to effortlessly, on their part, collect it for them. So, now every
> little fiefdom across the state has its own little "section" on the
> state sales tax BOOKLET where, if you have a business that travels like
> mine, you are required to separate out each fiefdom's share of the
> "local option sales tax" and fill in the appropriate blanks across the
> ever-increasing sales tax form.
>
> To add insult to injury, each fiefdom also taxes GROSS income on every
> tiny business within its fiefdom. Notice the capital GROSS, not net.
> If you business gross income were $1,000,000 and your net income after
> all expenses was a loss of $50,000 because you got unlucky or someone
> screwed your business, the fiefdoms will collect, depending on what kind
> of business your business has been decided it was, from 1.8 to 4.2% of
> ONE MILLION DOLLARS you are expected to pay them....regardless if you
> made any money at all! They just don't care if you make it or
> not....PAY US ANYWAY!
>
> America ISN'T the land of plenty many of our foreign visitors and
> immigrants think it is.....for those that are honest and do what they
> are told. Criminals, of course, have none of these tax burdens.....
>
Well, people keep insisting that government do things. Doing things
costs money. Having government do something usually costs MORE than it
would to do it yourself. When you do it, you make every dime count.
When government does something everyone has a little "rake off"!
The moral of this story is "do it yourself if you possibly can!"
Larry wrote:
> Steve Sobol <[email protected]> wrote in
> news:[email protected]:
>
>> On 2009-01-13, Larry <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> Shhh...don't tell all those music Jews we bypassed in between....
>> Just couldn't resist, could you?
>>
>
> Resist what? The music industry middlemen are all Jews.
>
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