Internet Sales Tax O.K.ed by Supreme Court

[Snagglefoot]

Originally Posted By: itguy08
[

It's often not cheaper online. Warehousing, shipping, and staff still costs money. And instead of employing your neighbors (B&M) you employ people somewhere else. I'd rather pay $1 more and keep my neighbors employed.


How about $20 more?

 

[Yah-Tah-Hey]

Our infrastructure has to be paid for by someone and since we benefit from those services, we are the someone. Spent over three hours in our emergency room this am including time in the new cat-scan. Very nice first rate service for a city of 23,000. WE built that facility and are paying for a new addition and new doctors. The Midwest is graying very rapidly. Almost every other person I saw there this AM looked liked me.Worn out by going out the door at 5:20 AM for decades.

 

[JHZR2]

Originally Posted By: sloinker
What makes no sense to me is the fact that unless the online retailer has a physical presence in the state they aren't utilizing the services that state/local taxes pay for. Namely law enforcement, fire and infrastructure. Why should they?


The question is really, "who is a sales tax intended to be levied upon?" Id have to suspect it is the consumer. Otherwise it wouldn't readily be itemized on a sales receipt; it would be a gross receipts tax levied on the merchant and necessarily built into the sales price.

If intended for the buyer to pay (which means it's triple taxation for those of us who are effective members of society and can't get out of paying taxes), then its not for the business' use of police, fire, etc.

 

[raytseng]

Originally Posted By: sloinker
What makes no sense to me is the fact that unless the online retailer has a physical presence in the state they aren't utilizing the services that state/local taxes pay for. Namely law enforcement, fire and infrastructure. Why should they?


because a sales tax is a usage tax on the person buying the product. not the seller. Therefore your whole argument is shaky.

You're supposed to selfreport stuff you bought out state and have not paid salestax on you state annual return.

What you are describing is an Excise tax which is a tax that the producer pays.

ultimately the end final price can be made the same, but if you want to get into the technicalities the first step is to distinguish between excise vs. sales or use.

 

[pandus13]

Originally Posted By: JHZR2
...
(which means it's triple taxation for those of us who are effective members of society and can't get out of paying taxes)


You are soooo right.

In this case, does driving next county/state for something less taxed does it counts as cheating the locals?

 

[Snagglefoot]

Oh oh. You guys are veering into politics. Death and Taxes.

 

[Traction]

Not that I like paying taxes on taxes, but it is about FN TIME! Evens out the playing field a bunch. Local sellers might finally be able to match the online sellers, or even beat them. It's always been difficult for me to sell tires direct for less, for that reason alone.

 

[redbone3]

What a mess this is going to be. Imagine the software needed to keep track of all the states with sales tax, not to mention additional sales taxes from various counties and cities that are tacked on. Here, in Nevada, every county has a sales tax (small) that is added to the state sales tax. Makes selling over the internet (or telephone) an accounting nightmare.

 

[bubbatime]

I see this doing two things.

1) Makes online goods 6 to 8 % more expensive, which makes local businesses more competitive.
2) With billion of dollars in increased sales tax rolling in, the local tax rate SHOULD go down. So if your property taxes are $1000 now, in two years they should be $980.

I wish property taxes were done away with, and a massive sales tax hike was implemented, 20-40% tax on everything sold. Why should property owners ONLY have to support their communities police, fire, roads and bridges? Those things should be supported by tourist purchases (via sales tax) and low income folks that don't own property (via sales tax).

The lower income spectrum uses the majority of tax dollars, yet pays the least in. A sales tax is payed by everyone, rich, poor, and tourist from out of the area.

 

[redbone3]

Originally Posted By: bubbatime
I see this doing two things.

1) Makes online goods 6 to 8 % more expensive, which makes local businesses more competitive.
2) With billion of dollars in increased sales tax rolling in, the local tax rate SHOULD go down. So if your property taxes are $1000 now, in two years they should be $980.

I wish property taxes were done away with, and a massive sales tax hike was implemented, 20-40% tax on everything sold. Why should property owners ONLY have to support their communities police, fire, roads and bridges. Those things should be supported by tourist purchases (via sales tax) and low income folks that dont own property (via sales tax).

The lower income spectrum uses the majority of tax dollars, yet pays the least in. A sales tax is payed by everyone, rich, poor, and tourist from out of the area.


Unless you live on the street, you pay property taxes. Your land lord passes them on to you as part of the rent.

People who hold their breath waiting for a tax reduction turn blue.

 

[raytseng]

Originally Posted By: redbone3
What a mess this is going to be. Imagine the software needed to keep track of all the states with sales tax, not to mention additional sales taxes from various counties and cities that are tacked on. Here, in Nevada, every county has a sales tax (small) that is added to the state sales tax. Makes selling over the internet (or telephone) an accounting nightmare.


It will not be thst bad.

there are various companies that already provide the service.
if you are a mom and pop using a platform and not a bare webserver then you can bet that your platform will make it easy for you.

You probably do not need to know the guts of how to take individual credit card payments at the root level with each ccard type but use a provider for the service thst figured this out for you Handling sales tax will be the same thing

 

[JLTD]

Originally Posted By: zzyzzx
Originally Posted By: JLTD
Seems to me like this takes away an advantage of online buying, so the local stores are on a more even footing.


How so? Online pricing will still be way lower, and a lot of the stuff I buy online isn't available locally anyway.


I'll spell it out for you:

Without online tax, if Item A is priced the same online and in store, you can get Item A for less online since there's no tax. WITH the tax, you now pay the same.

If you re-read my post, I said, "an advantage", not "all advantages".

I agree with you that online stores still have the advantage of reduced overhead since they're maintaining (for example) one warehouse rather than numerous storefronts, and have items that might not be in your local store.

I've started using Amsoil and for SURE it's less expensive online than anywhere I can find it on the shelf.

 

[Kawiguy454]

I couldn't think of a better way to drive people towards Crypto Currency and cutting out the middle (Tax) man.

 

[VNTS]

this isnt about saving local retailers, if gov cared about them, they would lower their state sales tax or be tax free like NH.

this is about more money for state gov, which you can bet this added money will not be used to lower other taxes but instead to increase more bloated spending

 

[Triple_Se7en]

I am shocked it took this long to decide that.

What may happen in a few years is another tax where we are charged a small tax for every state Fedex, UPS.... etc..... transports our purchase.

Example:
If your purchase something in Florida and want it in Michigan, you pay a small amount of transport tax to Georgia, Tennessee, Kentucky and Ohio.

 

[CKN]

Originally Posted By: redbone3
What a mess this is going to be. Imagine the software needed to keep track of all the states with sales tax, not to mention additional sales taxes from various counties and cities that are tacked on. Here, in Nevada, every county has a sales tax (small) that is added to the state sales tax. Makes selling over the internet (or telephone) an accounting nightmare.



It's really not that hard to write software for this-there will be "canned software" for small Internet businesses to purchase that don't have their own I.T. Department-that will handle that task. As a matter of fact-it may be a contracted out service-send your files to so and so-they will send the taxes out.


Not unlike the guy that does your taxes at tax time.

 

[Bud]

Two things are certain in this life. Death and taxes. You can complain all you want about both, but can't outrun either.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Originally Posted By: das_peikko
Amazon has already started charging sales tax, but eBay was still safe for purchases shipped from out of state.
Originally Posted By: khittner
Get your rush orders into RockAuto soon! . . .

And Rock Auto/eBay/Amazon will still be cheaper even with the sales tax.

Even though Rock Auto doesn't have "free shipping" and even if they charge the sales tax, Rock Auto will still be cheaper. Because the price difference is much more than 5/6/7/8% or whatever your tax rate is.

You can also look at the states with no sales tax. They buy online as much as people from states with sales tax.

 

[supton]

I missed where they said how it was to be charged? I mean, if I buy from a store located in NY, do I pay NY sales tax? Seems like I'd be better off buying from a store in NH (no sales tax) or some other state with a low sales tax. [Assuming the total cost is cheapest.]

Seems to me that they could charge based upon ship to address. Ship to NY, pay NY sales tax. Ship to NH, pay NH tax. Etc. Quick and easy. Just like if you walked into a store in that particular state. Sorta like car sales tax, but based upon ship to. I think that might skirt some privacy issues and make it easy. Just build it into the sales software. Could transfer funds at end of day or end of month to the respective states.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Originally Posted By: supton
I missed where they said how it was to be charged? I mean, if I buy from a store located in NY, do I pay NY sales tax? Seems like I'd be better off buying from a store in NH (no sales tax) or some other state with a low sales tax. [Assuming the total cost is cheapest.]

Seems to me that they could charge based upon ship to address. Ship to NY, pay NY sales tax. Ship to NH, pay NH tax. Etc. Quick and easy. Just like if you walked into a store in that particular state. Sorta like car sales tax, but based upon ship to. I think that might skirt some privacy issues and make it easy. Just build it into the sales software. Could transfer funds at end of day or end of month to the respective states.


And that is exactly what they already do in some cases

Since NH has no sales tax, you are not affected by this at all, since there is no sales tax in NH.

You pay tax if your state has a sales tax, and the site has a physical presence in the state. For example, Rock Auto charges tax on orders shipped to Wisconsin, where they are based.

With the new ruling, you could be required to pay the tax no matter what, but you are still charged the tax based on the ship-to address, based on where you live. So if you live in NY, you pay NY sales tax. If you live in California, you pay California sales tax.

Actually, there's a special case with NY. There is the state sales tax (4%), and there is also the city sales tax (4.5%) added on top of that. So the total is 8.5%. People shopping B&M in NYC pay that 8.5% rate. People shopping upstate B&M only pay 4%. BUT if you buy online from someone with a physical presence anywhere in the state, you have to pay the full 8.5% no matter where in the state you are, regardless of the actual ship-to address.

I think Colorado already does what you're talking about. They collect the tax and send a form to the state.