Way to Think About Internet Sales Tax

[liberalmike27]

And of course sales taxes in general.

You make $20,000 a year. Your sales tax is ten percent (it is here). You spend everything you make, thus you pay ten percent.

You make 2,000,000 dollars a year. You spend a fraction of that. You pay 0.05% in sales taxes a year.

I realize there are a lot of other things, like paying rent, or utilities that aren't taxed, a lot of little adjustments to be made. Of course they've got their own little taxes for poor people factored in, like Utility taxes, and property taxes too, then there is buying gas, which actually adds to what you pay, since here it's 47 cents per gallon, with current prices of $3.19/gallon, it's actually more like 15% in regressive taxes.

Bottom line--sales taxes, and Internet taxes, are a tax on the poor. The poorer you are, the more sales tax you pay, as a percentage. The richer you are, the more insignificant are Internet sales taxes.

Don't stupidly support this bill. Find a different way to replace all of the Federal, State, and Local sales taxes lost because of our leaders purging our jobs to foreign countries, through many, many trade agreements, with nearly wage-slave labor. The rich made the decisions to export these jobs, and the taxes they once paid to support our various levels of government. So tax them, on their income, on their investments. Don't add a tax to the Internet.

We finally get a break, and you can't get the people who are benefiting from it to command an advantage for it, instead sucking up the propaganda about "brick and mortars having to pay it," even though most of them, too, have Internet presences.

[NYC_SKP]

1. Tax the rich already. Tax wealth. Everything else is a distraction.

K/R

[graham4anything]

2. I disagree. Internet sellers are ripping off the governement and should pay

anyone UNDER a million dollars does not need to collect or charge it.

and what is bogus is to say any company can charge it and not send it in.

ONLY big companies in the prior year need to sign up and collect it.

Not to mention, those that shop on line are saving money not transporting themselves to the malls, and if the same people go to the mall they pay

therefore, it is quite selfish not to pay and others then are charged for the greediness of those not paying

not paying gas to shop online means a huge savings.

and then people wonder why their snow isn't plowed while Ron Paul and Rand is sitting rich and ugly in his mansion whereever he lives in.

[Johonny]

3. I agree

I get that sales tax are regressive. But I see it as an apples to Oranges argument. To claim one type of business gets immunity to sales tax while another business still is burden with paying them makes no sense. To me if sales tax are going to exist then you have to tax commerce fairly or you are basically rewarding certain types of transaction for no apparent sound reason.

[liberalmike27]

5. Fine

Then don't submit to higher taxes, fight against the sales taxes on regular stores.

Thing is, con-servatives always see these things as opportunities. They are trying to raise taxes on the poor, they make the case for it by comparing these operations run in other states, to local stores. If Amazon has a place, a distribution center in the state, from which you are ordering, then it already has to collect them.

So liberals need to see this as an opportunity, not to accept the media-brain-fed line of comparing brick to click, but an opportunity to LOWER taxes, and inveigh against sales and gas taxes, as ways to finance, or perhaps to INDEX them, where poor people pay less, and the rich, and corporations pay more.

Liberals are far to susceptible to the corporate left media, which is still, not at all lefty.

[joeglow3]

15. So, you support breaking the law and not paying the use tax you owe?

[PowerToThePeople]

20. If a law is unjust, a man is not only right to disobey it, he is obligated to do so.

edit - maybe not a true jefferson quote. dang internets. I know I read this somewhere =)

-------------

Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.… where the State places those who are not with her, but against her,– the only house in a slave State in which a free man can abide with honor.… Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible.

http://sniggle.net/TPL/index5.php?entry=rtcg#p22

[magellan]

7. Are people being forced to shop at malls?

I had no idea.

[postulater]

4. The rich should pay sales tax on financial transactions. That would even it out with the poor. nt

[liberalmike27]

6. True

But far too many Democrats, both in office, and voters are buying this media line of "They have to, so why don't Internet stores," rather than "Hey, why don't we just get rid of sales taxes, and keep it all income based.

[liberalmike27]

8. It is after all

The same double-taxation that the right-wingers always complain about, with their super-low, Capital Gains rate.

[magellan]

9. Worse than that, Dems are selling this idea as "leveling the playing field"

...as if the reason people aren't shopping at brick and mortar shops is down to avoiding sales tax by shopping online. If that were true, then why are big box stores like Walmart and discount stores like Dollar General doing so well?

The problem isn't sales tax. The problem is people are trying to make their dollars go further.

[liberalmike27]

10. IKR??

Even the more liberal democrats, even Thom Hartmann can't see this as a great opportunity to grandstand away sales taxes, which each family pays thousands a year. That's real, substantial money, that results in multiple taxation.

And bear in mind, these taxes have doubled (at least here) since Republicans have lowered the taxes of the richest from 91, down to 28, then back up to 40 recently, and lowered their special money makes money rate to 15%.

So cuts on the rich, amount to increases on the poor, by many various cuts by taxation of the poor.

[magellan]

11. +1

The most angering thing is it doesn't take a genius to understand that this tax won't help "brick and mortar stores"; it will only hurt already struggling Americans. So are the legislators who support this nonsense out of touch 1%ers, totally incompetent fools, or willfully working to further hobble Americans? There are no other choices.

Well, I've already concluded that this country is going to have to hit rock bottom before we give our current neoliberal/supply side/hot air economic model the big heave-ho it deserves. So I can see the bright side even in things like this. How much more will people take and for how long, that's the only question left to be answered.

[joeglow3]

16. Federal income taxes have very little to do with local sales taxes

You are comparing apples and staplers.

[lumberjack_jeff]

12. Sales taxes suck ass. They are horribly regressive.

The fact that states and localities depend on them, and brick and mortar stores can't compete because of it doesn't make it a federal problem.

Better solution: all states should have an income tax. The fact that we don't has interstate commerce ramifications, and is thus a federal issue.

[ProSense]

14. Now, that's

The fact that states and localities depend on them, and brick and mortar stores can't compete because of it doesn't make it a federal problem.

Better solution: all states should have an income tax. The fact that we don't has interstate commerce ramifications, and is thus a federal issue.

...a good point. States depend on sales taxes and property taxes, which make home ownership for a lot of middle-income people cost prohibitive in some markets. A high income renter escapes such a tax.

[ProSense]

18. Then again, I just remembered this:

Every State Taxes Its 1 Percent At A Lower Rate Than Low-Income Households
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10021390130

http://www.itep.org/pdf/poverty2012report.pdf

Clearly, this is wrong and contributes to the decline in state revenues.

[ProSense]

13. Somehow

"Don't stupidly support this bill. Find a different way to replace all of the Federal, State, and Local sales taxes lost because of our leaders purging our jobs to foreign countries, through many, many trade agreements, with nearly wage-slave labor. The rich made the decisions to export these jobs, and the taxes they once paid to support our various levels of government. So tax them, on their income, on their investments. Don't add a tax to the Internet. "

...I'm missing the correlation between the Internet sales tax and jobs being shipped overseas. Revenue is way down, I don't see the point of posing it as one or the other. The above also makes it seem that "the rich" are not profiting from Internet sales.

Senate Passes Bill To Give States Ability To Collect Online Sales Tax (updated)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022808863

[bobclark86]

17. How about we tax...

income. Then, we don't HAVE to tax sales!

See, the problem is gone. And the Interwebz wins!

[joeglow3]

19. Sarah Palin agrees with you

https://www.facebook.com/sarahpalin?ref=stream&hc_location=stream

[KurtNYC]

21. We paid tax on the money we have when we made it

So this is a second tax on the same money.

People desperately selling their belongings on eBay should not be the ones paying for government graft.

[forthemiddle]

22. This is not a new tax

I am pretty conservative (relative to this board) when it comes to tax policy, but this one does not bother me. I believe in following the law whenever possible, but I admit this is one of those laws that I flaunt a couple of times per week. I never claim my on line shopping at the end of the year, like I am required to by law.
For me this is one of those things that will just make it easier for me to keep within the law, and although I don't like it, I won't complain. We can't continue to bitch about the wealthy that don't pay their fair share, yet completely flaunt the law like apparently almost everyone on this thread has been doing. For each dollar the state can collect, that is good for the collective state coffers.