Internet Sales Tax

[Savannahmann]

61. I am always suspicious when something is endorsed by Big Business.

In this case, Amazon.com. Now in honesty and fairness, I've bought many things from Amazon, things that either were not available locally, or were exceedingly inconvenient to get locally, generally speaking.

Now, that the honesty is out of the way, to the opinion. At this time, there is no software that will do everything for you that this legislation will require. When there is some such software, that will categorize products based upon their proper tax category, it will be exceedingly expensive. Now, what I mean by that is here in Georgia, food stuff for example, is taxed at a lower rate than other types of products. So someone is going to have to categorize every product, and check that categorization against every single taxation zone in the nation. In many cities, one part of the city will have a higher sales tax, because it is a separate city, than another part of the larger metropolitan area. Then there is the question of physical location. If I live in Georgia, but buy something in South Carolina, I pay south carolina sales tax, because I bought it there. But if I live in a suburb of Savannah GA, and am having the product shipped there, but am in downtown Savannah when I order it, which local gets the sales tax? If I had physically bought it in Savannah, I would have paid Savannah Sales tax right?

The biggest reason I am wary, is because of the reporting requirement. If I own a business, and do sales in Georgia, brick and mortar sales, I can be audited by the state department of revenue at any time that I submit my monthly reports and payments. However, under this law, would I have to make myself available to any of the states that I make sales to? Technically wouldn't I fall under their laws, and their auditing procedures? If the software maker enters some data wrong, and I submit it thinking it's honest and correct, will I still have to fly across the country to appear as commanded by some auditor? Or will I have to hire a lawyer, sight unseen, to appear for me locally in whatever jurisdiction that is demanded?

Amazon doesn't care, they have the lawyers, they have the accountants, they are big enough to afford that without huge overhead. Small business's don't have the money to do it. They say oh, it's a million dollars in sales before you qualify. OK, a million dollars in sales, which if the business has a large mark up of 10%, means that they are bringing in less than $100k profit gross. That is before whatever overhead they have.

This feels like it is targeting the little guy, in favor of the big business, wrapped in the flag of fairness. I don't think it's going to bring in a fraction of the money they claim it will. I don't think that the small business folks will play the game, I think they'll shut down before they get to the threshold for the year, and refuse any business until the next year. If they don't make the money, they don't have to get taxed and have the cost of compliance.

I also think that Amazon and the other big boys are trying to use this to get rid of the annoying little competition that dares to sell on the internet from their basement or garage.