White House: Internet Sales Tax ‘Will Level The Playing Field’

[Alan M]

150. This will close a lot of small and medium sized businesses

As someone who has made a living on the Internet since 1999, I can honestly say this is simply unworkable. On a simple cost bias I can’t comply with the tax regulations of 50 different states plus thousands of local taxing authorities. The costs of doing so would far exceed any profit I made on the business. Yes, Amazon eBay and few other large corporations have the resources to do this and it will greatly benefit them as it will get rid of most of their competitors in one fell swoop. One of the great things about the Internet had been that an average person without significant capital could open a business and compete equally with the corporate giants. I guess that is no more. Now you have to have the means to comply with 50 state taxing authorities and 1000s of local taxing authorities.
If you want to have an Internet Sales tax that’s fine, but at least be smart enough to make it have a universal rate and only have one taxing authority that has be complied with.