Internet Sales Tax Bill Gaining Momentum

[freggo]

[citation][nom]spasmolytic46[/nom]Actually as dude who has only had to pay taxes maybe twice in the last 10 to 15 years I would like to see more people paying taxes and building up our infrastructure. Building infrastructure can be a great long term investment if done right. You can put a bunch of people to work which means they get off unemployment and get some skills. You have people paying taxes because they work for a living. People who return to work have money and buying stuff which furthers the economic bonuses. Not to mention that inflation is always going up which means every year it gets delayed it costs more and with interest rates so low when is a better time for a state to levy investment bonds? Not to mention you actually get make use of the stuff you had built like transportation infrastructure, schools, etc, etc, etc...[/citation]

But we ARE using your Tax dollars to build up our infrastructure.
We have the best military infrastructure in the world.
Spent more on it than the rest of the world spends combined on their military.
So let us all be proud now. And stop whining that we have 30 million kids living under the poverty level. After all, you can not have it all !

/sarcasm

 

[gamerk316]

[citation][nom]spasmolytic46[/nom]Actually as dude who has only had to pay taxes maybe twice in the last 10 to 15 years I would like to see more people paying taxes and building up our infrastructure. Building infrastructure can be a great long term investment if done right. You can put a bunch of people to work which means they get off unemployment and get some skills. You have people paying taxes because they work for a living. People who return to work have money and buying stuff which furthers the economic bonuses. Not to mention that inflation is always going up which means every year it gets delayed it costs more and with interest rates so low when is a better time for a state to levy investment bonds? Not to mention you actually get make use of the stuff you had built like transportation infrastructure, schools, etc, etc, etc...[/citation]

DING DING DING! You've just described how US economic policy used to be implemented, prior to the Ford administration.

The US's biggest problem is wealth distribution. The more money the upper 1% hoards, the less of the money supply will be spent in the economy, as the majority of new wealth is being put into banks, rather then spent. This kills economic growth. And the only way to address this is a tax policy that taxes the rich to fund programs that enrich the middle/lower classes.

A wealth distribution where 90% of the wealth is controlled by 1% of the population is not economically sustainable.

 

[azxcvbnm321]

The above is just so wrong that I have to take time to refute it. The rich pay an overwhelmingly large proportion of the taxes while the poor pay nothing. We already have an incredibly progressive tax system.

In 2009, the top 1 percent of tax returns paid 36.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes and earned 16.9 percent of adjusted gross income (AGI), compared to 2008 when those figures were 38.0 percent and 20.0 percent, respectively. Both of those figures-share of income and share of taxes paid-were their lowest since 2003 when the top 1 percent earned 16.7 percent of adjusted gross income and paid 34.3 percent of federal individual income taxes.

The top-earning 5 percent of taxpayers (AGI equal to or greater than $154,643), however, still paid far more than the bottom 95 percent. The top 5 percent earned 31.7 percent of the nation's adjusted gross income, but paid approximately 58.7 percent of federal individual income taxes.

Did you get that? The top 5% paid more than the rest of the 95% combined! How much more do you want the "rich" to pay? Until they become poor?

Secondly, there is a huge fallacy in your premise. You assume that if I make more money, it comes at your expense--that the economic pie is fixed, which is definitely not true. Wealth is created, not distributed. There is no set number each year of how much wealth America will have. The wealthy don't decide to take the majority for themselves because that's not how it works. Wealth is created.

Let's say there are two of us and we both start out making $100,000 each and there is $200,000 in the economy and zero inflation. We have equal 50%/50% shares of the total income. Now let's say I create the Ipad or do some productive work and now I make $900,000 while you stay at $100,000. I now have 90% of the total income and you only have 10%. But are you worse off? You still are making $100,000 and can buy $100,000 worth of goods, the same as last year. In the real world, you'd be better off since you'd benefit from the new technology I created and your income would likely go up as a side effect of what I did. That's why the poor in America are considered upper middle class by UN standards when compared to the average person living on the planet today.

 

[JDFan]

But are you worse off? You still are making $100,000 and can buy $100,000 worth of goods, the same as last year. In the real world, you'd be better off since you'd benefit from the new technology I created and your income would likely go up as a side effect of what I did.

In your example of course I would be worse off -- because you now completely control pricing -- any item that we both want you can pay $1000 more for even if it is $100,000 (My full income but only 10 % of yours) and you can effectively price me out of anything you want -- if it is something we both want you bid slightly higher than what I am willing to pay or completely block me out by paying just over what I can afford -- so you now have complete control over pricing and distribution -- so my $100,000 can only buy things you do not want and any new products that could make even more $ you can pay higher than I can afford and block me out of competition thus making even a higher percentage of the total income in future years --- so I am now making $100,000 with no input into anything so how am I better off ?

 

[thegh0st]

[citation][nom]Solandri[/nom]Do note that online retailers like Amazon are do not have an advantage due to there being no taxes on interstate commerce. Rather, the states choose to put their own brick and mortar stores at a disadvantage by having a high state sales tax on intrastate commerce. Subtle distinction.From a financial standpoint it makes no difference, but it makes a huge difference when assigning blame for or thinking of solutions to the problem. The solution seems pretty simple to me - eliminate all sales taxes. States with sales taxes can make up the revenue by shifting it to other taxes, like income taxes. I'm kinda confused why this idea doesn't have more support. Conservatives should like it because sales taxes are a tax on businesses, and getting rid of them will help businesses. Liberals should like it because sales taxes are completely flat, and are thus some of the most regressive taxes we have. They should be all in favor of phasing out sales taxes and shifting the government revenue to a progressive income tax.[/citation]
so let me get this straight, you just want the actual working class and legal residents to provide MORE support for everyone else and provide a bigger pool of money to pay for all the non-working people sponging off the govt. and all the illegal aliens taking advantage of multiple systems provided by said income taxes/property taxes?

uh, how about there should be NO income tax period and all the sales tax should be raised so that you pay more for items but it balances out because everyone's pay check would be more without the income taxes. this would eliminate the attraction illegal aliens find in this country and anyone getting paid "under the table" so to speak would also lose that advantage. because if you live here or stay here anything you buy or purchase would be putting dollars back into the system. one thing illegal's and people living off the govt. certainly don't do. you wouldn't be able to avoid it. basically if you live here then you contribute just by basic purchases, even if you aren't registered with the govt. as a legal resident/citizen. and said illegals would actually be contributing to their children's education paying taxes themselves just through everyday living expenses instead of getting this provided to them through the income tax/property taxes everyone else pays.

sure there would have to be plenty of adjustments to get this working and not just overwhelm already retired people but in the long run it would be the best answer.

 

[back_by_demand]

Back in the 60's in the UK they had a top tax rate of 95%, to gouge the top earners in the way modern leftist lunatics want again. The Kinks and The Beatles both wrote songs about it (Sunny Afternoon and Taxman). It didn't work then and it won't work now, people have very short memories.

 

[Kami3k]

[citation][nom]mleejr[/nom]Maybe we should start spamming Sweedish forums and telling you you should be more Capitalist and less stupid. Enjoy your Communism idiot. Stop trying to spread your idiocy. Communism/Socialism/Liberalism is the refuge of the moron.[/citation]

Sweden is the country with th eLarge Hadron Collider. And you do realize countries like Finland are near the top of the world for education?

Yea, those idiots beating everyone else in science and math!

 

[Guest]

Why don't local shops just sell their products on-line, wouldn't that be the easiest solution.... ;-P

 

[velocityg4]

What isn't mentioned is the huge difficulty this places on small internet retailers. Could you imagine the monumental task of trying to sort out, and file sales taxes to literally thousands of different counties and townships each with their own sales tax rate. This would drive many of them out of business simply because of paperwork.

This would make sense if there was a flat sales tax and it all went to one place like in European countries. But sales taxes are local taxes and vary by state, then county and finally city. So where I live there is no city sales tax but there is state and county taxes. The next city also adds 1% for itself so while in my city the sales tax is 6% in the neighboring city it is 7%.

The mom and pop shops aren't failing because of sales tax it is because the pretax prices for small commodities are usually obscene, selection sucks, there are no user reviews, they are inconvenient to go to. They are just being used as an excuse. They aren't getting as much money as they want for useless projects and say they will take it from roads, highways, education, emergency and utilities. How about slash the budget on beautification, larger government buildings and social projects? Some states get by fine with no sales taxes they just cut out the bs and spend on utilitarian necessities (what's needed not wanted there is a huge difference).

 

[JDFan]

The thing that gets me also is the large retailers like COMPUSA that also operate Online stores charge more for the same product in their B&M store than they do online -- the other day I was looking for some Ethernet cable and on their website they had a 100ft cat 5e cable for $19.99 shipped - since they had a B&M in town I went there to buy it and the exact same cable from the exact same company was $59.99 because they placed it in a retail box instead of a plastic bag and would not match there own website price.

So like any buyer would I went home and ordered it from another online company for $12.99 and they lost a $20 sale (would have been willing to pay slightly more to get local but An extra $45 for the same product on a $12 product ??? And they have the nerve to say it is the no sales tax that is forcing customers to not purchase from the B&M store !!

 

[torque79]

"Being a part of the lucky sperm club sounds like winning the lottery to me. The essence of the American experiment is our collective rejection of European hereditary aristocracy and grotesque inequalities of wealth. I'm not saying that we should take everything, but there should be a good amount of tax on large sums of inheritance."

The amount of current European hereditary aristocracy does not result in ANYWHERE NEAR the amount of wealth inequality that exists in the USA.
The following interesting table illustrates that the only 2 countries in the world (in the fairly complete list) are Zimbabwe and Switzerland:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_distribution_of_wealth

Canada's doing pretty good! Glad to live here!

 

[torque79]

sorry only two countries with WORSE WEALTH INEQUALITY

 

[Sakkura]

Sweden is the country with th eLarge Hadron Collider. And you do realize countries like Finland are near the top of the world for education?

Yea, those idiots beating everyone else in science and math!

The Large Hadron Collider is located near Geneva. That's in Switzerland, not Sweden. The distance to the closets point in Sweden is about a thousand kilometres.

 

[Sakkura]

What isn't mentioned is the huge difficulty this places on small internet retailers. Could you imagine the monumental task of trying to sort out, and file sales taxes to literally thousands of different counties and townships each with their own sales tax rate. This would drive many of them out of business simply because of paperwork.

This would make sense if there was a flat sales tax and it all went to one place like in European countries. But sales taxes are local taxes and vary by state, then county and finally city. So where I live there is no city sales tax but there is state and county taxes. The next city also adds 1% for itself so while in my city the sales tax is 6% in the neighboring city it is 7%.

The mom and pop shops aren't failing because of sales tax it is because the pretax prices for small commodities are usually obscene, selection sucks, there are no user reviews, they are inconvenient to go to. They are just being used as an excuse. They aren't getting as much money as they want for useless projects and say they will take it from roads, highways, education, emergency and utilities. How about slash the budget on beautification, larger government buildings and social projects? Some states get by fine with no sales taxes they just cut out the bs and spend on utilitarian necessities (what's needed not wanted there is a huge difference).

The EU doesn't have a flat sales tax (well, VAT usually) either, but we still manage to levy it when people buy stuff over the internet from other member countries. Small internet retailers are doing great, even internationally.

You should probably just scrap this system of individual sales tax rates all the way down to the county and city level. Let them set part of the income tax for their residents instead. It certainly doesn't make any sense to just give up and let internet retailers off the hook with regard to sales taxes which every physical retailer still has to pay.
Alternatively, let the state set a general sales tax rate to use for internet retail, distributing appropriate portions to the counties etc. And then let the counties etc. keep control of their sales tax on physical retail.

 

[knight_of_baawa]

Perhaps if you knew the definition of plutocracy you would know why one should be taxed and the other left alone.

I do know the definition. However, the special pleading fallacy of taxing one and not the other remains. IOW: it's hypocritical.

 

[punahou1]

Sweden is the country with th eLarge Hadron Collider. And you do realize countries like Finland are near the top of the world for education?

Yea, those idiots beating everyone else in science and math!

When did they move the collider?

 

[Sakkura]

When did they move the collider?

I don't know, but I hear they were very higgsited about it.