
Proposed online sales tax draws criticism - gibsonf1
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2010/02/24/MN5P1C6156.DTL
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volomike
I completely protest. This is very disturbing, and a stretch of the law too
far. It's obvious that the USA Federal Government, and state and county
governments, abuse taxpayer funds and have some ridiculous programs. However,
instead of trimming back and fighting something that is tough to fight, once
again the government finds it's all too easy to find yet another tax. The
trouble is, in the bad economy, this was one escape valve that self-employed
have been using successful to stay afloat. First we were already taxed on our
income for being self-employed, and then taxed again on income, but now we're
potentially going to have our employment cut back as etailer after etailer
drops CPA affiliate marketing.

Time and again, when the government gets involved with the web, they prove
their incompetence.

It's kind of like the time when the government tried to consider online sales
tax. But the politicians didn't realize that this isn't like local business
sales tax. I mean, the Internet has no geography. With local retail businesses
you drive a car to, you can raise sales tax and people will pay it because
it's a hassle to drive to a place where it might be a lower tax (in some
cases). But with the Internet, the dopes in Washington don't realize that if
we create an online sales tax, then people will just purchase goods overseas
where there is not sales tax. And then businesses that may have had a nexus in
the USA will simply move overseas as well. Brilliant move, Federal Government.
So I'm glad at least we achieved a moratorium, but it's imperfect because the
states disagreed and force me to collect local sales tax for serving customers
in my state, and it's imperfect because the moratorium was only temporary and
requires renewal.

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semanticist
Obviously the dopes thinking they'll just buy from 'overseas' haven't heard of
'import duty'.

Brilliant move.

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dminor
And will they require brick & mortar stores to check everyone's driver's
license, so that they can collect sales taxes from out-of-staters?

