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States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

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291–300 of 613 posts

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#291
Yet another tenuous stretching of nexus by lawyers who have little interest in how technology works, but do have every incentive to justify increasing their own scope. This is the equivalent of telling New Hampshire stores that they're responsible for collecting Massachusetts sales tax for people coming over the border to shop.

A business collecting taxes for the state they are in, even for orders shipped out of state, would make sense. But the individual states seem unwilling to do this, as it would decrease their own businesses' advantage. And that's the whole point - we should welcome competition in tax rates, wherever it can possibly even be found.

Referencing New England was not arbitrary, as the ability to drive two states over to simply have dinner is a condition that holds the state governments to a modicum of honesty.

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#292

Something like ten years ago now, Washington State changed their sales tax requirements in a way that required the seller to look up the four-digit rate code of the buyer, both for determining the rate to charge and later for remitting to the state. The quarterly file they provide with this information is ~150000 rows. Prior to that date, you just reported for the jurisdiction in which the business was registered. Be…

Yep. The most annoying part is that tax jurisdictions don't correspond to ZIP codes. If they did, this would be so much easier.

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#293
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The business isn't paying the tax though? If the people paying the tax don't want it, they should replace their reps or move to a state that doesn't have that tax. So we could think of it from the point of the business but that wouldn't be based in fact.

If the business isn't paying the tax, then I'm sure the people paying the tax can pay the tax themselves. No need to add a middleman.

They tried that for 10 years and it didn't work. Very few people pay use tax like they should. But it wasn't cost effective to enforce every individual offender. So now they're trying something different.

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#294
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a business opportunity.

Funny, I hear anti-competitive not business opportunity. It's a business opportunity now , but as with many government laws, in the future businesses end up depending on government forcing their markets existence. So then they lobby for the government to keep the system, even if it's out dated or badly thought out. We can't stream line anything, because entrenched businesses don't want anything to change. It makes me…

it really is sad,

but a petition is always an option?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17367669

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. The business isn't paying the tax. They are only collecting it on behalf of the taxing agency.

Maybe a more precise wording is "you can be forced to collect tax from others and must pay registration fees to collect said tax by politicians you do not elect and who act knowing you are powerless to object." The sentiment is still the same.

While that may be true, it's meaningless. As a tourist, you are also subject to tax that was enacted by representatives you didn't elect. You can choose not to go there, just like a business can choose not to sell to someone who lives there. In California, every city has it's own sales tax, so every city I go to is taxing me without representation.

There are many many cases in the US where you are taxed without a choice of the representatives. You have a choice not to be taxed though, by not going there or doing business there.

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#297
post #107
post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly; sales taxes generally just hurt the poor and middle class. A good case could be made for consumption taxes on luxury items, but taxing things like food and inexpensive consumer items (like non-luxury clothing) simply hurts poorer people while not significantly affecting wealthier ones.

Food is already exempt from sales tax. Take Ohio as a rough average for the country, here's the list of exemptions. https://www.tax.ohio.gov/faq/tabid/6315/Default.aspx?Questio... The problem with consumption taxes is it just starts a debate over what is considered necessary/unnecessary. I think you would be better off exempting people rather than classes of items.

>Food is already exempt from sales tax.

Wrong. Come here to Virginia and try it. Or any Southern state for that matter.

Note: In Virginia, groceries are taxed, but at a lower rate than the normal sales tax.

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#299
post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's still difficult to comply with. Imagine 50 different laws like that, each with their own tiers, and consider the difficulty accounting for them all and staying in compliance. That's not even getting into municipal taxes.

Shopify/BigCommerce/Authorize.net/eBay/Amazon, etc. will handle it for you. Everyone uses SaaS software at some point in the process nowadays.

Arguments like this annoy me. Someone has it figured out so it's OK for these complex tax implementations to exist. No, it's not OK, and it's not a solved problem. We recently implemented sales tax collection using the TaxJar API combined with Stripe. It took at least a month to integrate. These integrations are huge drains on business productivity. Government has to stop creating these complex rules. Create simple rules and stop treating everyone's time with such reckless abandon.

Re: States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules

#300
post #224
post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window There is zero economic gain from more complex tax rules. Further, the software does not absolve you of liability. At best they may agree to cover it, but that's unlikely and they can also go broke if they get it wrong.

There’s zero national economic gain from _any_ variation in law from state to state, but either you’re in favour of state’s rights or you’re not.

>here’s zero national economic gain from _any_ variation in law from state to state

Yes there is. States compete with each other and this prevents any one of them from having laws that are much crappier and more oppressive than average because when that happens businesses and people leave.

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