States Can Require Internet Tax Collection, Supreme Court Rules • Hacker News Board

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

#351

Post by delinka » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:08 PM UTC

Spooky23 wrote: post #225

Retric wrote: 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.

States want to collect taxes. Now that they have a consistent policy position, you may see interstate agreements to harmonize collection. There is already a precedent with DMV data sharing agreements, and some states will collect sales taxes for others as well.

"...and some states will collect sales taxes for others as well."

I'm having a hard time coming up with an example where this makes any sense. Can you elaborate?

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

#352

Post by hcknwscommenter » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:09 PM UTC

waffle_ss wrote: post #282

esturk wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So that would be the software companies' liability. And such business practice can differentiate good ones from the bad ones. I'm seeing a new business market here even.

Nonsense. Your accountant isn't even liable if you're audited by the IRS. They're not gonna give a crap you used some rando SaaS

I think you are conflating several different types of liability here.

If: i)your accountant messes up due to negligence or worse, ii) you get audited, and iii) it turns out you owe far more than you thought, then you are liable to the Govt for the extra amount owed. The accountant may be liable to you for professional negligence, damages etc. Your damages against the accountant are not the extra amount owed (because it is what you should have paid in the first place), but losses caused by the mistake. In the above scenario, the Gov't may assess a "penalty" and/or "fee" for late payment of taxes, but those fees are usually waived and/or extremely nominal. In the above-scenario, criminal liability simply does not happen. The above is not legal advice.

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

#353

Post by jedberg » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #343

jedberg wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thus forcing the businesses to pay or be punished. The business likely has the option of not passing the cost along to the consumer, but in the end they are the one being forced to pay the state.

No, they are forced into being tax collection agents. But they aren’t being forced. They could just not sell to people in that state if they don’t like it.

For example, at my company, I won’t hire anyone from Kentucky because their employment costs are too high. It’s a choice I get to make. I limit my employee pool but I also avoid costs I don’t like.

Being based in California I can’t choose to follow California tax law or not, but I also get to vote here.

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

#354

Post by delinka » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:10 PM UTC

PurpleBoxDragon wrote: post #343

jedberg wrote: post #293

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Thus forcing the businesses to pay or be punished. The business likely has the option of not passing the cost along to the consumer, but in the end they are the one being forced to pay the state.

They are not forcing the business to pay, they are forcing them to collect.

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

#355

Post by Androider » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:11 PM UTC

jeffmould wrote: post #15

omfg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We’ve been looking at tech solutions for calculation / remittance. So far only found Avalara. I’d be surprised if PayPal, Stripe, and others won’t step into this now that it’ll be fairly profitable.

Stripe already recommends Avalara and a couple others: https://stripe.com/docs/orders/tax-integration

It doesn't really work very well together at all unless you're using Stripe Orders for physical products. You can't make the Stripe checkout.js show taxes, and it's just a big pain to integrate the API. There's a big opportunity for Stripe here to make it really simple, I would be happy to pay extra to have them completely deal with it.

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

#356

Post by mlindner » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:12 PM UTC

myrandomcomment wrote: post #335

kels wrote: post #258

What no one is talking about here is how this would be handled, especially for a small online sellers. There are almost 10,000 tax jurisdictions ( https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/mccon... ) and you're not allowed to collect sales tax unless you register for that jurisdiction. There is also a fee collected by most jurisdictions to register and most make you send in periodic reports, even if you…

Read the story... "...South Dakota, whose law requires retailers with more than $100,000 in sales or 200 transactions annually in the state to pay a 4.5 percent tax on purchases" "..Kennedy’s majority opinion strongly suggested the measure was constitutional, in part because it has the $100,000 threshold and doesn’t try to impose retroactive taxation." A clear bar is set for what is covered here and what is a burden.

$100,000 in sales is a very low bar. That's equivalent to a business with a single employee, the owner, and they're probably not making a livable wage yet.

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

#357

Post by latortuga » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

redbeard0x0a wrote: post #236

gregrata wrote: post #125

Isn't this at some level taxation without representation? If I don't like how some other state is taxing, I can't alter that behaviour by voting. At least in my current state I might have a chance to do so.

The taxation is on the person living in that state. Most states require that a person buys something and doesn't pay sales tax, they are supposed to self-report and pay the tax. (Most people don't).

Yes, I believe the term for this is "use tax".

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

#358

Post by Spooky23 » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:14 PM UTC

delinka wrote: post #351

Spooky23 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

States want to collect taxes. Now that they have a consistent policy position, you may see interstate agreements to harmonize collection. There is already a precedent with DMV data sharing agreements, and some states will collect sales taxes for others as well.

"...and some states will collect sales taxes for others as well." I'm having a hard time coming up with an example where this makes any sense. Can you elaborate?

Sure. New York and New Jersey collect sales taxes for each other as an example.

http://www.state.nj.us/treasury/taxation/pdf/pubs/sales/prio...

It’s a big deal for cars — without this people in NYC metro would have a hard time otherwise.

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

#359

Post by CodeWriter23 » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:20 PM UTC

delinka wrote: post #347

eric_h wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who grew up in a house who's mailing address and zip code were for a different town and county from the actual physical location of the house (it was just past the border) - I can't even begin to imagine how to actually do this completely correctly.

Apple has asked me several times in the past for online purchases. I enter a ZIP code, they do some lookup and ask me to choose the county I live in from a list of three. I choose, and based on that they calculate tax.

That’s great until one has customers living in Los Angeles City vs. Los Angeles County. The city charges its own sales and use tax, I believe it’s an additional 0.25%.

And then factor in “Enterprise Zones” where even different portions of cities have different tax rates.

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

#360

Post by michaelt » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 7:21 PM UTC

eli_gottlieb wrote: post #336

lightbyte wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is another needless regulation that creates more useless rent-seekers?

So the internet imposes a moral requirement for all states/provinces to have uniform sales taxes or value-added taxes?

Not moral, but some would say being a single country imposes a certain practical requirement that the taxes not be too complicated, if we agree commerce is a good thing and waste is a bad thing.