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

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

#441

Post by pessimizer » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:35 PM UTC

testvox wrote: post #417

Tloewald wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Certainly trying to use Truth in Advertising was always my first thought, but Truth in advertising laws are pretty toothless and I imagine any attempt to do something like this using that mechanism would get tied up in the courts for a long time. I would love someone to at least make the case -- it seems like a non-partisan thing, surely the free market types should be in favor of price transparency, while liberals s…

The free market types I know are generally opposed to requiring tax be included because they think it would hide the "true" cost of the tax from consumers. They seem to like when a consumer is disappointed by the difference between the base and "plus tax" price because they think it will motivate people to try to get sales taxes reduced or eliminated.

I agree, but only if they don't include the merchant's profit margin in the price, either.

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

#442

Post by CamperBob2 » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:36 PM UTC

dumbfoundded wrote: post #349

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.

Honestly, the state doesn't expect anyone to get this completely right except the largest companies. If you make a good faith effort to comply with laws, in the vast majority of cases, you're fine.

Insert obligatory Ayn Rand quote about how there’s no way to rule innocent people.

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

#443

Post by breischl » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

Tloewald wrote: post #289

beberlei wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

suddenly the EU VAT system looks awesome :-)

The US system of local sales taxes doesn't look awesome ever. If there were one economic reform I would push in the US it would be advertised price is final price (i.e. if you say "I'm selling this for $9.99" then that's all you pay, and the taxes are all inclusive) this would pretty much force underlying tax reform as businesses lost their shit having to deal with the insanity. Note that the disaster area that is US…

I've worked on price display for a large-ish company. The funny thing is that our company, and probably others, would really like to show all-in pricing! It's easier for us because we wouldn't have to do things differently in different countries.

But we can't make the switch unilaterally because if we're the only ones doing it, then we look more expensive than everyone else and lose sales. Even if the final price is the same, consumers tend to just look at the up-front cost when making buying decisions. So we'd need everyone in our market to switch, or nobody can. So basically it would need to be mandated by the government.

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

#444

Post by rossdavidh » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:37 PM UTC

TheCoreh wrote: post #26

rossdavidh wrote: post #20

I have a hunch that this will, in the end, be a massive win for large retailers vs. small ones. The task of figuring out how to calculate tax for all states is more or less the same amount of work regardless of size, which means for someone like Amazon it's more or less trivial, but for a mom-and-pop store it's a major hassle.

Payment processing services will most likely provide a solution to do this automatically. Charging credit cards is already pretty complicated, and they abstract it away already, so it would make sense for them to provide this as an additional service.

They can match up rate to location, but most jurisdictions have their own laws on what items are taxable. There are also jurisdiction-dependent tax holidays. For example, Texas has a weekend in August where certain kinds of items (that are "back-to-school" appropriate) are tax free. So you have to know not only the rate, but also the rules for categorization, and those vary by jurisdiction and time of year, sometimes differently from year to year.

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

#445

Post by graeme » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

Does this affect the sale of services or info products sold online?

I run an online business from Canada with American customers and am wondering if I'm affected. All digital products or services.

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

#446

Post by robryan » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:41 PM UTC

Tloewald wrote: post #289

beberlei wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

suddenly the EU VAT system looks awesome :-)

The US system of local sales taxes doesn't look awesome ever. If there were one economic reform I would push in the US it would be advertised price is final price (i.e. if you say "I'm selling this for $9.99" then that's all you pay, and the taxes are all inclusive) this would pretty much force underlying tax reform as businesses lost their shit having to deal with the insanity. Note that the disaster area that is US…

Yeah Australian GST is a flat 10% and doesn’t allow you to display ex GST pricing to the end customers where it applies.

I recall going to a cafe in India, looking at the menu price, handing over cash then being asked for more. It would be impossible for me to account for which taxes would be applied at what rate to work out the end price before paying.

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

#447

Post by kccqzy » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

inferiorhuman wrote: post #414

rbritton wrote: post #270

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…

> Between this and similarly far-reaching laws (e.g., GDPR), it's becoming increasingly burdensome for small players to the point where secondary services like Avalara are effectively required. Sounds like a good justification for a federal GST instead of the patchwork of (hyper) local sales taxes. I fully understand why that will never happen in the United States (states' rights), and think that it's the tax patchwo…

Local sales taxes are sometimes earmarked for a specific purpose that improves the local community. For example recently voters in the Los Angeles county approved a sales tax increase to fund new Metro lines [0]. It seems fair that since this Metro line primarily benefits residents in this region, this additional sales tax should only be charged when one buys products in this region (primarily residents). Concentrating all the money at the federal level and then redistributing doesn't seem very fair.

[0]: https://ballotpedia.org/Los_Angeles_County,_California,_Sale...

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

#448

Post by jimnotgym » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:50 PM UTC

It's a shame that this wont apply to us here in the 51st state. US companies will continue to drive on UK roads, use UK security and UK law and UK infrastructure to access UK consumers, and will continue to pay less tax than me.

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

#449

Post by imajes » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:51 PM UTC

jakejohnson wrote: post #436

imajes wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, I can tell you that taxjar is pretty light on the "I've collected taxes, now what?" side. Avalara might be a BigCo but they have their stuff together, and it works at scale for transactions (especially when dealing with refunds or discounts that need to reflect Sales Tax differentially.... oy)

Can you expand on why TaxJar seems lighter after collecting sales tax? We have a fully automated reporting and filing solution that works at scale for over 10k merchants. Disclaimer: I work at TaxJar, just curious to hear your feedback. Thanks!

Yeah, i had a client using it who found that being able to get the data into a reporting scenario so they could file was hard. Mostly it surrounded reconciliation and an ability to gain confidence that the numbers reflected actual transaction volume (it is a perishable good, so there was a reasonable quantity of discounts and refunds as delivery vendors missed targets...)

I'd also say I have a bias, as I've also used avalara a couple times before and found it to be quite a bit superior in making it seem quite a bit more effortless -- taxation is so byzantine I don't have any expectation that I could understand it, so I want to trust that the provider i use is very confident they do.

not sure if that helps a lot, but it was also a few months ago ;)

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

#450

Post by DrJokepu » Thu, Jun 21, 2018, 9:53 PM UTC

jimnotgym wrote: post #448

It's a shame that this wont apply to us here in the 51st state. US companies will continue to drive on UK roads, use UK security and UK law and UK infrastructure to access UK consumers, and will continue to pay less tax than me.

What? US companies have to pay VAT in the UK, just like anybody else.