Are The Days Of Tax-Free Internet Shopping Coming To An End?

To be honest - if bilking more money from the consumer is the way to help the economy, I guess washington has still not learned a single lesson. Get out of the financial market Congress, you have no business taking all our money and telling us how to spend it. When they throw away the budget ledger, and start fresh with heavy peer review, ok, but right now the government is so overbloated they need to stop making our lives more expensive. they already take up to 30% of our income…

Taxed for buying, taxed for earning.
Taxed for living, taxed to dying.
To think this country was founded over unfair taxation.

myeh… It was just a matter of time i guess. I just hope that they don’t put it through the roof. 5% at most please! I guess this means higher frequency of free shipping! you know, so that online stores can keep flowing, they’ll have to. Yey! or Ney???

I’ve said the same thing to Minnesota Public Radio, and I really believe that if they start taxing internet purchases, it will cause more people to pirate more even more things. Audiobooks? Pirated. Ebooks? Pirated. Music? Movies? TV Shows? Pirated. All of it. They will force people out of the legal realm where taxes actually apply, thereby earning less revenue. Taxing the internet = fail.

As a lot of Americans enjoyed prosperity and good times so did taxing authorities as revenues went up, up, up over the past years. Governments and school districts were intoxicated with the flow of monies into coffers. They hired, they spent, they gave away to the lazy so they could a have slice of the good life without having to actually, you know, work for it.

Now the good times are over. You and I have to cut back and do without. Taxing authorities, on the other hand, are addicted to the cash flow and, like any other junkie, will find and use any means necessary to continue shooting that cash influx into their veins of excess.

I have no doubt that Overpriced item + shipping for added profits + tax (which, by the way, will be on the shipping costs as well as the item price!) will probably make me decide: “No, I don’t really need it.”

I think taxing internet purchases is fine. People fight paying taxes, but they want to have their public services. Good roads, Safety, public schools, Police, Fire Fighters. The money has to come from somewhere. I think what the system needs is an overhaul of the whole tax system for the next phase of this countries development. Simpler tax code, less (NO) loop holes. Everyone pays their fair share so we can all enjoy the benefits.

Actually, whether shipping costs will be subject to sales tax would depend on whether shipping charges are taxable in the state to which the item is being shipped. This is just one more complication to the issue.

Thanks for all of the comments. I personally believe they will have to modify the way taxes on the Internet are collected. Maybe use a flat rate for every state. Small shops on the web may not have the ability to collect different tax rates.

Its high time to pass this bill, with the failing economy, people have been getting away without paying taxes from jewelry to cars. This will really help the economy IMHO.

We should absolutely tax internet purchases.

Originally the idea was to help internet commerce get off the ground.

Now, a decade later, we find that sales have unfairly shifted to internet stores. Real stores are staggering trying to keep up, and we’re seeing massive closings and layoffs.

This makes it harder for people to find jobs in their cities. Mom and pop shops also have to close their doors.

And what does it gain us? mega corporations like amazon and dell that only get more organized to send their tech support jobs to india!

I personally believe it’s time to level the playing field. Internet sales are going nowhere, and so what if their sales drop? it will just mean more jobs wherever you are located.

Hi Ron, I make a rather unique custom item, one at a time by hand. I conduct consultation via email, and send my work all over the globe. I can’t make many items, due to the nature of the hand crafting that goes into each piece. I make a few hundred a month from it, and there have been one or two months where I’ve made more. But if this bill goes through I will shut my site down; It’s absolutely impossible for me to handle nationwide sales taxes as they are right now.

Hello S.L.,
I hear you. Hopefully there will be some exemptions for people such as yourself who make minimal amounts from their sites. I believe the law will be aimed at large companies such as Amazon, eBay and like.

Why this time we will see the Internet tax:

President Obama is a strong ally of the new tax laws and is expected to sign them into law. Internet companies like Amazon.com, eBay and Google are outraged. Until now, they have remained recession proof by offering products at lower prices than comparable brick and mortar stores.

This is because congress has been unsuccessful in enacting Internet tax laws for at least seven years. They have argued that reduced sales tax revenue threatens budgets for schools and police, and say that, as a matter of fairness, online retailers should be forced to collect the same taxes that brick-and-mortar retailers do.

While these arguments have been unsuccessful so far, the National Conference of State Legislatures and its allies believe the recession has sliced into sales tax revenue so much that Congress will have to act. In addition, Obama is said to support this legislation, along with a broad coalition of Democrats in congress. A report this week from the Rockefeller Institute says that sales taxes have declined by 6.1 percent, the largest decline in half a century.

Outrage is huge. See the comments here:

http://tinyurl.com/obamawebtax

Hi Jordan,
Thanks for the link.

Just another one of those “If you make under 250,000 a year your taxes won’t increase a dime” lies. Wait til the carbon tax increases your heating and cooling bills 3000 a year.