States To Vote On Internet Taxes
from the this-again? dept
Doesn't it seem that every few months there's a new discussion about whether or not to tax internet transactions? The latest is that representatives from various states, who feel they're getting ripped off by losing out on tax revenue, are going to put together a "streamlined" plan to show how online sales taxes could work. They hope that by showing this plan to Congress, they'll finally get approval to tax internet transactions. Update: The plan has been approved.
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No Subject Given
The other thing is that everyone thinks the internet is somehow this big loophole for taxation--but catalog orders follow the same rules and are a much much larger (though shrinking) amount than internet sales.
If the states or feds decide to tax internet sales, the companies will all just move their servers offshore and probably take jobs with them. People who purchase onlne tend to be extremely cost sensitive and will buy from the cheapest place they can find. If one supplier charges X and another charges X plus 5% tax, who are you going to buy from? The net effect is that it will be counter productive to charge taxes on internet sales and will result in lower tax revenues.
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Death to capitalism
And how does this work across countries borders?
The capitalist governements steal more money...
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No Subject Given
The problem with an internet tax is that consumers are easily going to notice that they have to pay that extra tax on every purchase, but unless the tax has a specific purpose, they will never notice any benefit. Put a lock on that tax towards say, education, and I'd be willing to consider that it has some benefit outside of more money in the government's pocket for them to burn. Otherwise, it's just going to breed contempt with the taxpayers.
I didn't actually read the article.
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