Did You Wait Too Long? (Page 6): I wondered when they were going to get around to this. They already got Amazon and a few other giants to charge state taxes everywhere. This will...

jeep_daddy Loc: Prescott AZ

I wondered when they were going to get around to this. They already got Amazon and a few other giants to charge state taxes everywhere. This will probably hurt the ecommerce businesses but it may help brick & mortar stores.

Rickyb

This is just an other Taxiholic gemik for states. The more they get, the more they waste!

Bulldog1jack Loc: CT

SharpShooter wrote:

This will do a little more than just help level the playing field.
Apart from the amount of the tax itself, I can see this being an accounting nightmare!!
Imagine the bookkeeping involved in collecting 50 different tax rates and returning that to those states? What about other countries??
The tax plus the manpower!!! We’ll see an immediate 10% rise in internet prices.
SS

50 States tax rates! New York has 77 alone! Nightmare is an understatement.

dsmeltz Loc: Philadelphia

alx wrote:

And I am counting the days till I can retire to Co... (show quote)

Another oddity in NJ. Toll bridges going between NJ and PA or between NJ and NY charge the toll when you leave NJ but not when you enter. In short they only charge to get out of NJ.

tropics68 Loc: Georgia

JohnSwanda wrote:

I'm sure someone will come up with a computerized database service of state and local taxes for merchants, which will be cheaper than having each company's accountant do it by hand.

What about the small one man band?

I don't know about the other 49 states but Georgia has a myriad of special interest taxes which can vary from county to county and there are 159 of them. The county I live in is 7% the adjoining counties vary from 5 to 8%. Years ago when I had to collect sales taxes in my little family business, it would take me at least an hour filling out the state forms and breaking down for the state which tax jurisdiction I collected from, and how much was collected. That was just one state. Imagine Joe Lunchbucket with a little business on Ebay. Now he has to file forms each month for 50 states and hundreds of tax districts. A nightmare! Simply knowing how much each district requires is not the problem. It is filing all those reports every month. Each state gets a report and the report has to break down how much was collected and from which tax jurisdiction it was collected from. Joe Lunchbucket will likely have to give up the ghost. The biggies like Amazon, B&H, Walmart, etc. already have dedicated divisions/departments just to handle sales taxes, so it is really no big deal for them.

PS. In Georgia you must file a sales tax report monthly even if you did not collect one red cent. If you have a sales tax license you have to file.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

As always these conversations tend to miss the real point. Taxes themselves (unlike radically high interest) are for the good of us all. I think we all want roads, police, public health, education and many more things the government provides. What we should worry about and advocate for is a better use of our taxes. Our governments do a lot of good for the people but they also make some horrible and wasteful decisions (not unlike private companies). In some ways the government is less accountable than private companies because private companies can go out of business if they make bad decisions (unless the government makes a bad decision and bails them out--only if they are big).

The internet is a pretty new development (at least for those of us who grew up before it and have a longer perspective) and the law is slow in catching up with new developments. But it was probably inevitable that they would level the playing field--I for one miss the small stores which should be the backbone of our economy. It's kind of ironic that this Republican Supreme Court would decide for more taxes.

So, that's just another perspective.

avman Loc: Normal IL

SharpShooter wrote:

This will do a little more than just help level the playing field.
Apart from the amount of the tax itself, I can see this being an accounting nightmare!!
Imagine the bookkeeping involved in collecting 50 different tax rates and returning that to those states? What about other countries??
The tax plus the manpower!!! We’ll see an immediate 10% rise in internet prices.
SS

At least 10%. I am in favor of removing exemptions from laws and retiring Supreme Court Justices, or any governmental employee at the mandatory retirement age imposed upon the rest of the nation....then maybe those who make these rulings will feel the pinch of their rulings as does the rest of the population

PGHphoto Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

SharpShooter wrote:

This will do a little more than just help level the playing field.
Apart from the amount of the tax itself, I can see this being an accounting nightmare!!
Imagine the bookkeeping involved in collecting 50 different tax rates and returning that to those states? What about other countries??
The tax plus the manpower!!! We’ll see an immediate 10% rise in internet prices.
SS

Should be a very minor accounting issue - after the tax rates are assembled. All the work on purchases can be easily done with the purchasing software and using some master list of sales tax by zip code. Only minor issue I see is with locations like Allegheny county in PA (Pittsburgh) where there is an additional 1% sales tax applied for regional projects. Not sure if ZIP codes could be used for that.

tommystrat Loc: Bigfork, Montana

jaycoffman wrote:

It's kind of ironic that this Republican Supreme Court would decide for more taxes.

So, that's just another perspective.

It's called State's rights, and is the premise upon which our constitutional Republic (NOT a "democracy") was founded. The "Republican Supreme Court" as you erroneously call it simply ruled that the States have the right to levy a STATE sales tax on business conducted in their state, either physically or via cyber commerce. More of delegating power to the States and less of the "Federal government solves everything, just needs more money to do it" would be most welcome... IMHO.

rcarol

mrjcall wrote:

Just ruled in the Supreme Court! Sales tax must be collected for all internet purchases.....that includes our favorite on-line camera stores! 😰. On the other hand, local/state budgets that rely on state sales taxes will not have to raise your tax bills as high (that's a joke, of course they will anyway!)

I wonder how companies are supposed to implement this mandate given that each state has their own rate. Furthermore, rates within states can vary since it's very common for local governments to tack a surcharge onto the base rate. And on top of that, how are companies supposed to distribute the money that's collected? This is a mess. It might be possible for large companies to implement a very complicated collection/distribution system but what of the small retailer that doesn't have the financial resources to comply with this mandate? What about eBay sellers? Will they have to collect taxes? This is unmanageable IMHO.

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

tommystrat wrote:

It's called State's rights, and is the premise upo... (show quote)

I don't think we interpret the 10th Amendment the same. I tend to think it only means that states have the powers not given the federal government explicitly. In this case there is a long standing legal premises that the federal government can regulate interstate commerce and it seems to me this is a clear case of interstate commerce. I agree this issue is close because it involves state taxes but it mainly involves collecting state taxes from entities in another state--interstate commerce. But the supremes have spoken (for now).

(Oh, and I do believe that at present it's pretty much a "Republican Supreme Court" although this decision proves it's not always. I also note that in other times in our lifetime it may well have been called a "Democrat Supreme Court." I think it's reasonable to note how often the present court decides for big business over people and in accord with present Republican values.)

jaycoffman Loc: San Diego

rcarol wrote:

I wonder how companies are supposed to implement t... (show quote)

Fortunately we have computers that can do that in fractions of a second.

rcarol

PGHphoto wrote:

Should be a very minor accounting issue - after the tax rates are assembled. All the work on purchases can be easily done with the purchasing software and using some master list of sales tax by zip code. Only minor issue I see is with locations like Allegheny county in PA (Pittsburgh) where there is an additional 1% sales tax applied for regional projects. Not sure if ZIP codes could be used for that.

And how do you propose that the collected monies be distributed? Can you imagine the cost involved with distributing the collected money to each zip code? This is not as simple as you would have us believe IMHO.

avman Loc: Normal IL

rcarol wrote:

And how do you propose that the collected monies be distributed? Can you imagine the cost involved with distributing the collected money to each zip code? This is not as simple as you would have us believe IMHO.

Exactly.....What does this mean for drop shippers? I sell through SmugMug. They collect the sales tax and pay Illinois. Presently, Illinois does not require purchasers outside of Illinois to pay sales tax. I believe. Perhaps governmental bodies should be mandated to devise a uniform sales tax code?

Tom

JohnSwanda Loc: San Francisco

rcarol wrote:

And how do you propose that the collected monies be distributed? Can you imagine the cost involved with distributing the collected money to each zip code? This is not as simple as you would have us believe IMHO.

If the other states do it like California, all the sales tax goes to the state, which then submits the portion which is local tax to those jurisdictions.