1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Amazon Pressured on Sales Tax

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by YankeeFan, Mar 13, 2011.

  1. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    What's the percentage of people who report sales tax while filing their income tax?
     
  2. joe

    joe Active Member

    Exactly none, which makes Booooom's suggestion pure fantasy.
     
  3. YankeeFan

    YankeeFan Well-Known Member

     
  4. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    Both pair of shoes are taxed, at exactly the same rate. If Amazon, or LLBean or Harry and David, has no physical presence in your state, then you are personally resposnible for paying the tax. Failure to do so is a crime.

    This is a matter of collection of taxes. The States want Amazon to collect the tax and issue the tax proceeds to the the respective state where a customer received an order. The States do not want to go after the customer, aka voter. So they frame the issue as Amazon isn't paying their fair share of taxes. They should go after you, the customer.
     
  5. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    A study in California found that 1.4 percent of the "required" taxes on Internet purchases are paid. So, good solution! There will only be 20 million or so scofflaws to go after! That'll work!
     
  6. heyabbott

    heyabbott Well-Known Member

    If 20 million Americans, and I'm sure that's a gross understatement, are against something, maybe the government ought not do it so surreptitiously.
     
  7. LanceyHoward

    LanceyHoward Well-Known Member

    I am from Aurora, Colorado. Aurora has a population of about 310,000 people so about 1 of every 1000 Americans live there. Let's say that on-line retailing accounts for 100 billion a year in sales. Probably a conservative estimate because Amazon alone is going to do 50 billion. So if you divide 100 billion by 1,000 the citizens of Aurora buy 100 million a year on-line. The City is probably losing seven million at a 7% tax.

    Aurora has agreed to cut its police force by 20% on a per capita basis. That seven million would go a certain distance towards paying for those cops. The police force would go from two police per 1,000 residents to 1.6 per 1,000 residents.

    I don't like to pay taxes either. But at what point does allowing tax avoidance become nihilistic? My wife is from Latin America from a country where tax collections are a joke. This country not have a better police force than Aurora and it not a more pleasant place to live. So winking at tax avoidance like this is just turning us into another third world country.
     
  8. franticscribe

    franticscribe Well-Known Member

    The problem is that Amazon has claimed a First Amendment right to withhold the names and purchases of its customers from government inspection under the old booksellers rule that booksellers can assert their customers' First Amendment rights to prevent the government from seeing what books people are buying. The rule makes sense when a store only sells books. But Amazon sells everything under the sun. Yet they've been successful -- so far -- in using that argument to withhold the information.

    Unlike other states, North Carolina has not been pressuring Amazon to collect taxes on its behalf. Instead, North Carolina has been pressuring Amazon to turn over lists of purchases made in North Carolina so the state can send out the tax bills.

    So, Amazon will not collect the taxes on states behalf -- and the law says it should not have to -- and Amazon will not give the states information they need to collect the taxes themselves, which the law also -- so far -- says they do not have to do. The states are left without a way to effectively collect the tax and Amazon is left with a built in competitive advantage against Wal-Mart, Sears, etc, that it understandably wants to protect.

    Something is going to have to give.
     
  9. Shoeless Joe

    Shoeless Joe Active Member

    Let's turn this back around on the government.
    Why do people buy online to avoid sales tax? Because it's cheaper. If the government would instead focus on getting people working rather than collecting sales tax, the problem eventually not only fixes itself but pays off more in the long run.
    It's just easier for them to go after the low hanging fruit of forcing online retailers to do their dirty work rather than fix the real issue and make it to where folks don't have to worry about whether they save $2-3.
     
  10. LongTimeListener

    LongTimeListener Well-Known Member

    I'd love to see what your solution is. Everyone says "create more jobs!!!!" but nobody has an idea for doing that.

    And there is very little the government can do to overcome the fixed 9.25 percent advantage an online retailer has in the state of California.
     
  11. Shoeless Joe

    Shoeless Joe Active Member

    I have solutions but none the politicians would touch with a 10-foot pole because they get their own pockets lined by the corporations who take jobs to Asia and don't want to upset the apple cart.

    Sales tax in Tennessee is 10 percent across the board, groceries and all. When I shop online, it's truly not really so much an issue that I save a buck or two. In my case, it's because I can't get what I'm looking for locally.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page