Quote:
Originally Posted by BobC
Leon,
These aren't NEW taxes. States have had Sales AND Use tax laws in effect so that if the seller isn't required to collect the Sales tax, the buyer is supposed to report and pay the comparable Use tax on what they purchased. Very few people voluntarily do this. Just look back at the threads where people complain about having to pay Sales taxes on auction winnings from some AHs and not others.
It is exactly because of all those people that have not followed the law and properly calculated and paid the Use tax on their online and other such purchases that the states have had to resort to finally going after the large online retailers to make them start collecting it. To try going after all the individual buyers would be unbelievably complicated, difficult, and most likely political suicide for any state politicians who tried to get that going and backed such a plan. By going after the big online retailers instead, the states can get more revenue all at once than they would by trying to go after each individual buying online. And even though the individual consumers/buyers would still end up ultimately paying the sales taxes, the states and politicians have a little more cushion and less direct anger by not going directly against the individual buyers themselves.
On the state's side of things, as more and more people switch to online/internet buying, the states are losing out on Sales tax revenue they used to get from the brick and mortar stores. It is also helping to more quickly kill off many brick and mortar stores as they can't compete with online retailer prices. When the buyers know they aren't going to get charged Sales tax from an online vendor but, if they buy the exact same item from a store down the street from where they live, they know they are going to get charged sales tax at the store. So guess where the buyer is more likely to make their purchase from, especially the higher the price of the item they are looking to buy?
All the states are trying to do is figure out how to best get the current laws on their books complied with by the buyers, the majority of whom seem to always be trying to figure out how to get around paying Sales or Use taxes they actually owe.
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So if I get back to selling off my extra stuff,
I should bear the burden of
A) Figuring out what your state tax is
B) Finding out if you have a county and /or city sales tax
C) Filing paperwork with possibly multiple agencies and paying multiple agencies whatever that tax comes out to.
D) figuring out how to pay them, because I'm sure some will only take electronic payments and filings, others will want hard copies, etc.
Because it's "too unbelievably complicated/ difficult" for the state to handle their own tax collection in THEIR state?
Hey, how about we just make sure that every store makes the customer total their own sale, and handle their own paying, and if it's cash make their own change. Cause, you know all that stuff about getting paid is just way too hard.....
So if I sell a couple 1981 Topps commons to someone, it looks like I'll have a couple hours of overhead. Because politicians and their relatives they've made tax collectors are too lazy.
The only local card shops that have survived are the ones that are good at using the internet. That's true for a lot of small businesses.
This won't help brick and mortar at all, and I believe it will essentially shut down many small businesses especially ones that deal in hobby stuff.