Supreme Court overturns Quill, subjects all internet transactions to sales tax

[Santo10Fan]

Today is a day many of us have known would come. It was a 5-4 decision. While many giant etailers already collect tax, I feel ebay sellers like many on this board are going to feel the change most. The Post mentions over 11,000 jurisdictions affected-so municipalities will get their taste as well.

[KMayUSA6060]

No further comment.

[Leon]

As a small business owner, so far, I want to see how this plays out. There should have already been taxes being collected on many items. A lot of my ebay stuff has sales tax added. All (or almost all) of my Amazon purchases do.

This law could help the small, especially brick and mortar businesses, who get hurt by the current law. We shall see. I am generally never in favor of new taxes otherwise.

[frankbmd]

Fortunately we (Net54) already have this covered

Buy
Sell
Tax

[steve B]

With a small seller, which tax gets charged? Does the sale happen where I am? Where they are?

If I buy something from a seller in NH, which has no sales tax do I pay the MA rate? And if I do, then as it probably works now, the seller gets the MA sales tax and has to file forms to pay it. And probably the forms to be allowed to collect it. Being in NH they probably won't do that, so they benefit by 6.25%
If I sell something to someone in NH, will I have to collect the 6.25% that I'll probably owe Mass?

What a miserable decision. The overhead alone of tracking what's owed to who will probably kill off most small sellers.

[Santo10Fan]

Originally Posted by steve B

With a small seller, which tax gets charged? Does the sale happen where I am? Where they are?

If I buy something from a seller in NH, which has no sales tax do I pay the MA rate? And if I do, then as it probably works now, the seller gets the MA sales tax and has to file forms to pay it. And probably the forms to be allowed to collect it. Being in NH they probably won't do that, so they benefit by 6.25%
If I sell something to someone in NH, will I have to collect the 6.25% that I'll probably owe Mass?

What a miserable decision. The overhead alone of tracking what's owed to who will probably kill off most small sellers.

As best I can tell, the sales tax charge will be based on the seller's zip code. The burden will then be on the seller to determine if the item falls under state, local and county tax codes.

[glchen]

Originally Posted by Santo10Fan

As best I can tell, the sales tax charge will be based on the seller's zip code. The burden will then be on the seller to determine if the item falls under state, local and county tax codes.

I think it will be based upon the buyer's ship to zip code, and not the seller's zip code. Therefore, unless ebay changes their software to automatically collect the tax for all sellers, each seller may have to collect tax for all of their buyers and then send these taxes that they collected to all 50 states (or those that have a sales tax), which would be a huge pain. Right now, I only collect tax for buyers in California, and I have to complete a form every year for that. If I have to do that for all 50 states, it would be a tremendous overhead.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Leon

As a small business owner, so far, I want to see how this plays out. There should have already been taxes being collected on many items. A lot of my ebay stuff has sales tax added. All (or almost all) of my Amazon purchases do.

This law could help the small, especially brick and mortar businesses, who get hurt by the current law. We shall see. I am generally never in favor of new taxes otherwise.

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.

[Leon]

We can play semantics all you want. It's taxes being collected that weren't before. Maybe they shoulda, coulda, woulda, but they weren't.
But again, please call it whatever you want to. As I said, I think it could help some small brick and mortar retail sales stores and they are the ones that seem to be hit hardest by the internet sales tax avoidance issues.

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.

[BobC]

Originally Posted by Leon

We can play semantics all you want. It's taxes being collected that weren't before. Maybe they shoulda, coulda, woulda, but they weren't.
But again, please call it whatever you want to. As I said, I think it could help some small brick and mortar retail sales stores and they are the ones that seem to be hit hardest by the internet sales tax avoidance issues.

Leon,

Not sure I'd call it semantics but, as a small business owner yourself, I understand where you are coming from and what you mean by it. Though the Sales and Use taxes themselves aren't new taxes per se, what is new is who they are now going to look to for going after and collecting these taxes, and then sending the money to the state. The actual sales tax doesn't come out of your pocket but, the hassle, work, time and expense of collecting and remitting it to the state is now possibly on you and other small business owners, as well as the big online retailers. I understand exactly where you are coming from. It's potentially new tax compliance requirements on small sellers like yourself, not new taxes.

[steve B]

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.

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.

[keithsky]

Just another way to generate more money for the stinking politicians and their pork projects

[Exhibitman]

Originally Posted by Leon

As a small business owner, so far, I want to see how this plays out. There should have already been taxes being collected on many items. A lot of my ebay stuff has sales tax added. All (or almost all) of my Amazon purchases do.

This law could help the small, especially brick and mortar businesses, who get hurt by the current law. We shall see. I am generally never in favor of new taxes otherwise.

I agree with all except the last sentence: this is not the enactment of a new tax. This is a court ruling overturning a prior court ruling that banned the enforcement of an existing tax. Nor does it inflict a new burden on the buyer. If your state collects sales tax you are supposed to pay a corresponding use tax on anything you bring into the state untaxed. It is supposed to equalize the playing field for local businesses. Fact is, most people don't bother to pay the use tax, they just blow it off, so it feels like a new tax. But it isn't.

Where the real new tax will come is when Congress enacts a value added tax (VAT) on each level of sale, which exists in virtually all other Western nations.

[TaxMechanick]

I agree with everything Adam just said.

Glenn

[Leon]

Below what I had said, I said I know it was not a new tax. But in reality *(as in really paying) it is for a lot of people. As you might remember I sold computers and services for many years. I fought this issue many, many years ago when I sold out of a brick and mortar and the internet popped up. I was at an immediate tax disadvantage. At that time, this mess was just starting and usury taxes weren't as talked about as they have been since then, at least from what I remember in pre-internet sales days.

Originally Posted by Exhibitman

I agree with all except the last sentence: this is not the enactment of a new tax. This is a court ruling overturning a prior court ruling that banned the enforcement of an existing tax. Nor does it inflict a new burden on the buyer. If your state collects sales tax you are supposed to pay a corresponding use tax on anything you bring into the state untaxed. It is supposed to equalize the playing field for local businesses. Fact is, most people don't bother to pay the use tax, they just blow it off, so it feels like a new tax. But it isn't.

Where the real new tax will come is when Congress enacts a value added tax (VAT) on each level of sale, which exists in virtually all other Western nations.