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Net taxes could arrive by this fall
Net taxes could arrive by this fall
http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6...ml?tag=nl.e622 The era of tax-free e-mail, Internet shopping and broadband connections could end this fall, if recent proposals in the U.S. Congress prove successful. State and local governments this week resumed a push to lobby Congress for far-reaching changes on two different fronts: gaining the ability to impose sales taxes on Net shopping, and being able to levy new monthly taxes on DSL and other connections. One senator is even predicting taxes on e-mail. At the moment, states and municipalities are frequently barred by federal law from collecting both access and sales taxes. But they're hoping that their new lobbying effort, coordinated by groups including the National Governors Association, will pay off by permitting them to collect billions of dollars in new revenue by next year. If that doesn't happen, other taxes may zoom upward instead, warned Sen. Michael Enzi, a Wyoming Republican, at a Senate hearing on Wednesday. "Are we implicitly blessing a situation where states are forced to raise other taxes, such as income or property taxes, to offset the growing loss of sales tax revenue?" Enzi said. "I want to avoid that." A flurry of proposals that pro-tax advocates advanced this week push in that direction. On Tuesday, Enzi introduced a bill that would usher in mandatory sales tax collection for Internet purchases. Second, during a House of Representatives hearing the same day, politicians weighed whether to let a temporary ban on Net access taxes lapse when it expires on November 1. A House backer of another pro-sales tax bill said this week to expect a final version by July. "The independent and sovereign authority of states to develop their own revenue systems is a basic tenet of self government and our federal system," said David Quam, director of federal relations at the National Governors Association, during a Senate Commerce committee hearing on Wednesday. Internet sales taxes At the moment, for instance, Seattle-based Amazon.com is not required to collect sales taxes on shipments to millions of its customers in states like California, where Amazon has no offices. (Californians are supposed to voluntarily pay the tax owed when filing annual state tax returns, but few do.) Ideas to alter this situation hardly represent a new debate: officials from the governors' association have been pressing Congress to enact such a law for at least six years. They invoke arguments--unsuccessful so far--like saying that reduced sales tax revenue threatens budgets for schools and police. But with Democrats now in control of both chambers of Congress, the political dynamic appears to have shifted in favor of the pro-tax advocates and their allies on Capitol Hill. The NetChoice coalition, which counts as members eBay, Yahoo and the Electronic Retailing Association and opposes the sales tax plan, fears that the partisan shift will spell trouble. One long-standing objection to mandatory sales tax collection, which the Supreme Court in a 1992 case left up to Congress to decide, is the complexity of more than 7,500 different tax agencies that each have their own (and frequently bizarre) rules. Some legal definitions (PDF) tax Milky Way Midnight candy bars as candy and treat the original Milky Way bar as food. Peanut butter Girl Scout cookies are candy, but Thin Mints or Caramel deLites are classified as food. The pro-tax forces say that a concept called the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement will straighten out some of the notorious convolutions of state tax laws. Enzi's bill, introduced this week, relies on the agreement when providing "federal authorization" to require out-of-state retailers "to collect and remit the sales and use taxes" due on the purchase. (Small businesses with less than $5 million in out-of-state sales are exempted.) It's "important to level the playing field for all retailers," Enzi said during Wednesday's hearing. |
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#2
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Net taxes could arrive by this fall
I don't understand what their big concern is. Mail order has been
around forever, and it works the same, as best I understand, as e- purchases. If there is a physical presence in a state, the state(s) gets its sales tax. |
#3
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Net taxes could arrive by this fall
kathy1945 wrote:
I don't understand what their big concern is. Mail order has been around forever, and it works the same, as best I understand, as e- purchases. If there is a physical presence in a state, the state(s) gets its sales tax. The Tax Person wants to collect whether there is a physical presence or not. In the last 2000 years only two (2) tax collectors went straight-Matthew and Zacchaeus. |
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Net taxes could arrive by this fall
"Jim Higgins" wrote in message ... Net taxes could arrive by this fall http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6...ml?tag=nl.e622 This is a bunch of HORSE ****! |
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Net taxes could arrive by this fall
PC wrote:
"Jim Higgins" wrote in message ... Net taxes could arrive by this fall http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6...ml?tag=nl.e622 This is a bunch of HORSE ****! I hope so but never underestimate the greed of a tax collector. |
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Net taxes could arrive by this fall
"Jim Higgins" wrote in message ... PC wrote: "Jim Higgins" wrote in message ... Net taxes could arrive by this fall http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6...ml?tag=nl.e622 This is a bunch of HORSE ****! I hope so but never underestimate the greed of a tax collector. The tax collector is just doing his job (you DO want gummint employees to earn their salaries, no?). It's the politicians that we have to thank for making the job what it is. Not only that, but the biggest line item in any gummint budget is for graft and corruption. If we could get rid of that, all legitimate gummint lines would suddenly be awash in funds. James |
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