[PCWorld]

Post your comments for Coming Soon: More Online Taxes? here

[daniel142005]

Well hell, why not tax shipping as well? This is already going to discourage people from buying online, taxing digitally downloaded products/services may be one thing, but taxing goods that already have a shipping and handling fee is dumb. You might as well just go to the store and get it...

[phillypa800]

yet another U.S governmental greed and agenda that will hurt an already oppressed economy by collecting more taxes for rendered goods. what a way to abuse the american shopping spirit. keep up the terrible work nationalists.
pfff!

[Rocker452]

Way to go goverment. These people say no new taxes to get elected then come up with new ways to tax us once elected. This will hurt online sales since there will be no advantage to buying online. Goverment has to make money omewhere to makeup for the cuts they give us elsewhere. Its a vicious cycle.

[daniel142005]

I agree, why not just make illegal drugs legal and tax those? Sure people may die faster, but the government doesn't think long-term right? The rest of the money could be used to increase law enforcement or something, kinda like how the lottery was supposed to give money to education?

[RNR19952]

Why can't Government just cut down on spending? Every time they need money they tax us and cut services we need. Meanwhile they give away our tax dollars for pet pork projects. When will it end?

[number6]

Exactly. The government wastes billions of dollars over seas but can't afford what they're doing over hear. They need to cut taxes and spending.

[jcastle]

What I don't understand is do Amazon and Overstock have a physical presence in New York? Has some over ruled the US Supreme Court? If these companies do have a physical presence then New York should be able to collect the tax. If not how can they get away with it. Why didn't these companies go to Federal Court?

[mcbarker]

daniel142005 said:

Well hell, why not tax shipping as well? This is already going to discourage people from buying online, taxing digitally downloaded products/services may be one thing, but taxing goods that already have a shipping and handling fee is dumb. You might as well just go to the store and get it...

Sears did charge a shipping tax many years ago, until they were sued for doing so.



All States, which have a sales tax, require that you pay taxes on goods bought online. It's called a Use Tax. You are required to declare the amount of Use Tax owed when you file your State income tax form each year. Few people do, but if you're caught (I was once), you have to pay the back taxes, plus interest, plus a penalty fee. I ended up paying more than double what I would have paid if I had declared the tax owed in a timely manner.

[mcbarker]

phillypa800 said:

yet another U.S governmental greed and agenda that will hurt an already oppressed economy by collecting more taxes for rendered goods. what a way to abuse the american shopping spirit. keep up the terrible work nationalists.

pfff!

It has nothing to do with the U.S. Government. It's the States which are, and have been for years, fighting this battle to collect taxes. Many online vendors are automatically collecting State's taxes now as a matter of business.

[mcbarker]

daniel142005 said:

I agree, why not just make illegal drugs legal and tax those? Sure people may die faster, but the government doesn't think long-term right? The rest of the money could be used to increase law enforcement or something, kinda like how the lottery was supposed to give money to education?

I agree. We're overpopulated anyway. What does it matter if a bunch of crackheads fry themselves into a coffin. Few of them contribute anything positive to society.

As for the lottery... Well, it does teach us that gambling isn't smart, so I suppose it could be considered educational... kind of.

[mcbarker]

> On the note about Amazon, I recently came across an interesting table that details the discounts on Amazon at www.uberi.com

Maybe that will help some others.
[/quote]


Amazon's discounts are a sham in most cases. I've seen items "discounted" on their site, which cost more than the manufacturer's suggested retail price. I even wrote to them, itemizing some of the items in question. They didn't respond.

[mcbarker]

[quote name='RNR19952']Why can't Government just cut down on spending? Every time they need money they tax us and cut services we need. Meanwhile they give away our tax dollars for pet pork projects. When will it end?
[/quote]


Not only pork barrel projects, but also corporate welfare. An example would be McDonalds getting millions of dollars to subsidize their advertising. This is happening with multi-billion dollar corporations throughout the U.S... Even the ones which ship American jobs overseas.

[mcbarker]

[quote name='number6']Exactly. The government wastes billions of dollars over seas but can't afford what they're doing over hear. They need to cut taxes and spending.
[/quote]


You can't pay for pork barrel projects, corporate welfare, humanitarian aid, several wars, and company bail outs, AND cut taxes. That's partially why we're in our current economical mess (along with lax oversight of questionable business practices).

[number6]

I'd say the economic difficulties we're having are due more to the Federal Reserve printing and lending fiat money. They need to be shut down. The housing market collapsed because of the Community Reinvestment Act which forced banks to lend to unqulified borrowers which led to too much credit, too much spending, not enough production, etc.



The sales tax seem ridiculous to me. If they need more money, stop spending so much.