California Assembly Approves $1 Billion "Internet Tax"

[Greg Tito]

California Assembly Approves $1 Billion "Internet Tax"

The Assembly of California passed a bill that would allow the state to collect taxes from online retailers like Amazon.

Americans are all guilty of buying stuff online without paying the sales tax on it. Technically, if we live in a state with a sales tax, we are supposed to declare the purchase on our tax return and pay the piper, but who has the time (or conscience big enough) to go through all that trouble?

Internet retailers have so far lobbied to keep such transactions tax free, keeping the onus of payment on the customer, but a bill passed today in California would allow the state to tax retailers to the tune of $1 billion. The bill now must make it past the State Senate before becoming law.

Charles Calderon, the Democrat who proposed the law, says that he's not in favor of creating a new tax, just making it legal for California to collect taxes he feels the state is owed. Republicans rejected the bill because they believed attempting to regulate the internet is a losing proposition.

I'm of two minds on this law. One, the government doesn't have the money to pay for basic human services so the fact that online retailers might be circumventing their god-given duty to pay taxes really grates my cheese.

On the other hand, I don't want to pay any more taxes when I buy the new George R. R. Martin book in July [http://www.amazon.com/Dance-Dragons-Song-Fire-Book/dp/0553801473/ref=tmm_hrd_title_0].

So yeah, I guess I'm just a bad citizen.

Source: NBC [http://www.nbclosangeles.com/news/politics/Amazon-Tax-Bill-Passes-State-122907299.html]



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[JediMB]

And here I'm used to sales tax always (ALWAYS) being included in the price, no matter if I'm shopping online or in a physical store.

Silly US of A.

(Yeah, having to add VAT to all the prices when I was in Los Angeles back in 2007 was annoying.)

 

[Harbinger_]

I hope this doesn't mess up E-bay. It also means that if this goes up on certain sites I simply won't use them.

 

[Fappy]

Isn't this inevitable anyway? Some people predict retail in America will be almost entirely online a decade or two from now.

 

[Cipher1]

How exactly would such a tax work? would they just demand a set amount of money from Amazon and other retailers each year? and whats to stop the retailers from simply refusing to delivering to address's in California?

 

[aashell13]

I'm curious about how exactly they propose to enforce this. Suppose i'm a retail shop in Delaware who occasionally ships to a California address. How do they plan to verify compliance, and in the event I simply refuse to collect their tax, what recourse do they have? California authorities have no jurisdiction and Federal officers have no grounds to become involved since no federal laws have been broken. Besides, somebody might succeed in getting the whole law thrown out on the grounds that it is a state attempt to regulate interstate commerce, which is an exclusively Federal province.

So, I'm of the opinion that they're largely wasting their time.

 

[IzisviAziria]

I love living in Oregon.

No sales tax here

Although they compensate by having really high property taxes and income tax. *sigh*

 

[Jabberwock xeno]

Why don't we just tax email spam?

We'd be solved of all ecomonical problems in a day!

 

[Awexsome]

"Yeah, I like the stuff the government does for me so long as I don't have to pay for any of it."

Isn't that what everyone would really like?

 

[KeyMaster45]

I had no idea I was supposed to be claiming sales taxes on my returns if I bought stuff online. Damn, I guess that makes me a tax dodger or something. Oh well, I'm all for it unless of course this now means I'll be paying California a sales tax instead of my state when buying stuff online, then we have a problem. Something like this seems like it should be done at the federal level.

 

[scar_47]

Doubtful this will work if passed California would have to verify any online sales to the state and then collect from the appropriate business if this passes I could see a lot of places not wanting to deal with the hassle and just not shipping to California.

 

[crepesack]

I had to pay amazon tax anyways. They're based in my state.

 

[Torrasque]

This doesn't even make sense.
I assumed that when I bought something from someone at location A, I was paying for what they deemed a worthy price, and then I'd pay shipping. That would include the product, them packaging it, shipping it to me, and me opening it.
I'm guessing that the tax would apply to the product price?
What about stuff that moves through California? Is there going to be tax applied to my lolcat shirt if it has to move through Cali?
What about availability? Will I suddenly have to pay more if my lolcat shirt isn't available at the Colorado location, but is available in Cali?
And why the tax in the first place? They aren't providing any more services than they have in the past. And the government doesn't own the fucking internet. Hell, they have a tough enough time regulating their own sites.

This stinks of stupidity, and I hope it hits a legal brick wall.

 

[Eiv]

this happens in the uk already . on pretty much everything

 

[Roboto]

newegg.com! Oh no!

 

[Fbuh]

So there is something that republicans and I agree upon. The internet should be a sacred neutral land. I'm not sure how well this is going over with people.

 

[qbanknight]

As someone who has studied tax law, you are taxed on whatever gain in wealth you achieve. For retailers, they gain wealth by selling products. Online retailers have been avoiding this problem for years. By forcing online retailers to pay taxes that will mean they will have to start transferring the costs over to the consumer or risk losing profit. Sorry people, this was going to happen sooner or later. Might as well happen now