Internet sales tax moves to Congress' checkout lane

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

WASHINGTON — It's enough to drive a local retailer nuts.

A customer walks in to check out the merchandise on display.

He grooves to the thumping bass from that new set of speakers and flips through the channels on the latest big-screen TV.

Then he whips out a smartphone, snaps a picture of the product's bar code and emails it to an online retailer such as Amazon.com. By buying the item online, the customer avoids paying any sales tax.

FULL story at link.



Read more: http://www.omaha.com/article/20130429/NEWS/704299926/1707#internet-sales-tax-moves-to-congress-checkout-lane

[Cronus Protagonist]

1. It won't make any difference to me

I still don't have any money to buy from online OR locally.

[louis-t]

2. I understand the disadvantage to brick and mortar stores, but

the best thing a brick and mortar can do is make sure the service part is exceptional. I don't think online retailers do the service part very well.

[MrsBrady]

7. unless I know exactly what I'm getting...

I won't buy an item online.

Many places will take a return, but you'd have to eat the shipping.
Then there goes any savings.

Clothes, bedding...I'll never buy online because I don't want to pay return shipping.

[high density]

3. Glad to see Congress can come together to make sure we maximize the most regressive taxes we have

The fact is that I often buy things online because online shops actually have what I want to buy, it's vastly more convenient than the mess at the mall, and it's almost always cheaper even if I had to pay sales tax on it.

[AndyA]

4. There's more to this story.

A lot of online retailers have agreements with "affiliates" who get paid when someone buys something through a link on a website they created and maintain. That's a small business that pays taxes in the state where they're located.

Many online retailers drop affiliates when online tax bills are passed in a particular state, which essentially puts the small affiliate businesses in that state out of business.

It's already happened in several states with devastating results.

The brick and mortar stores can compete by providing SERVICE, which many don't do because they don't want to hire people. I often go online to buy because going into a store is so frustrating, when you have to spend 15 minutes trying to find someone and then they can't help you because they haven't been trained. If brick and mortar stores want customers to come in and buy things, they need to improve on their end.

[Doctor_J]

5. Squeeze some more pennies from the barely-making-it

rather than ask the Cock brothers for some dollars.

Government is broken, including the "Dem" in the white house.

[Rain Mcloud]

6. Lets just make the Rich pay their fair share of taxes

instead of throttling start up business'.

[blkmusclmachine]

8. .

.

[fasttense]

9. Local Retail stores are going nuts?????

Really? Or is it the giant corporate retail stores that are going nuts like Wal-Mart?

If you are truly a local store and sell local items, the odds are good that the items can't be found on the internet in large enough quantities to make a difference to your sales. It's not the local stores that are having problems it's the huge mega super stores that are having problems.

Besides if this tax on the internet is allowed, it will put small on-line retailer out of business. They will have to know the taxes for all 50 states and know the ins and outs of every state's exceptions and rules. For example, in TN if you sell your own produce from your farm you don't pay or collect taxes on them. Now, If I'm exempt in TN am I exempt in Iowa? In TN if more than 50% of my produce items are re-sell, then I have to collect tax on the re-sell items. How does that work in the 49 other states? Does mushroom mycelium count as produce? Do shelled peas? It took 2 classes and a talk with an accountant to figure out TN's tax laws for produce, it will take forever to figure out every state's laws and the only retailers on-line who can afford to hire an accountant to do their sales tax are the big, giant stores like Amazon.

This is just another way to take away markets from small retailers.

[grilled onions]

10. Does Anyone Remember Before Computers...

most of your catalogs had a tax chart on the page with the order form. It had a simple tax for each state and you were required to "do the math". One day that chart disappeared. Some expected you to know what your state tax was. I can remember some pulled the highest county tax in the state rather than the state tax. This was Chicago vs Illinois state tax. I dread seeing this shady shell game going on as well.