Sneaky new internet tax pushing through fast

Guys, people on both sides of this issue are making valid points and there is a common thread that runs through all of it. I'm telling you, it's the failure of common ascent to social contract. There is no difference between Leona Hemsley and the millions of people in the US whose career objective is to become a 300 pound parasite. Simply stated, there is a price that ALL of us must pay for the benefits associated with living together as a society. Until and unless JFK's encouragement to think beyond ourselves becomes the predominant attitude, we will suffer from bloated government, unsustainable entitlements, and class warfare.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to fix the internet sales problem. You simply collect tax based on the state of the seller, not the buyer. This means the small sellers don't file taxes in 50 states, they collect and file taxes in the state in which they are located. If I live in one state and drive to another, I don't ask the merchants in the state I am visiting to send sales tax back to my home state.

Brownsfan, great points about "ascent to a social contract". That requires an honor system which most people feel doesn't apply to themselves, only others.

My point about Max Baccus former staffers going to work for Wall Street is that all these staffers do is prowl the halls of Congress lobbying for their clients who want nothing but to change the tax code. When people hear the word lobbyists, they think of roads, harbors, shopping malls and other mundane things but the lions share of lobbying is for tax breaks. There were only about 300 lobbyist in Reagans time and now there's over 3,000. They had to devote a street to them to accommodate their lives and access to seek out politicians. It's called K Street since that's where most of them live. K Street is always mentioned in the news as shorthand for lobbyists and the high and mighty they represent. These lobbyist and staffers go back and forth switching from public work to private work in their careers writing legislation that screws us to the benefit of their clients. They know the system inside out. Lots of times they don't even bother to wait to come back to public work as a staffer and just write the laws themselves and give to their friends in the Congressman or Senators office to have them sign it as if they wrote it themselves.

Until money is taken out of politics, Citizens United is overturned (corporations are not people and money is not the same thing as speech) and public financing is the ONLY way to fund elections, all bets are off. All discussion is academic. Any conclusion, moot.

Thank goodness we have this hobby to escape to. It's the only real solace I get nowadays, which, come to think of it, aptly describes an audiophile.
:-)

All the best,
Nonoise

Reckless they are!,why would we need to bail out the goverment with more tax money when they cannot even manage what they already have coming in!, In there pockets our money goes! LOL!,,,, cheers!

If you collect taxes in the seller's state it's not a sales tax, it's an excise tax. I don't believe that the states are going to stand for that. They want their piece of the pie that has been disappearing (been previously uncollectible) on the internet. This is not a difficult thing to accomplish; many online retailers that have B&M stores implement it now. It simply needs to be setup and administered by the B2C web portal engine. Trust me, these guys are all working on this as a value added service. My guess is that these sites will work as clearinghouses and process the funds collected on your behalf - for a fee, of course. The question is what will happen if and when an online retailer is audited, and by whom?

With all the ways to skin a cat, it doesn't pay to be of the feline variety.