I could have sworn these guys were about lower taxes and limited federal authority. This guy has had a hard on for taxes to be collected on out-of-state Internet sales for years and he's determined to make it happen this year. Even Paul Ryan is on board.
A new Republican proposal to resolve the long-running fight over taxing internet sales across state lines drew praise from Amazon.com Inc. and House Speaker Paul Ryan, but other retailers and conservative groups remain wary.
Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R., Va.), Judiciary Committee chairman and the draft bill’s author, must persuade conservatives he isn’t pushing a tax increase or a sharp expansion of state power. And his idea hasn’t caught on yet with brick-and-mortar retailers, state governments and lawmakers who spent years advancing their own solution.
The Senate passed such legislation in 2013, but it has gone nowhere in the House, where Mr. Goodlatte spent years on his own alternative. This week, he released a new draft and a committee aide said Mr. Goodlatte wants it to become law this year.
He's looking to do something during the lame-duck session between the November elections and January. Yay limited government!!
What does it say when the Democrat is the one making sense in this conversation?
“I am shocked Republicans would propose an internet sales tax,” said Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.) “This proposal would create a logistical nightmare for states like Oregon that don’t have or want sales taxes. I will continue to oppose any efforts to impose a national sales tax scheme on Oregonians.”
Wait a minute... I have to pay sales tax to the state of Va for online purchases as it it. If this bill passes, it's going to drive the tax rate so high, I think it will put a huge hit in ecommerce in states like ours.
There is no way I am paying state and federal sales taxes when damn near 100% of everything on the internet is available at a store near me.
OK, I’m agin’ all taxes, and I’m agin’ any and all expanded (and the majority of existing) powers of the federal (or, for that matter, the state) government. This country, our state and all of us poor put-upon taxpayers need new taxes and expanded government powers and regulation like (as my pappy might have said) a hawg needs seven @ssholes. On that I think I’m on the same page with y’all.
But I don’t see anything at all wrong with making sales over the internet subject to the same taxes under the same terms and conditions as sales made face-to-face and sales made through other electronic means like telephone, e-mail and fax. We have to pay for our state government somehow, and sales taxes, while some deride them as "regressive" are the one tax where there are no "free riders" who are not paying that tax and are, while sitting on their @sses for a living, being given part of the taxes us working folks pay. Why should an online merchant, who already enjoys the significant advantages of having no bricks-and-mortar store and frequently no inventory to carry be given yet another advantage over local merchants by being subsidized by exempting them from sales taxes?
Right now, if you pick up the phone, send a fax, or send an e-mail to an out-of-state merchant and buy goods that are not exempt from sales taxes, that is already a taxable transaction under the Virginia Sales and Use Tax statute. For years, the Va. Dept of Taxation has been going out of state and auditing sellers for sales into Virginia and assessing tax on those sales; both to the sellers and the buyers. Why should a sale consummated over a website be any different? Given the state of information technology these days (and its almost inconsequential cost) there is absolutely no way any seller can make the case with a straight face that he cannot cope with the record keeping required to collect the proper sales tax. And why should a state like Oregon be allowed, because their circumstances and tax scheme are structured to raise money on some basis other than a sales tax, to became a no-sales-tax haven and undermine the revenues of a state like Virginia where the money-raising scheme is dependent in no small part on a sales tax? Remember that Article IV, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, known as the "Full Faith and Credit Clause", addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the "public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.". So there is nothing new about requiring an Oregonian who sells goods in Virginia to observe Virginia tax laws as to that sale. It’s not a new tax, and it’s not an expanded power of any government.
So, somebody enlighten me; what’s so special about online transactions that they are entitled to be exempt from laws and regulations that apply to that same transaction if accomplished through some other medium?
"The Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference." -Thomas Jefferson
Gun-crazy? Me? I'd say the gun-crazy ones are the ones that don’t HAVE one.
