I think sales tax should be collected on online purchases, but sales taxes (and taxes in general) are so complex, I can understand why this could be damaging to online retailers in the short term. Just to give some idea, a friend and I decided to start a t-shirt business and I decided to look into sales tax to make sure we would comply. Each state has its own state sales tax that can vary from product to product, then each county in that state could have additional sales tax on products that are different.
This quote really isn't an overstatement:
"When you come to Overstock, I’ve got to know 12,000-plus tax jurisdictions," Johnson said. "And the more types of products I sell, the more difficult it is to map to the software that’s out there."
Rip in piss hardware sales. Imagine paying state and federal tax on a 1.4k gpu
Tbh online sales should be taxed the same as every other sale, but I understand that the United States has a rather... unique tax arrangement in general. Well, calling it an arrangement implies some level of organization; hodge-podge would be more suitable
My city has one of the highest sales tax rates in the country. -while- most people in the city are on or below the poverty line. Not looking forward to having to pay my terrible city more.
I'm conflicted on this. On one hand, I'm pretty much always happy when there are less taxes being paid, but on the other hand it really is incredibly unfair that these taxes aren't being paid.
As said earlier, if the system wasn't fucking bonkers it wouldn't be that much of an issue. Its just going to suck having to pay taxes for shit like gpus or other computer parts that are more than 200~ bucks.
Sure, that would be my ideal, but there's also zero chance of it happening.
In EU, if you buy goods online (with shipping) from a different EU country, you have to pay the tax rate of your own nation.
For example, if something it sold for 100€ + VAT (assuming that's how they set prices), that means a German site has to sell it to German customers for 119€, while they have to charge Slovenian users 122€. For B2B, you just don't charge tax and that's it.
I think it's a pretty good system, though anyone with a higher tax rate might feel they got the short end of the stick.
So what’s going to happen if people from New Hampshire buy things online? We don’t have sales tax.
Nothing, assuming the court rules in favor of these states and retailers. They can't force a state to adopt a sales tax.
What's happening here is states that DO collect sales tax want that cake they're missing out on, and the B&M retailers want to stick it to online retailers.
For the short time I worked for CutCo, I learned real quick that sales tax is a really fucky thing. Sales tax inside the city limits was 8% or so, but once you were outside the city limits, sales tax dropped to 6% or so. Sales tax is a REALLY fucky thing.
And we ain't even print the tax on the labels like some countries
And you can't do 8.25% in your head
My state already does collect sales tax on online stuff... just when you do your annual taxes, not at point of sale. You have to go back on online receipts and work out the sales tax to pay what you owe. Having it done at point of sale would save a lot of work, in my case.
That sounds beyond stupid. That would be like holding onto every reciept for a year and recording it on your taxes.
A poster in this thread explained how it works in the EU, and that sounds far more reasonable to me, but I suppose the US can't do it the same way the EU does if there's a federal sales tax as well as a states' one, assuming that's correct?
I think sales taxes are generally a really bad way to be collecting revenue, as it's a regressive tax, meaning it hits the poor more than the rich. I understand why it's important to have a certain amount of government revenue raised through a sales tax, but I do think both the UK and the US reducing sales tax and increasing income tax to compensate would help with poverty in both our countries. Also, am I right in saying that America's price tags in American shops don't include sales tax, with you having to figure it out yourself? I could be totally wrong on that, but it sounds like such a pain. :P Thankfully, even if we had to do that in my country, our sales tax is 20%, so the maths is easy, but I still think it must be tedious, especially when rates change.
To be honest, America's tax system as a whole sounds like it's a total nightmare. For example, the fact that one has to fill out one's own tax returns at the end of each year seems like it'd be ball ache. In the UK, the correct amount of taxes are automatically collected from us by our employer, with them sorting out the rest. If I did some work on top of my standard job, I would be expected to declare it officially, in order to be taxed, but the system is generally reasonably simple. Even though this example was to do with income tax, it exemplifies how we have to spend so much less time thinking about this over here.
our tax system is made to be a nightmare on purpose, that way people are either forced to learn the tax code (good luck, people who study it for years still learn shit) or they use tax facilities/programs. Said tax agencies fund millions into capital hill to make sure it stays a fucking nightmare so the average person cannot do it themselves. Also more bullshit means more traps for people who don't go to said agencies, which means more penalties and money to the gov/state.
It's a good thing that you buy everything from physical stores and you don't use sites like Amazon or Newegg.
Good thinking on your part!
...right...?
Actually, there was a case where some Newegg customers got billed by their state government for unpaid sales tax, due to purchases back as old as from 2014.
Newegg Lied to Connecticut Customers, Turned over Customer Data ..
I've been looking for a chance to rant about this since last week.
I'm from the UK and went to America for the first time last week, specifically Vegas.
The way you pay for things there, is frankly, stupid. If something costs x amount, it should say that on the price. If you are a company that is not eligible to pay that tax, you should be the ones calculating that. That's the way it works here. Consumer first.
Additionally, the fact that you have to tip every single service worker 20% for any purchase is stupid to say the last. So rather than just knowing my costs up-front, I now have to calculate my costs every time I make a purchase.
The US has it backwards and now they're going to apply the same insanity to ecommerce! I guarantee you stores won't apply tax until you go to pay as well.
Yeah, and it's why most people don't actually do it. It's basically impossible to enforce, which is why this supreme court case is happening - states figure they'll finally get their money if they force the online retailers to add on the sales tax like they already do if they're physically located in that state.
Which is going to suck for me if it happens, because Tennesse's sales tax is 10 fucking percent. Also, we have no income tax. Guess which party is generally in power down here?
Assuming this is including town specific sales tax:
I live in a shitty small town bedroom community that pretty much rejects every new business opportunity because they don't want to "draw in the wrong crowds," or add additional noise to the area.
If I were to work out of town and buy something online that they had no part of then why should they get a cut from my purchase? They have done nothing to improve or invite businesses to the area but frequently ask for the budget to have an elaborate town hall. Giving them money they didn't work for isn't going to improve the situation either, they'll just see it as a free revenue stream to keep the current status quo.
It sounds like you weren't used to it and had a hard time. As a resident of the US, it literally isn't a problem in the slightest. It isn't something people worry about or even complain about.
Afaik, the burden is ultimately on the taxpayer. When I file my Virginia taxes, one form asks if I made any online purchases that I didn't pay sales tax for. There's no way I would have tracked that info but thankfully Amazon takes care of it for you
Loopholes aren't really a substitute for good tax policy, and it's pretty much up to the residents for supporting such a local government, imo.
On the plus side by the way, if this did apply to towns it should help to dissuade the bullshit you're seeing, since people will actually be paying the tax rate they supported on the stuff they order (which, given that it's a bedroom community, is probably a LOT.)
there's literally no reason for sales tax not to be included in the price of the damn thing.
It's just not a problem, and with the huge variance of taxes and prices, even from one city/store to another, it's nice to see the base cost of an item. We also don't have VAT taxes. So the price is a lot closer to the base cost than someone from Europe might expect (It's really not hard to just estimate it in your head once you're used to it). It allows for a consistent baseline that can be compared between many different alternatives.
I really don't know why it's so hard to just say, "Hey, we do it differently than you, and I prefer our way," instead of making it some object of derision. I don't mind our way of doing it in the slightest. I also wouldn't dream of making a big deal out of it if I didn't like the way the UK did it. We can do it our way, you can do it your way, and everyone can not worry about it.
The US is much bigger and has local tax rates that change much more often in comparison to EU taxes. It's unreasonable to have bigger stores constantly change all of their prices to reflect local tax changes, and this would prevent companies from having pricing on the package to discourage stores from overpricing goods.
lol cry me a river Quebec has 15% and the UK has 20%
The only difference is the UK puts it into the price you see so you don't get fucked over at checkout and it's glorious
Except you guys have tax programs like healthcare and education which makes sense considering it would cost me 1/3 my pay check every week to have insurance that will just fuck me in the ass if i dare try to claim it. Two totally different beasts.
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