From the AP:
You don’t see this very often: a majority of Senate Republicans voting to make people who buy stuff on the Internet pay state and local sales taxes.
Well, no. We don’t see that very often because they don’t vote on that bill very often. That aside, let’s see where it goes from there:
On Wednesday, the bill passed a test vote in the Senate, 74 to 23, with 27 Republicans voting in favor. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., vowed to pass the bill this week, before senators leave for a scheduled vacation.
“This is a matter of equity and fairness,” said South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard, a Republican. “The same people who are selling the same products should be paying the same taxes.”
Did I mention that behavior such as this from Republicans is a reason I’m not one of them? Sigh. Since when do equity and fairness permit one state to exercise authority over the citizens of another state? In the interests of equity and fairness, Governor, should not someone in South Dakota be permitted to have a late-term abortion since they could get it in, oh I don’t know, Philadelphia? I thought that one of the values of the states being independent of each other to an extent was that the states could experiment with different things and find out what works for them?
As Mark Alexander notes, states have already addressed the underlying issue and come up with state-level solutions. Here he is:
Many states, which depend in part on sales taxes, have already legislated that residents of their states remit sales taxes annually on any and all out-of-state purchases. This existing legislation is intrastate, between the voters and their state representatives, exactly where it belongs in a federalist system.
Requiring a seller in one state to collect and remit sales tax on behalf of another state is tantamount to “taxation without representation,” according to Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint. The former South Carolina senator notes correctly that the mega-retailers “are in favor of the Internet sales tax, because online retailers are competitors. But the other big proponents of the tax are state governments, which would be able to reach into other states for revenue. Politicians want this bill passed to raise new tax revenue for broken state governments facing budget shortfalls. But legislators in state capitals don’t want to make the hard decisions to cut spending or raise taxes on their constituents — they fear the voter backlash. So they’d like their allies in Washington to make it legal for them to tax people who can’t vote against them.”
But what about the children? (Oh, sorry, that was another article.) Let’s see what PNR was thinking:
No, what it really amounts to is a big assist to big business. Barnes & Noble, for instance, has physical stores in most states. Amazon only has a physical presence in a few. Walmart, too, has a physical store in pretty much every state. In addition to the competition between these giants, each of them is also competing against the mom & pop shops. If you order that book online from Barnes & Noble, for instance, they’ve got to get it to you for $11.27 because they’ve got to add the sales tax and the shipping ($11.27 x .06% = 0.68; $11.27 + 0.68 + 3.95 = $15.90). Pass this bill, however, and now Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the mom & pop shop all have to collect the sales tax, the shipping, and the price of the book.
[...]
There’s one big difference, though. Amazon and Barnes & Noble sell lots and lots of books. They can, and do, work out special deals with the publishers to get their books at a much lower wholesale price than the local mom & pop shop could ever hope to achieve. The local shop has to pay $7.50-$8.00 for that $15.00 book. The others can likely get it for $5.00. In the name of “leveling the playing field”, it tilts that field rather significantly towards the big names.
Legislation is almost always in favor of those in power–and that includes those who are current powerhouses in the world of business. Unsurprisingly, businesses large and small look out for their own best interests, but it is large corporations who can afford to put money and effort behind things (remember when lobbyists were evil?).
Here’s what I’m thinking. States in general are already showing themselves poor stewards of the tax revenue they have collected. Regardless of where the taxes are coming from (well, it’s always you and me) why would we want to give further resources to spendthrifts? And yes, I understand that not every state is horrible with its checkbook. Unfortunately, a bunch of them give all the rest a bad name.
Allow me to quote a gentleman whose wisdom is currently in short supply:
I want the people of America to be able to work less for the government — and more for themselves.
I want them to have the rewards of their own industry. This is the chief meaning of freedom.
Until we can reestablish a condition under which the earnings of the people can be kept by the people, we are bound to suffer a very severe and distinct curtailment of our liberty.
Thank you Mr. President. I believe that those words are just as needful today as they were when you first spoke them in 1924, if not more so.
Comments Off