Wed, 21 May 2008 12:12:38 -0400
Begin forwarded message:
> From: John Levine
> Date: May 21, 2008 11:54:04 AM EDT
> To: David Farber
> Cc: "Patrick W. Gilmore"
> Subject: Re: [IP] Fed Internet Sales Taxes
>
>>> I hear this a lot and I always wonder: Will they tax 800-number
>>> orders
>>> as well? They are the same thing, just two ways to get a company to
>>> mail you a product. The "web" is just a way to remove the human
>>> operator from a mail order service.
>
> The Quill case, which is the 1992 case the article refers to, was
> about
> paper mail order catalogs, presumably with telephone ordering, since
> the
> catalogs that Quill sends me have always had a phone number to call.
>
> I've never understood why this sales tax question has been framed as
> an Internet issue, when in fact it applies equally to mail order
> catalog sales, which are still about the same size as online sales. I
> suppose online stores are new and sexy while mail order is so 19th
> century. But the tax issues are the same.
>
> Incidentally, I've been making the same points this article does for
> many years. A decade on the board of my village, including three
> years as mayor, let me see up close and personal how unfair it is to
> both the local services that are paid for by sales tax (most of our
> budget goes to police, fire, and public works) and to the local
> merchants who have collected the taxes all along. If online stores
> can't exist in 2008 without an artificial 5% or 8% price advantage due
> to tax quirks, they're in the wrong business.
>
> Regards,
> John Levine, johnl@iecc.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet
> for Dummies",
> Information Superhighwayman wanna-be, http://www.johnlevine.com, ex- > Mayor
> "More Wiener schnitzel, please", said Tom, revealingly.
>
>
>>> On May 21, 2008, at 10:11 AM, David Farber wrote:
>>>> Begin forwarded message:
>>>>
>>>>> From: Robert Atkinson
>>>>> Date: May 21, 2008 10:07:38 AM EDT
>>>>> To: David Farber
>>>>> Subject: For IP: Internet Sales Taxes
>>>>>
>>>>> Dave,
>>>>>
>>>>> A call in Wall St. Journal for imposing sales taxes on internet
>>>>> commerce:
>>>>>
>>>>> http://online.wsj.com/article/portals.html >>>>>
>>>>> Excerpts:
>>>>>
>>>>> Real World Needs 'Net' Taxes
>>>>> May 21, 2008; Page B9
>>>>>
>>>>> Do you think that billionaire Internet moguls should continue to
>>>>> benefit from a tax loophole that hurts parks and schools, and
>>>>> makes
>>>>> it harder for your neighborhood bookstore to keep open for
>>>>> business?
>>>>>
>>>>> I didn't think you did.
>>>>>
>>>>> ***
>>>>>
>>>>> For starters, by giving online businesses a permanent advantage
>>>>> over their bricks-and-mortar competitors, it helps those who need
>>>>> it least -- huge, profitable e-commerce companies -- at the
>>>>> expense
>>>>> of often-struggling local retailers.
>>>>>
>>>>> In addition, the tax policy is regressive. It disproportionately
>>>>> benefits the upscale citizens most likely to shop online. Worst of
>>>>> all, as commerce increasingly moves online, state and local
>>>>> governments are being deprived of the sales-tax revenues they rely
>>>>> on to run schools, build roads, pay police and firefighters, and
>>>>> do
>>>>> all the other things they're supposed to do.
>>>>>
>>>>> A dozen years ago, one might have been able to make the case
>>>>> that a
>>>>> holiday on collecting sales tax would help the fledgling Internet
>>>>> get off the ground. I don't think that was particularly true even
>>>>> in 1996; it certainly isn't now.
>>>>>
>>>>> ***
>>>>>
>>>>> Opponents of the tax collection are fond of the effective but
>>>>> dishonest slogan that collecting a sales tax would amount to a new
>>>>> "tax on the Internet." But making Amazon collect sales tax on
>>>>> books
>>>>> is no more "taxing the Internet" than requiring stores to collect
>>>>> taxes on Valentine's Day chocolates amounts to "taxing falling in
>>>>> love."
>
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