Internet Sales Tax Bill

I have been telling people for the last year and a half this is a huge giveaway to Walmart, Best Buy and Amazon. I have written my senators about it but of course never got anything back.

Amazon wants to control the ecommerce market so they are pushing it to make people go on their platform. "Don't worry, we will transmit the taxes directly for you"

Walmart and Best Buy finally have competition which is hurting them so of course they are going to lobby for a tax that doesn't hurt them.

I told my senator, I would be willing to consider the sales tax requirement if you make it illegal to give property and sales tax exemptions to the very businesses that are lobbying for this bill.

At least skim over the article before commenting. It hasn't even reached the House yet. The Senate still has to vote.

As others have already stated, even if the bill is passed it will only affect those that make more than $1,000,000 in sales per year.

It only applies to brick and mortar business if they also sell online. Otherwise, they already pay sales taxes for the state they are located in.

In addition, no one says they have to charge sales tax. They just have to remit it. Given that most retail stores I deal with have at least 50% gross margins if not higher (since they get better wholesale pricing then drop shippers many times), they could easily compete but choose not to.

There is a local feed and pet food store near bye. Limited selection and they operate out of a 400 square foot area. Pricing is litterally done in whole dollars. 5LB bag of dog food? 23 bucks on the dot. No worries about taxes, change, just flat dollars. Not only that, tell them what you want and they load it right int your trunk at the curb.

They have been around 50 years and have a line that backs up to the intersection. And this is with Petco down the street.

Hi Auctiondebteliminator,

That would be a viable strategy if only...

If only eCommerce over the Internet wasn't a world market...

If only the tax applied equally to everyone...

Sadly it doesn't.

You will be stuck paying the tax, paying for accounting software to calculate the tax, paying for the accounting and filing to more than 40 separate agencies and paying for the cost to defend your accounting practices from an army of auditors from more than 9600 separate taxing authorities that are all going to want to take a look at your books.

This is a huge expense for large companies that currently have stores in many states and US cities. As a small business, you too will now have this gigantic expense to weight you down. I hope you have a small army of accountants and tax attorneys, else you will get crushed by 9600+ separate taxing authorities that have you in their target sites.

Exactly how much will these new accounting expenses cost you? it's hard to predict exactly, but on average it is expected to be in the high 6 figures for small businesses and over 7 figures for medium to large businesses.

And, while you are taking on this huge new set of expenses, competitors outside the USA will have none of it. If this bill passes, it will result in a transfer of wealth from the US to foreign businesses. That is the purpose of the bill, and that is exactly what will happen.

Perhaps a more practical strategy will be to expatriate yourself and save a half a million or more in accounting expenses, while simultaneously saving on a huge tax bill?

While I admire you optimism... you need to wake up and smell the coffee.

If this bill passes it will have major ramifications for your online sales. None of them positive, because the intent of the bill is to take lots of money out of your pocket. And it is aimed precisely at you, not your biggest competitors, but you in particular.