I think you're wise to wait and see, hear all arguments pro and con. In the main, I will hate to see states tie up ecommerce with lawsuits with each other about who has more jurisdiction to tax… as you mentioned in your first comment, consumers could pay coming and going.

I'll be watching with you.

dr.e

I think your insight about raising the bar to 1M instead of 10k is brilliant, you must have an econ background… as that's, I think, an accurate assessment toward not burdening the small businesses with more and more taxes that may amount to penny-ante income for the government vs the cost of government to give oversight and processing— all requiring hands on man hours. Also, 10k income businesses are probably run by people already working 60-80 hpw, and the paperwork to record sales taxes would be some more hours per month.

As a small business owner myself, not having government demand one more ten-hours-a-week devoted to gov't paperwork would be time spent being productive in maintaining the business, that's for certain. Already here, we have head taxes, three different employee taxes, r.e. taxes, two sales taxes, and another property tax on contents annually, plus licenses, registrations and other small to medium matters of payout to city or state or county or feds.

As a small business person (it's true, I'm undertall at 5' almost 4″…lol, but not that kind of 'small' “) who started from nothing, I sometimes think that if I had known the True Cost of Business when I started, I might not have started. All the regulations of bus. and taxes and tax codes only increase yearly, rarely hold steady. And tax code is still written in Martian. And the paperwork to document and gather and pay out isnt quite a full time job yet, but nearly so. Perhaps you've seen that in you own work too?

I know some of the folks who work in the warehouses for Amazon, and Amazon does employ locally quite a few people. I often think mikkel, if I were just a sprout on my own for the first time looking at the wide world of possiblilties, what would we choose if we were choosing to be small business people, BUT, choose while knowing what we know now? We used to have very little even local info except what the proximate need was and how we might niche that and serve it.

Now, the pathways seem many and humongous. Choice has never been greater. But also,there seem many more big guys eating the little guys not just locally or nationally nowadays, but from abroad too. Sometimes for small businesses that serve locally, it seems like planting a whole field in alfalfa and then the grasshoppers swarm just when the plants are becoming mature. A lot of work for nil. But like someone dedicated to the land, you just suck it up and go back to work and plant again… if you can get those middle banks you mentioned, to loan you for seed and gas.

Can you tell I grew up in a rural outback?…lol. Not sure everyone knows anymore what grasshoppers do to crops. But if you've ever seen a hopper's mouth up close… man, what a set of mandibles. lol)

Some days, again, re small business and all the paper required by various, I ask myself, how come I'm working for the gov'mint and not getting paid? lol

and mikkel if you can give a link to a website re anti-tax discussion, just go ahead and put it in your comment. I am sure some readers will be interested.

dr.e

Moreover, I think that it is healthy to have job distribution roughly in line with consumption distribution. With these massive warehouses out in the middle of nowhere that can service the whole country, the only employment in the local areas are UPS drivers. So, not only is the state losing tax revenues, it's losing jobs. The mortgage crisis seems bad now, but there is a looming commercial real estate crisis that is coming to knock off all the medium-small sized banks. Since we're already so tapped out, I don't think it can be avoided, but it'll definitely be exacerbated the more that people move away from local shopping.

Also, most items that are ordered over the internet tend to be relatively luxury/leisure. I was aghast when I was reading a thread with massive amounts of anti-tax vitriol when people were talking about a site that sells enthusiast computer parts. The people on the thread are buying luxury goods and think it's their right not to be taxed. “Tax and spend” is only a valid label when the government is actually revenue neutral, right now most states the Federal government are just “spend and debt” which gets a far lower outcry. I think taxes need to be raised across the board to cover up these deficits, even if it means that people get angry and there are cutbacks.

That said, all the power to internet businesses to succeed once they do pay taxes. If they can utilize lower overheads and navigate the increases in energy then they deserve to get lots of business. You fret that it will turn people away from internet commerce, but the entire business model was designed to have better structural costs, not that it would have a permanent government enabled advantage. Although in all honesty $10K is nothing. I think it should be raised to $1 million or so.

dr.e

But seriously, how is it enforced and who pays? What if I lived in NY and ordered some cheese from Switzerland? Does the retailer collect the tax and send to NY? Or does the recipient? If it's the recipient's responsibility, then why (as an example) should they pay tax on a gift a friend sent to them? If it's the retailer's responsibility to collect tax, then how would the retailer track all the different tax rates (and changes) in NY?

Lastly, did Hillary have a position? (I know she's in the US Senate and doesn't vote on laws in the state legislature, but I'd still be interested to know if she had a position on it. And how she sees it as states' rights vis a vis other states. For instance NY has this law that taxed incoming goods. What if another state passed a law that taxed all purchases made from a retailer headquartered (or with operations) in that state? A great boon for Washington state, where Amazon is headquartered if Amazon had to collect taxes on all purchases (regardless of where they were shipped to) and remit to Washington state. The consumer would be double-taxed if they lived in NY (they would have to pay taxes to both NY and WA).

Anyway I'd still like to get all the presidential candidates' thoughts on it….