Re:Sorry, Shoppers, but Why Can’t Amazon Collect More Tax?
by nixme on Sunday December 27, 2009 @02:19PM
(#1017439)
Of course it is. If governments didn't force employers to withhold income, I doubt income tax revenue would be nearly the same. And paying use tax is pretty much a joke.
My point is that he's using vitriolic language to accuse Amazon unfairly (who are abiding by the current commerce laws) when the same could be said about the shoppers (who are not). Attacking either won't lead to an acceptable solution.
I don't think we should interfere in interstate commerce at a federal level. Rather the states that care will need to form a solution for all out-of-state commerce taxes, something that's happening anyways.
He might as well be angry at rainclouds.
Tax policy is often designed to allocate tax burdens where they are easy to measure and enforce, rather than where they 'theoretically' should be triggered. Requiring millions of shoppers to record and pay their 'Use Taxes' would be an onerous requirement; requiring merchants to collect 'Sales Taxes' is relatively easy and indeed already traditionally done, even by Amazon.
So it makes perfect sense to focus on bringing cross-state retailing into the sales tax regime, rather than scolding shoppers about use taxes.