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Guest Post: This New Law Will Ensure You Pay More For Online Purchases...
Via Simon Black of Sovereign Man blog,
In another brilliant move aimed at destroying the few table scraps of economic freedom which remain in the Land of the Free, a bipartisan group of esteemed lawmakers in the United States Congress has introduced the Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013.
Remember the golden rule of legislation: the more noble the name of the law sounds, the more disastrous its results. This one is no exception.
Generally speaking in the United States, retailers must collect state and local sales tax at the point of sale. When you walk into a Main Street shop in Anytown, California, you’ll pay the sticker price PLUS hefty city and state sales taxes that can easily be 10% or more.
But if you purchase goods through the mail from a company in, say, Nevada or Oregon, either through the mail or online, no sales tax is charged. This goes back to a 20+ year old US Supreme Court decision which exempted out of state companies from collecting sales tax.
Well, according to the intellectual luminaries in Congress, local retailers are at a disadvantage, effectively having to charge 10%+ more for their products than an out-of-state retailer.
And by God, they’re going to do something about it. After all, it’s just not ‘fair’ that mom and pop retailers on main street have to charge sales tax, while mom and pop retailers on the Internet do not.
The Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013 aims to level the playing field by requiring online retailers to collect some sort of sales tax from their customers. Needless to say, if the bill is passed, it will be the customer who ends up paying the price.
The thinking on this is completely absurd.
One of the primary reasons people shop online is because online retailers have reduced overhead costs, and these cost savings are passed along to consumers in the form of lower prices.
So if the idea is to ensure that brick and mortar retailers don’t suffer any competitive price disadvantage, why not just regulate prices altogether? Or even better, why not just abolish sales taxes altogether?
That’s because this bill has absolutely nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with the government taking more of your money. This bill constitutes STEP 1 on the road to a national sales tax, which, given the state of national and state balance sheets, is a financial inevitability.
It’s the most insidious form of deceit – creating new taxes masquerading as ‘fairness’. It’s a total fraud, brought to you by the same people who tell us that there is no inflation, and that we must sexually assault airline passengers in order to protect ourselves from men in caves.
Have you hit your breaking point yet?
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Who could be against fairness?!
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Time to pay up bitchez. No more tax-free online gold buying for you.
"Marketplace Fairness Act of 2013"
Ayn Rand would have loved this one!
A national sales tax would be "fairer"
And barter "fairer" yet!
Black Markets Bitchez.
No tax there.
Please. We prefer to call them free markets.
Sales tax have existed since the American Revolution in every single state in one form or another. Just saying.
"must...destroy....middle class...."
Note to self.
Congress
those MichFrat boys sure are creative, at least in their beliefs,
with pics of their loins wrapped in the amrkn flag - fuck yeah!!!
there's yer student loan monies, for anyone wondering why they can't getta jawb when the party's over. . .
The USPS has been so successful, it's going to expand into another business ?!
Cash-strapped US Postal Service to launch clothing linehttp://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/02/20/17031741-cash-strapped-us-post...
Maybe they will have a line of oversized Flat Rate Boxes for people to live in?
I think it's fair to say non of us are. Especially us fair skinned people who have pretty much run the show around here for years.
I'm past the breaking point.
Who is John Galt?
What is the Gospel of Thomas?
the word contains its own freudian slip. How are we doing? "fair"
Have you hit your breaking point yet?
Laughably, no.
Yawn. ZH authors are delusional if they think some magical mass uprising is coming. No one gives a shit about the falling (or rising) stock market, global economic collapse, global warming, high taxes, endless henny penny the sky is falling reports. All these are Someone Else's Problem.
Tune in. Turn on. Drop out. The empire revolves around money. Stop using it. Stop needing it. Stop incuring taxes on it.
Only those still on the Blue Pill will break.
Yep.
Regarding taxing online purchases... I was interested in getting one of the new 7" google android tablets. About $250 on Amazon, no sales taxes charged. But about $200 at google's online store, only they charge sales taxes. If I'd bought it at the google store, less money would have gone out of my pocket.
What did I do in the end? Didn't buy a goddamned thing. Fuck 'em.
Want a tablet?? try nomorerack.com (no affiliation or reward for mentioning url)
Indeed!
Precisely.
How long does it take for a tree to know it's dead, after it's been felled?
Boiling frogs.
Frog stew is already being served.
I also learned it's OK to eat frog on Fridays of Lent.
only on a leap year
Puntastic +1
Covet gold instead, that'll save you.
/sarc
only important if it applys to Apmex
I bend like the reed in the wind.
When the matter involves increasing the power of The State, you will always find bipartisan support.
pods
The most egregious legislation will always come with fluffy terms attached, too, like fairness, affordable, security, patriot, etc. That way if you're opposed, it means you're opposed to fairness, affordability, security, patriotism, etc. These are almost always the worst offending pieces of legislation.
If it sounds bland and boring, it probably isn't a big deal. If they stick happy language right in the damned title, run like hell. I'm surprised they haven't started printing some of this shit with pictures of babies and puppies in the margins.
It's all for the children.
bipartisan is like bisexual. It ups your odds while being hypocritical
National Defense Authorization Act sounds like a boring spending bill, but they were able to stick the ability to rendition American citizens whom disagree with and criticize the government into it. We live in the era of "You can't know what's in it till you pass it" CONgress.
That has always been the case in the U.S. And people won't know what is in a particular bill unless they read it. Legislative Riders are the norm, not the exception.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rider_%28legislation%29
If AL 500+ elected reps were to "magically" disappear tomorrow, would the USA be better or worse off ?
500+ less people to support, plus their staffs. Would save us billions every year. Just let the banksters and lobbyists write the rules directly.
Its all for the 3rd world children.
BananAAA+
Remember, illegals and foreigners pay sales taxes. When a good chunk of our economy goes underground due to high income taxes, sales taxes are all that will be left.
I'm pretty sure that it's just as easy to avoid sales taxes as it is to avoid income taxes. Maybe not if you're buying gasoline, but then again, we really aren't yet trying to break the back of the state yet.
Try riding your bike, it's lonely.
I disagree, I think on line stores should have to collect taxes. at least from point of shipment, and then if the states start to playy around (no sales tax there) you gotta do something else. the tax arbitrage game is bad!!!
There is absolutely no reason a business in(enter state name) needs to act as an agent of tax collection for (enter your state name here).
Seems like forced servitude to me.
I totally agree with dcb, it's hard enough for a brick and mortar store to compete with the online retailers' reduced overhead, without the online stores being able to knock another 10% off because they don't have to pay state sales taxes. Pretty soon you'll have to order everything online because there will be no way for a store to make a profit, you can already see what Amazon's competitive advantages have done to retail.
Fact is it wouldn't even have to hike overall taxes at all - just lower local taxes to compensate for extra income from online commerce and pronto! Now, would they do that?
We pay them in Europe, btw (VAT) and it's actually more complicated than it looks: depending on per-country sales volume, you either pay taxes to origin or destination country, and at each own rates (you have to be registered in each, too, then); on top of that, bigger/smaller countries have different thresholds for that (35k/100k/country/yr).
Just following the prime directive of bureaucracy: No law or procedure shall result in less bureaucracy!
Actually that's not always true - we managed to significantly debureaucratize some procedures: you can now start a company within minutes with turnkey solutions (well, if you're willing to bet your money on the most inane range of names ever...): http://www.empresanahora.pt/ENH/sections/EN_homepage
So, they raise taxes on tobacco and gas to stifle the consumption of those items, but when they tax online enterprise, it is about "fairness?"
Never mind congress… What’s Barry up to…? I posted this yesterday:
“Nothing IS what it IS…
For instance, we are told that the GOTUS (golfer of the united states) was playing a round with Tiger Woods on Sunday…
Well Sunday, here in Fort Lauderdale, temperature was 50 degrease (F) with up to 20 MPH gusts. That usually means that inland or farther north (where they are) it had to be around 40 to 50 all day…
That was the most miserable day in the past year. To bad for the blackout, I would have loved to see the only two guys out of 18 million Floridians play golf that day.”
Guess what?
Today, they had to have a press conference with Woods saying “…yes, yes, really, we played together…it was great…we won…” with no reporters, no pictures or photo op of any kind.
What’s Barry up to…?
Recently there was a picture of Woods close behind a squatting Obama, who was holding his putter vertically. (Or was it Woods' putter?) Are you suggesting that the picture was from an earlier golf date?
http://sandrarose.com/2013/02/obama-vacationed-alone-with-reggie-love-bans-media-from-taking-pictures/
who knows what Barry was up too. Was Bohemian Grove open ? Choom Gang reunion. Mabye El Tigre had some of his lady friends over.
He's still looking for his balls.
What's Barry up to you ask? His knees in Reggie Love...who just happened to return on AF 1 with Barry....
Charging sales tax for all online purchases won't drive me back into the hands of local brick-and-mortar stores. Local stores frequently don't have the product I want. Sometimes it is a serious pain in the ass to drive to the local retailer. Too frequently, the local retailer has employees and/policies that piss me off. (This is why I haven't stepped into a Best Buy store in several years.)
Too true. Everything I buy online are items not available within 100 miles of my home. BTW, this will surely help the USPS.
if i need it yesterday i buy local
otherwise net
but i dont need much
and now i will need less
What?!? You say there are *reasons* why you as a consumer would choose/expect/want to pay different amounts for the same good but purchased in different manners and venues?
Some bureuacrat empowered by God says your thinking is messed up. And he'll fix it for you shortly....
And Best Buy thinks that their new "price matching" is going to stop people from buying online or fondling the goods in their stores then buying from Newegg.com or the like.
Funny!
I'd still buy online because I'll probably get it for the same price and free shipping. Let's see, UPS/FedEx man brings it to my door or I have to deal with obnoxious punks who are no doubt underpaid but are corporate acolyte robots who don't know crap about the stuff in the store; and that's AFTER I drive in traffic paying $4.00 a gallon and have to walk across a parking lot full of spit and loogies from the troglodytes in the vicinity.
Price match won't get me into Best Buy. There are too many other deterrents to going to Best Buy. My Best Buy experience has consisted of employees that are either disinterested or follow me around the store, pushing extended warranties I don't want, pushing Geek Squad services I don't need, and pushing their credit card which I definitely don't want. I'm sure my experience is not unique.
If you had been in a BB lately you would know exactly why they are going broke.
Double post.
Use Taxes
Shouldn't you be arguing to eliminate sales tax all together? Otherwise, the reality is that it is true; there is a price distinction between online retail and local retail simply created by taxation.
Exactly - the author is a tool
The author pretty much covers this when he says:
"That’s because this bill has absolutely nothing to do with fairness, and everything to do with the government taking more of your money. This bill constitutes STEP 1 on the road to a national sales tax, which, given the state of national and state balance sheets, is a financial inevitability."
Government cut or eliminate taxes to encourage consumption and perhaps production of good and services domestically?
Of course not!
The current society and economy is based on parasitism; parasites feeding on the bodies of the living breathing real people.
Government, lawyers, corporations, health"care", justice system, banks and bankers = parasites.
If you work and produce something of benefit to other human beings you are the body the parasites want to suck the blood out of.
Isn't there also a price distinction because of various property taxes? Payroll taxes? Energy taxes?
All taxes in the end are paid by the consumer. Yet we refuse to tax the consumers on a fair and equal basis for one reason:They vote.
And when you can manipulate the voters as we have done, with the majority avoiding taxation in general, power shifts to those that give that benefit.
The only way to end that is that we all pay the same rate of income tax across the board. And no conservative has the balls to say so, other than Ben Carson.
Right straight out of Atlas Shrugged. And you thought it was a work of fiction, rather than the establishment's game plan....
This is called the "Best Buy is dying and bought a Congressman to help them compete with Amazon" law
and Best Buy will soon find out that, unlike their products, congressmen do not come with warranties
You severely underestimate the power of large commerical realtors and commerical property REITs at the local and state level. That is where the pressure is really coming from on this issue.
Once you factor in shipping charges the customer generally pays more than the physical taxable out of state purchase costs. Also, if these stupid fucking Lawyers think this will help brick and mortar businesses they are crazy, I'll simply stop purchasing products from out of state.
Lawyers think this will help brick and mortar businesses ...
The fairness part is to help states collect more taxes. It is not to help brick and mortar business get more customers. Think. If an online retailer can charge less because costs are less, then they will still be the lower cost seller, even if taxes are tacked on.
Given all the reasons posted above for avoiding brick and mortar (e.g., Best Buy), those reasons don't vanish just because the savings on our purchase is less than what it once was. So long as one is getting any savings at all through on-line purchases, on-line vendors will no doubt still be the preferred vendor.
Fuck the FEDs. They are getting a bloody fair revolution.
The taxes are coming in a flood. Anyone with an income who has read Obamacare costs and services will simply opt out and pay the penalty. The people at the bottom end of the income scale will get free health care. Since this will be where the pent up demand is, I expect costs to go supernova and quickly. We will be adding debt faster than they can print.
So one more tax? Who gives a fuck. At this point, it's a matter of looking elsewhere, IF YOU REASONABLY CAN, and get the hell out of the US. This is no place for someone with a brain.
You're essentially right. However, there is no place to run that isn't already experiencing....or soon will....the same paradigm we have here in the USSA Banana Totalitarianship. Best to stay and fight, because a fight is what the elites are desperately spoiling for. In most other countries, the population is already effectively de-fanged (disarmed).
Alternately, a state like Texas could secede and your destination would be a reality, as it would be for many of us.
You're essentially right.
He is not right about this statement:
The people at the bottom end of the income scale will get free health care.
Can he or you provide a link to a quote from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) where it says those below a certain level will be given a helath-care policy and they won't have to pay anything for it?
OTOH, folks at the bottom end of the income scale were already getting actual free health care before the ACA was enacted - by utilizing Emergency Rooms and not paying the bill. This will no doubt continue - but not because of the ACA.
Obamacare is based on income. At the poverty level the government gives you credits. Here's your proof. http://thecivillibertarian.blogspot.com/2013/02/everything-you-need-to-k...
It sounds like you live in the US, so you do not have a brain. The US has other virtues besides their tax structure. I'll stay in the country where I can backpack for many days and not see a single road.
When you run out of bullets switch to toadstools. They are abundant everywhere and you don't need to clean them or reload.
White gills, upturned crowns.
What magical place are you going to go that is easy to get a Visa, has a much lower income tax rate, and has a relative degree of stability and security?
US has plenty of problem both short-term and long-term but every place you go has shit that stinks and the places that don't (e.g., Luxembourg, Switzerland, etc) are generally pretty tough to get into let alone citizenship.
peons don't deserve a free marketplace. peons must pay tribute to the state.
only rich people don't pay tribute
Walmart exec ""We need to stop the stupid."
I've come to understand that the problem in Congess is not 'stupid'. No, even a broken clock is right twice a day, as they say. Congress is never right though. They're consistently 'wrong' from the point of view of helping the people - If the criterion is helping themselves however, then yes, Congress is always doing the right thing.
This isn't stupidity. This is evil.
What they should have done, as many have already suggeted, is abolish the sales tax. This obviously isn't what they're going to do, though.
Don't mistake evil for stupid, Grizzley.
What is stupid is thinking that state services are not needed. Even if we can thow out the majority of state services, some of them we cannot do without. And for even those few services, people will not work for free. How, then, shall we get the money to pay for them?
Sales tax are evil? Nitwit. They have existed for 200+ years now in some form or another and they are preferential over income tax and other forms of tax if you want to boost savings & ultimately capital investment & deployment.
Haha... I'd like to hear how they're going to enforce this one.
So the politicians are going to tell tech savy enterpreuers (who are barely making it already) that they need to pay more taxes? LOL... The enemy is practically bulldozing more allies to us. Let them keep playing this game.
This is the first step in bailing out the fed and JPM of all the strip malls that they hold on their books.
1) tax all internet sales
2) increase postal shipping fees (lean on ups/fedx to join the price controls)
2-a cancel shipping on Saturday's and Monday's.. maybe Tuesday if need be.
3) remove sales taxes on items bought in brick and mortar stores (free sales tax zones)
"...Generally speaking in the United States, retailers must collect state and local sales tax at the point of sale..."
actually, this is rather complicated.....the sales tax is wicked - and requiring citizens to enforce the states' dictats a blatant form of nazism. taxing every transaction is a most grotesque totalitarian endeavor....
on the other hand, the supreme ruled correctly that citizens of other states are not required to collect another state's taxes.....and the totalitarian law makers who have proposed the latest nazi act have a point - of sorts. there is indeed a disadvantage which should be alleviated by the elimination of mail order taxes. ( online = mail order for the slow of wit).
the sales tax should be abolished as a gortesque unconstitutional wickedness, but as i have noted elsewhere, americans love their lies and nazism and could never contemplate such a disfiguration to the status quo...
my proposal would shift sales massively to mail order - everything from groceries to cars.....and sales tax revenues would collapse....which would be good....however, the states would then attempt to enforce electronically a sales tax to be collected at the pos - your computing device...again, it would be an advancement of the totalitarian state.....but americans accept cameras at every intersection, so i am not certain why they would complain at such a solution...
the states could also tax mail order operators a fee or tax for doing business in their states....again not attractive. i would leave the inequity in place as i cannot promulgate a more attractive solution.
The whole camera-at-the-intersection idea is bust. The vast majority were too expensive to keep up and are now dark. In fact, the more totalitarian the state, the worse the economy. This is a natural controlling force.
So, essentially your proposal is to form a mass collective of mail order operations. Oh my, what does a mass collective turn out to be? Hmmmm?
The sales tax savings were generally less than the cost of shipping products from other states. Most of the time there was a disadvantage to ordering a product from a catalog or online. You might pay $21.50 for an item at a store including tax, online it might be $18 but there would be $6 in shipping charges.
Since Amazon doesn't care about making any profit, because Wall Street says they don't have to, they ship many items for free that would cost a normal company $100+ to ship. White glove free shipping of TVs anywhere in the USA is insane. Amazon loses money on every TV they sell with free shipping.
Go to UPS sometime and ask them to ship a 150lb 60" TV from Ohio to California. When you get a reply of $350 don't be shocked.
A national sales tax will NEVER pass a GOP house. Not that the GOP will oppose it on principle, it's a matter of their own survival. It would be the death of the party, which is on life support as it is.
It's the new Anti Dog Eat Dog law.
ATLAS SHRUGGED...read it, we're living it
The book explores a dystopian United States where many of society's most productive citizens refuse to be exploited by increasing taxation and government regulations and go on strike. The refusal evokes the imagery of what would happen if the mythological Atlas refused to continue to hold up the world. They are led by John Galt. Galt describes the strike as "stopping the motor of the world" by withdrawing the minds that drive society's growth and productivity. In their efforts, these people "of the mind" hope to demonstrate that a world in which the individual is not free to create is doomed, that civilization cannot exist where every person is a slave to society and government, and that the destruction of the profit motive leads to the collapse of society
I'm for supporting local mom+pop stores with actual store front even if it means paying more. Fuck amazon.
Totally agree and I NEVER eat at chain restaurants.
Why not? Does the metal hurt your teeth??
I have tried giving mom and pop stores my business over the last few years with little or no sucess.. Every time it is the same story - ' sorry, we do not have it in stock, but we can order it for you ', and they want to charge close to double what I can get it online for. Yeah, sign me up for that deal. I always end up buying online foom both in state and out of state companies.
Amazon is not the only on-line seller.
Nor is Walmart a "mom and pop" store.
"Mom and pop" stores could also sell online,
and online sellers also have the "disadvantages" of mailing costs, and are less able to avoid bankster (credit card) fees by cash transactions.
Anyhow, we can all look forward to the "cashless" economy where one day it won't be possible by going out-of state (or even to tag sales) to avoid taxes for purchases or anything else.
How are you going to find Sherry's Trinkets and Candle Shop online? You think she can pay to have her listing come up in the top 15,000 on google?
A mom and pop online shop is even worse than having a tiny store in an abandoned strip mall.
You're not advertising your shop as much as your product. People don't need to find "Sherry's Trinkets and Candle Shop" onnline. They need only search for a candle that Sherry's Trinkets and Candle Shop carries in their store. Many times said store is hosted by Amazon which gives the seller a shipping discount as Amazon get's bulk rates from the carriers.
Fine you win, if you want to make it harder for me to buy things then I'm just going to give up trying. Goodbye.....
unless you use goldsilver or bitcoin??
http://goldsilverbitcoin.com
"After all, it’s just not ‘fair’ that mom and pop retailers on main street have to charge sales tax, while mom and pop retailers on the Internet do not"
Actually it is not fair and is one of the roots of our problems. You may not like it, but that doesn't change the fact that we are giving an unfair advantage to those who sell online.
Exactly, of course the government is doing the opposite of what they should, which is to repeal all sales taxes.
By forcing Mom and Pop stores to charge taxes they are putting Mom and Pop stores at a Disadvantage, they are not giving on-line stores any advantage. Level the playing field without increasing our taxes. This isn't about fairness, it's about raping the citizens....by any means necessary. This is the problem. Government interfering in free enterprise. Drop taxes, and cut spending.
Who is Jon Galt?
so... ordering porn online will become more expensive that letting a callgirl come over?
HALLELUYAAAHHH!!! OBAMA IS GOD!!!
Caveman voice: "Govmit out of pie! Govmit want more pie! Govmint take YOUR pie!" *whack with club*
Don't insult cavemen. Cavemen and common theives are honest brokers compared to these traitors. They need to go.
Dup post.
Your right, my apologies to cavemen.
So mom & pop don't know (or want to know) how to use the internet or ups and deserve to be compensated because of it. The welfare state continues.
Yeah because everything should be bought through the internet and delivered by truck to your door.
How many people does Amazon employ compared to all the mom and pops they put out of business?
We should just go straight to Wal-E, 400lb blobs in scooters with flat screens attached telling us what color to wear today and what meal in a cup to eat.
many small businesses are able to profit by increased sales through internet organizations like EBAY, Amazon, and ABE books.
I shop on AMZN all the time. I have products delivered monthly on a subscription and save more. A. I dont like going to the stores and being around disgusting people. B. I hate lines. C. I have AMZN prime so all shipping is free (or baked in) 2nd day. D. Many of the products I buy on AMZN are sold by local retailers somewhere and AMZN is just the middle man. Online shopping is a natural evolution. Eliminating local tax would be the proper solution. Charging more tax and using mom and pop as an excuse is bullshit.
Fascism is the incestuous spawn of socialism.
CONgress!
If those assholes cared about fairness they would not have bailed out the banks and Jon Corzine would be in jail.
The Republicrats and Demicans (Rebloodlicans and Democrips) are united in fucking over their constituents to benefit themselves and their kleptocrat masters.
That is all I see.
<straw> <back> <camel> = BROKEN!
Businesses that are forced to charge sales taxes are unpaid tax collectors for the state. Not to mention that businesses that are forced to submit 1099s are snitches to their vendors.
BTW, no sales tax on Silk Road purchases, or anything black or grey market.
Why not eliminate the sales tax on the storefronts. LOL.
I'm sure there will be no terrible, horrible, absolutely very bad unintended consequences to this legislation this time.
DId ebay pay you to write this?
in the Land of the Fee
I don't care where you buy them. As long as what you buy is not 100% made in the USA, you automatically pay 500% Social Fabric Damage Tax.
Who cares. I'd eliminate the sales tax altogether, but if you pay tax at Best Buy you should pay tax on Amazon.
The real issue that needs to be addressed is that most of the time you are buying a counterfeit or stolen product on the Amazon Marketplace. Shoes, DVD players, CDs and DVDs. A lot of the product is counterfeit. My wife bought a dozen Disney movies from Amazon and every one of them were counterfeit. Amazon has singlehandedly destroyed the entire retail chain. Including all trust between sellers and buyers. Even if you do sell a real product to them, their 1% over cost margin policy will make sure you don't get a single order from anyone else.
When a buyer at a major retailer sees your product selling on Amazon for 1/3rd the MSRP you want them to sell it for, he isn't going to trust you when you say the product on Amazon isn't yours. The consumer sure thinks it is, it has your logo and everything. It is amazing people think they are really buying a brand new $500 set of speakers that costs $100 in parts to manufacture for $75 on the Amazon marketplace. Hello moron, IT'S A MADE IN CHINA COPY!!!
My company and hundreds of others I know are being destroyed by Amazon. You add free Amazon Prime shipping and no sales tax on top of the fake product selling for $5, when it's $20 at a major retailer, and the idiot consumers won't even think of buying your real product from a store. People say Walmart destroyed main street America, Amazon is digging up the graves for some nice necrophilia action.
Kill Ebay, kill Amazon, kill off the entire eCommerce nightmare. Maybe it will help kill off this over hyped 10k overvalued social media bullshit as well.
Yeah - I agree. Let's just shut the internet down completely. And smart phones. They're killing the rotary dial market...
I am not exactly a shopaholic, but do a lot of business with Amazon. They provide me with products that I would have trouble obtaining anywhere else at any price.
I am a careful shopper and have returned a single item to Amazon in 14 years because of wrong size. The easiest return experience in my life. I am a quality fanatic and a country of origin fanatic. How is it that you have a house full of Chinese knock offs and I have nothing but high quality genuine merchandise from my many years as an Amazon customer?
I collect obscure music CDs. Amazon has a better selection than specialists such as GEMM. If Amazon doesn't have it, you probably will have to buy the MP3. In hundreds of used CD purchases, I was mildly disappointed with a single CD for cosmetic reasons but have never had a CD skip. I buy German, French, Dutch, British, and Polish CDs from Europe for less than 3 bucks international shipping. I collect uncommon and out of print sci-fi. Amazon is a better supplier than most specialty book stores. Amazon is one of the few places that I can obtain a certain music storage system. I purchased 3 Italian manufactured bicycles from Amazon last year. Those bikes were not available anywhere else in America at the time. My French made Mavic wheelset came from Amazon, as did my German SKS tire pump and German multi-tool. I am delighted with the sound system that I purchased from Amazon.
I purchased a German made bicycle work stand from Amazon for the same price as a Chinese made stand. The American made holsters for my pistols came from Amazon. I could go on and on. I am not all about price, either. If Amazon had to collect sales tax or raise prices or shipping, they'd still get most of my business. They have earned my loyalty. The old fashioned way. Good service and selection.
Don't take it out on one of the very finest merchants that this country has ever seen because your business model is a failure. If you are unable to adapt and succeed, that is your problem. Don't try to make it everyone else's problem.
"Don't try to make it everyone else's problem." That's what incompetent liberals do.
Mom and Pop onliners already got a slap in the face with the hefty postal rate increase. Add that to their 0.01% return on their 'high yield ' savings account and the 12% increase in food price each year and we have the makings of a solid recovery.
I'm sure Obama will get right behind this one. Fairness doesn't equal Freedom!
Welcome the "Internet Posting Removal Act". http://legiscan.com/IL/bill/SB1614
First Illnois, then the entire country.
Servers are outside the US right Tyler?
"according to the intellectual luminaries in Congress, local retailers are at a disadvantage, effectively having to charge 10%+ more for their products than an out-of-state retailer."
So they can't have their own on line store and sell goods out of state?
Next up on the fed govt's agenda:
"it isn't FAIR that states like Cal have income tax whereas states like Texas do not, so we will now have the STATE INCOME TAX FAIRNESS & EQUALIZATION ACT OF 2014 to charge low income tax state residents higher income tax rates so they don't get a leg up on high tax states."
It's coming, just watch. That pesky ass Constitution never got in the way of "fairness" before.
It's pretty simple.
I run an online store, I no longer ship to CA.
It's just about money folks. Nothing else. So you don't get that 10th pair of shoes this year. Who cares?
If you really want to fuck the government, just stop spending all together. Food and other essentials, but forget the rest.
Hold onto your cash (no you don't need gold to survive right now). And watch what happens. Government tax revenues collapse.
How about lowering the taxes so that the stores can compete.
It's really quite simple - we should just stop consuming. I've already gotten about 75% there over the last few years. Been selling stuff I don't need or use anymore. Raised $4k this last week and nobody paid any tax on those transactions. When I die I told my wife not to claim my body. Let the fucking state deal with it.
Bitcoin, silk road links or the new equivalent network to dodge charging sales tax. Never under estimate the resourceful when it comes to getting an edge to make a buck.
Who the fuck is this retard Sten Wilson who seems to be everywhere all the time, fighting the Good German fight as a one man wrecking drone for this particular legislation?
LSD was invented in Switzerland, not in the USA.
Lots of stupid posts on this one. If you are going to tax, sales tax is the least harmful one generally and you will get little argument on that from almost any economist whether on the left or right.
Sales tax have existed in one form or another since the founding of the Republic too. I am for this because I do believe in supporting small businesses locally which actually keep a high percentage of their dollars in the community.
Mindless mantra and quest for the cheapest price for the cheapest and most poorly-produced shit has been overall deleterioius for the US. Yeah consumers save money on shitty goods that don't last nearly as long while their jobs go overseas and their local tax base is gutted & destroyed. Sounds like a piss-poor tradeoff if you live in the US yet I can't tell you how many PhD economists I trained with think this is a brilliant economic system.
The question is going to be in the details though including the rate, how it is collected, etc.
You always get a huge amount of irony on these kind of threads - people who piss and moan about current trends in American politics and economics yet shop at places like Amazon and WalMart simply because they have the lowest price even if both of these companies are largely having huge overall negative effects on their local communities and American firms that actually produce anything physical.
Same dopes will use terms like 'sheeple' when they don't realize they are no different. Wal-Mart is now slowly starting to destroy the American food production system as it has acquired more and more of the US grocery market.