Haslam willing to take lead on Internet sales tax

[DWARREN123]

No new taxes! Get a budget and stick to it. If they can not run the state with the money they are already getting more will not help!

[DaveTN]

It probably has something to do with it being unenforceable, to begin with.

If that is true I guess it will be a non-issue won’t it? Amazon has vowed not to pay the tax in California; I guess we’ll see how that works out. Want to make any bets on who wins that pizzing contest?

But this thread isn’t really about taxes to many people here; it’s a chance for them to rant about the government.

[DaveTN]

No new taxes! Get a budget and stick to it. If they can not run the state with the money they are already getting more will not help!

Part of a budget is estimating sales and the income from tax on those sales. Internet sales are increasing every year. You think we should just walk away from those taxes and let our services suffer? Throw up our hands and say “Oh well�

As has been pointed out more than once; this is not a new tax.

I’m not arguing in favor of taxes I’m simply stating that if this tax is not collected it will come in the form of another tax; property, sales or gas tax. Probably gas or sales tax. I don’t think those of us that buy products here should pay the tax for those that order from other states.

I order a lot of stuff from Newegg. I have to pay a tax because they have a presence in Tennessee. They still have the best prices and I get my stuff the next day.

[1gewehr]

The purpose of government is NOT to provide social programs. Our Founders went through this debate 220 years ago. Legitimate functions of government are: provide a legal system (laws, courts, etc), protect the borders, keep the peace (quell insurrections, riots, etc). If we kept government within those boundaries, this debate would be moot.

As far as this sales tax collection goes, the issue is whether TN can collect from a company which has no presence in TN. The net result will be to force companies selling remotely to go off-shore. Yep, there go more US jobs, investment money, and personal spending. I'm sure THAT will help our ailing economy! Bill Haslam is doing a great job of convincing me that he should be a one-term governor.

Raising taxes will have no positive effect. All that will happen is that government will continue to spend to excess. Only by curbing that spending can we get fiscal responsibility. Giving money to politicians is like giving whiskey and a new Corvette to an unsupervised 16 year-old boy. Sure, he MIGHT act responsibly. But would you bet on it?

As far as worrying about whether the poor will eat us, that's absurd. The only way that would happen is if government continues to tax and spend our economy into oblivion. Giving them more tax money will only exacerbate the situation.

[Kenstaroni]

I do not agree with any internet taxing...I'm sorry but they get enough from us as it is and I see no reason to provide them any more money for them to go squander on senseless crap. The government is the least fiscally responsible entity on earth and somehow controls the money and finds ways to convince the people to give them more of it.....it's disgusting really.

[Guest UberDuper]

If that is true I guess it will be a non-issue won’t it? Amazon has vowed not to pay the tax in California; I guess we’ll see how that works out. Want to make any bets on who wins that pizzing contest?

But this thread isn’t really about taxes to many people here; it’s a chance for them to rant about the government.

Amazon pulled up stakes and left CA. They ended all their agreements with their California affiliate sites. Those are CA based businesses who will suffer. They'll either have to shut down, downsize or leave CA to stay in business. To be clear this wasn't about Amazon having a "presence" in CA and skirting the state taxes. This was about CA passing a law that would allow them to collect sales tax on a business that has no presence in the state by redefining "subsidiary" to include "affiliates." These affiliates were advertising and cross linking agreements.

Amazon will not be paying that tax and the result of this bad law is California based small businesses will suffer. Amazon will still sell to CA customers sales tax free.

[Guest UberDuper]

An internet sales tax is not a technical difficulty. It's a legal difficulty. From a technical standpoint there's a handful of places where the correct tax could be assessed.

By the seller site: This is already done by ever ecommerce application out there. Every business has to assess a specific sales tax for at least one state.

By the payment processor (gateway): Far more centralized solution. There's not very many payment processors in the US. They're all pretty much evil bastards anyway so no sympathy from me if they have to add that functionality to their service.

By the credit card companies: Even more centralized and probably the easiest solution of all. Sales tax is assessed based on billing address rather then where the item is shipped. Tax is assessed and added to every internet based charge.

The issues are legal. The states don't really have the ability to affect regulations on businesses in another state. The feds don't really have the ability to collect taxes for the states. So what we're getting now is a bunch of piss poor laws by the states that try to extend their ability to affect regulations on businesses in other states.

[seez52]

For anyone that wants to pay TN sales tax on their out of state purchases, the TN dept. of revenue has a form you can fill out and submit with your remittance. Seems like if TN wanted to collect that tax the paper trail would be there for them to exploit.

[Krull]

I would agree with an Internet sales tax. The state is hurting financially and this would go a long way to helping. I would much rather have a consumption tax than a property or income based tax.

yes -- i agree 100%