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Originally posted by a1abdj:

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Physical retailers can't compete with the Amazon model.

The world will be a better place once everything in provided by Amazon, Walmart, and Google.

"Taco Bell was the only restaurant to survive the Franchise Wars. So, now all restaurants are Taco Bell."

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Originally posted by mutedblade:
A post that seems pretty outraged.

Look, there's simply too much to unpack there that doesn't, or never would have applied to my situation. So instead, I'll simply repeat myself:

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Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
I've had this argument many, many times over the years. It's almost impossible to understand unless you work a small retail shop that depends almost 100% on local business, and you're competing with the equivalent of Wal-Mart online.

See, I don't even have to ask. You have some rather extreme misconceptions about how it works. Like I said: you voted with your wallet, now it's your turn.

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The growing number of sales tax jurisdictions, as reported by the tax software company Vertex, suggests the states have more simplification work to do. There are now 9,998 different sales tax jurisdictions in the United States, up more than 300 when Vertex last reported the figure in 2011.

Link

This ought to go well...

Wait until each on of the 9,998 jurisdictions decides they want to audit you. Then the fun really begins.

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The world will be a better place once everything in provided by Amazon, Walmart, and Google.

I appreciate your sarcasm. Brick and mortar stores offering good service are important to me.

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Originally posted by a1abdj:
This is a direct result of people buying online and not paying the legally mandated use tax. Period. Tax money has been lost to the extent that those collecting it were motivated to do so.

Do you know who won't be negatively impacted by this? The life blood of your communities. Local brick and mortar operations. The same ones that have been paying their taxes while so many others attempted to game the system.

Agreed. Hopefully this will help keep more brick and mortar local businesses alive.

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Originally posted by a1abdj:

quote:

Physical retailers can't compete with the Amazon model.

The world will be a better place once everything in provided by Amazon, Walmart, and Google.

And Amazon, Walmart, Google will always be honorable in their business dealings, and will always act in the best interests of the consumer.

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Originally posted by chellim1:. . . More money will be paid in state/local taxes... but will it make a positive impact?
Will roads improve? Will schools improve?
Will other taxes be lowered?...

I think most of us here know the answers to those questions. Politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies will have more money, the taxpayer will have less money.

Curious what TGS and other brick and mortar businesses with an internet prescence think about this. How much extra work will it cause them. How to keep track of. Seems it will be hard to keep track of and pay to correct jurisdictions.

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Originally posted by Scoutmaster:

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Originally posted by chellim1:. . . More money will be paid in state/local taxes... but will it make a positive impact?
Will roads improve? Will schools improve?
Will other taxes be lowered?...

I think most of us here know the answers to those questions. Politicians, bureaucrats, and their cronies will have more money, the taxpayer will have less money.

More taxes means less money to spend.Some purchases will just be put off.

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Originally posted by Sigfest:
Curious what TGS and other brick and mortar businesses with an internet prescence think about this. How much extra work will it cause them. How to keep track of. Seems it will be hard to keep track of and pay to correct jurisdictions.

It would be a complete and utterly labor intensive nightmare. Not to mention costly!

It really depends how this plays out. I believe that once one jurisdiction is given the green light by SCOTUS, the other 10,000 will also want their share. We would need an army of bookkeepers and accountants just to ensure compliance. If these jurisdictions are given out of state audit privileges, it will be unsustainable. I don't see any good way to do this. The system would have to be streamlined and standardized. Everybody has their own forms, their own rates, their own deadlines, their own penalties, their own online systems.

Between Amazon's extremely predatory business model and the distributors providing product feeds to some guy in his underwear in his mommy's basement, it wouldn't take much for me to pull the plug at this point. I have millions of dollars of inventory that I had to pay for. Some of these other "dealers" have a computer and a mailbox. Add this new burden of collecting taxes and filing every month? IDK

I hope they do not have out of state audits. Of course states like Illinois are already salivating at the prospect of money in their coffers. I am certain this will take a while to sort out. More business for accountants and firms who will handle the sales tax nightmare for you. This will no doubt increase the cost of doing business.

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Originally posted by ZSMICHAEL:
Brick and mortar stores offering good service are important to me.

I only buy boots/shoes in person. The shop that helps me find a comfortable pair get the money. I only get boots and work shoes at the local red wing shop. Very few of my firearms were bought online, I want to see them in person. Service gets my money. I'm also much more likely to impulse buy in person. The real problem brick and mortar has is selection. I have bought military surplus and firearm accessories from a husband and wife shop in the U.K. Simply because they have the item.

I like your values, Voshterkoff.

For physical items, sellers will at least know the location where they are shipping. But how will this work for digital such as a downloaded movie? What is to stop a customer from claiming to be in Vermont or another zero sales tax jurisdiction.

For sellers who sell overseas, will they be required to collect for each country, district, and town overseas as well.

Governments constantly seek to raise taxes. They are utterly despondent that anyone, anywhere has money that they haven't yet taken. Perhaps they should get on with it and just confiscate all private income and property. Government could then just give each of us what we need.

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Originally posted by a1abdj:
I'll go one even further. If I were in state government I would subpoena Amazon for a list of everything that everybody in my state ever purchased. I would cross reference that list to those who filed a use tax return. I would then collect back taxes, interest, and fines from those who "forgot".

You will likely get your wish. For the audits, that is, combined with "use tax amnesty" programs.

We will probably end up with a Federal VAT tax after a while, too. There is nothing that will stop the Federal, State, County, and Local governments from spending and raising sales taxes with reckless abandon.

Little of this is going to benefit small town businesses in the long term. This was a win for Amazon and the like.

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Originally posted by a1abdj:
I'll go one even further. If I were in state government I would subpoena Amazon for a list of everything that everybody in my state ever purchased. I would cross reference that list to those who filed a use tax return. I would then collect back taxes, interest, and fines from those who "forgot".

JR Cigars sent me an email earlier this year that said, “Don’t blame us. Blame your governor. We are now collecting sales tax for your state.”

“And BTW, we reported your cigar purchases for CY 2017.”

Taxes suck. We are taxed far too much by federal, state, and local governments. I was surprised it was such a close vote, four of the justices disagreed with the decision. I was expecting 9-0.

This will be a significant source of tax revenue. Getting taxed more will not mean we get budget surpluses or better government. It will mean we get bigger government and more wasteful spending.

Fuck these assholes and their higher taxes!!

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Originally posted by PD:
This will be a significant source of tax revenue. Getting taxed more will not mean we get budget surpluses or better government. It will mean we get bigger government and more wasteful spending.

Fuck these assholes and their higher taxes!!

Bottom line right here in regards to the tax decision. Nothing will actually be benefiting the local businesses, other than cutting out some of the online competition if it plays out like most of us feel it will.

Regarding my previous post referencing small businesses:
I wholly stand by the reasons small business is failing. Their business models need to change in order to survive, otherwise they will get put out. Having products priced 2 times higher than the online competition isn't going to help you sell anything unless it's a specialty item that people would rather have their hands on or there is such value added that it makes the extra price worth it.

For those that say the brick and mortar stores aren't charging 2x as much for the same thing, all I can say is: you need to get out more and compare the prices online. Something I ran into this week was a part my dad needed for a sickle bar mower. A simple 101" belt.... The 2 shops that were close enough to get it from (where they still had to order them) had them priced for $70 and $75 respectively....Amazon had them for $28.99 shipped (and taxed btw). Dad was pleased as pie that I was able to find such a great savings which was passed onto the farm owner. The savings are probably gonna be put back into the community by way of a donation or extra spending vs the measly $4.xx that would have resulted from the higher pre-tax price.

I could probably do this day in and day out, but what would be the point. Those that are business owners will still say that the online retailers have unfair advantages and it may well be true. All I can suggest is to figure out how to get more people into your business or maybe think about operating online as well as locally.

Its inevitable, data companies have to grow, they need to keep programmers programming in order to meet revenue.

Governments know that cash sales, internet sales, overseas sales skirt tax revenue that would help balance budgets (I kidd I kidd) seriously, I mean increase money they can spend.

Paper and hard currency will be a thing of the past very soon, you'll spend using your debit cards only, Big Banks, governments and mega e-tailers are pushing us to this type of world economy.

Government/Politicians all know there are billions of tax dollars never paid because of cash or barter sales. They want that money because they think they are entitled to it and we are hiding it, we think they overspend and take too much.

Its part of the electronic data revolution

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Originally posted by HRK:


Paper and hard currency will be a thing of the past very soon, you'll spend using your debit cards only,

No way. Cash ain't going anywhere.