Monday, May 12, 2014

WARNING New Internet Taxes May Be Coming

The WSJ explains:
On Nov. 1—three days before Election Day—the Internet Tax Freedom Act is due to expire. In place since 1998 and renewed three times, it wisely prohibits taxes that discriminate against the Internet. State and local governments can't impose burdens online that don't exist offline. And multiple jurisdictions can't tax the same online transaction—a critical consumer protection in a country with more than 9,600 taxing authorities. The law also bans email taxes and new taxes on Internet access services.

Originally authored by former GOP Rep. Chris Cox and Sen. Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the law has attracted large bipartisan majorities every time it's been up for a vote in either house. That's because the law has allowed the Internet to grow into an engine of interstate and international commerce.

But in a few months customers may begin receiving notices from their Internet providers that new taxes are on the way. Even though nearly everyone in Congress opposes slapping all of America's heavy traditional telephone taxes on Internet access, a renewal of this successful policy is being held hostage by lobbyists for giant retailers.

They've persuaded Democrats like Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) and even self-styled limited-government advocate Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah) that an extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act should be paired with more authority for those 9,600 governments over e-commerce. Unless states and localities are granted new powers to reach outside their borders to force collection of sales taxes on goods purchased online, the plan is to punish all American consumers with new taxes on communication.

Mr. Chaffetz is candid in suggesting the larger moratorium extension won't pass without a new online sales tax.

5 comments:

  1. It is easier to add additional taxes than to raise a particular tax rate. As much as I hate to admit it, they are coming.

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  2. Mr. Chaffetz, like most Utah politicians (and politicians most everywhere), only does what benefits liberty to the extent that it'll get him re-elected. Otherwise, he's pretty quick to jump on the statism bandwagon, ergo, he's one of the big pushers behind the new online gambling ban.

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  3. When they do impose sales tax collection by internet vendors you are going to see the big ones off shoring to Europe (Ireland) and especially Asia (Korea and Taiwan). Its already happening and ship times and fees are getting more reasonable by the day. It only makes sense that instead of putting foreign made goods in warehouses in the US, you keep the products right where they were made and ship them from there.

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  4. Just to be clear the Marketplace Fairness Act (MFA) simply grants States' rights to choose collection of existing taxes already due. The MFA does not enact or impose any new taxes. Consumers residing in all 46 states with sales and use tax policies have been and still are legally require to self track and remit sales/use taxes on all their out of state purchases. Congress is simply acting as recommended by the Supreme Court of The United States. Justice White stated in his dissenting opinion in the Quill decision: [Cite as: 504 U. S. 298 (1992) 333 Opinion of White, J.]

    “Although Congress can and should address itself to this
    area of law, we should not adhere to a decision, however right
    it was at the time, that by reason of later cases and economic
    reality can no longer be rationally justiļ¬ed. The Commerce
    Clause aspect of Bellas Hess, along with its due process holding, should be overruled.”

    I applaud and support Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R., Utah), and all the bi-partisan supporters and am grateful they are working toward upholding the laws of our land.

    I strongly support and urge Congress to immediately pass S.743/H.R.684 The Marketplace Fairness Act.

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    Replies
    1. Let me get it right... you strongly support the thieves and thugs in uniform - and the plutocrats which excrete the ever-increasing number of the so-called "laws", which are nothing more than licenses to steal from us.

      What are you doing here, trolling for abuse? Are you a masochist? (Well any statist is, but this is another topic).

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