On 08/04/2011 10:14 AM, Frogwatch wrote:
A friend and I were discussing the state budget and he advocated a
sales tax on internet sales.
Sales taxes are supposed to be to fund infrastructure related to the
company but if the company is not in the state where the purchaser is
located, then it is simply another tax for no purpose.

It is often said that internet sales compete unfairly with local brick
and mortar stores. I do not think this is true very often. Most of
the time, if you are going to purchase something, you want to see it
first so you would prefer to go to a local vendor. If the local
vendor either does not have the item or is so inconvenient as to
discourage a sale, then you buy online. If you know exactly what you
want and the local vendor charges too much you buy online and you save
the gas it would take to go to the local vendor. So, this idea of
unfair competition is simply a myth.

How would a company deal with an internet sales tax, badly I am sure.
Can you imagine having to report sales to 50 different states and even
then some cities charge their own tax. The paperwork alone would
drive some companies out of business. So much for job creation.

Move offshore is an option for some. The whole idea is a tax greedy
leftie fleabagger idea. Hey, I like the idea of low to no property
taxes and lower utility bills in most of South America.

Will fail. Have a better idea, a $5 gallon oil tax and a 25% fixed
non-refundable tax hike. Hey, that is what it would take to keep the
liberal wasteful spending to a balanced budget.

Either that or like everyone else, cut spending when income is lower
than spending. Time for government to grow up. Hey, if fleabaggers
want government to run their life they should sign their lives away and
let government take care of them. For the rest of us, we want our
economic freedom.