I strongly feel that they need to come up with a way to either eliminate sales tax or require out of state purchases to be taxes at the rate of the county you live in.
Here in California, and I'm sure in other places, it's absolutely killing local business.
I agree Eric. But many brick and mortar stores like Best Buy for example also offer online purchasing and shipping. So before the "use-tax" was being enforced they handled out of state sales the same as Amazon did. The strictly on-line stores already have an advantage with less overhead. The "use tax" will not save local businesses regardless and is just another money grab.
I look at it this way. If you travel to another state and buy something there. You pay the sales tax in that state when the item is purchased. When you come back to your home state does that state stop you before re-entering and make you declare everything your purchased? Well if California could pull it off they certainly would IMHO. It would however cost more money to regulate and collect than worth it so that would be the only reason stopping them from doing it.
Big brick-and-mortar stores like Best Buy were killing local small businesses just like Wal-Mart did to many smaller stores and now grocery stores for years. And now there is new competition to them and I hear crying foul. I don't feel any sympathy for stores like Best Buy.
And all the smaller businesses have been caught in the cross-fire all these years. Being over-regulated and over taxed. Then losing local customers to big box stores.... And now the Internet.
If they are going to regulate sales tax the Internet it should be some kind of flat tax on all sales. Then that money is split between the two states involved(shipped from and used in). There are too many different counties and states having different sales tax amounts. Then that would be fair across the board. If a local county wants to have higher sales taxes than others then it will suffer the consequences when people go to another county for bigger purchases or the Internet instead.
We are already so over taxed and over regulated IMHO that I cringe at any more tax regulation. The states that are doing the best with their economies right now are the ones that have the lowest taxes. That is not a coincidence.
They keep raising taxes out here in California and bring in less money. They can't understand why! Then any extra money they do bring in is quickly spent instead of paying off debt or god forbid saving it! It is dang near impossible to start a new business out here. They make it so difficult that companies like Carl's Jr. refuse to build another restaurant in California because of cost and over regulation.
Instead of looking at ways to tax more why not look at ways to generate more tax revenue with the taxes that are currently being collected. That starts with allowing people to keep more of their own money to be able to spend it. That stimulates the economy and all businesses.
Well I am going to go now and stick my head back into the sand because according to most of our elected officials I have no idea how our economy should work...
