Comments On: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales by Goldy http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/11/27/time-to-start-collecting-sales-tax-on-out-of-state-sales Comments On: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales by Goldy en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Wed, 22 May 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Wed, 22 May 2013 18:00:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Re: the use tax, as a small business, I had to buy a part for my machine, which comes from Germany. Only ONE place to get it, from the distributer in Utah. I called, they shipped it, and then DOR said, I had to pay the use tax, because"you took your business outside of Washington, but used the product here". I protested, and he found a $16 subscription to Newsweek (this was 1996) and said, "if I wanted to, I can fine you for not paying a use tax on this magazine subscription."
So yeah, individuals don't pay it, but you can be sure every auditor is looking at it for businesses.
Posted by Up all night]]> Mon, 22 Apr 2013 23:31:15 -0700 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
...shifting the burden from the residents (who are responsible for the taxes now) because they can't or won't enforce their own laws.


Instead of enforcing the laws as they are now, they're trying to enforce new laws on folks who aren't even in their jurisdiction.

Maybe the USPS should become a sales tax collector; force sellers to put cashiers' checks for the tax amounts in each package upon pickup, and the delivering post office just takes them out and sends them to the state before delivery.
Posted by Banna]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 15:23:03 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
Their are warehouse state/county/local tax collectors that will do it for you, for a fee. Which you add as a surcharge if the consumer doesn't pay it themselves.
Posted by Will in Seattle]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:20:15 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Such things are available, but they are absurdly expensive, keeping them in the "enterprise" class. Large accounting firms can afford them, not little guys, because they have trained staff. US tax code is designed to be difficult, requiring a lot of expensive labor to process. You can't just make a plug-in for Quicken or TurboTax and sell it for $50. We're talking about dealing with hundreds of municpalities, many of them total clusterfucks. The odds of getting quarterly tax remittances to all them without hassle are directly proportional to the amount spent on the effort.
Posted by Sir Vic]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 11:12:05 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by orino]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 10:16:01 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
As far as the software goes, what if it was developed and sold by a company that already does small business accounting software? I would imagine that they already have people keeping up on everything all 50 states require.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:16:56 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
The better solution would be for Washington to follow Oregon's lead and dump the sales tax in favor of an income tax, but that's unlikely to happen any time soon.
Posted by decidedlyodd]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 09:04:58 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
I have to ask - is there no software that can pretty well do that automatically, if it's integrated with the sales software? Something that would do all the calculating and reporting, and only require a digital signature from the owner?

That might sound very naive. I'm not a businessman and I've never been in charge of the finances at any retail operation. So there may well be rules and/or regulations prohibiting things like that, requiring that the operations be somewhat manual. Or perhaps a fundamental and pragmatic reason to do it manually. Maybe you have to wait for 1099's or other forms from the bank first.

But it seems to me that computers ought to be able to do most of the heavy lifting of tax reporting, even for a small business. That's something that obviously wouldn't have helped Goldy in the 90s, but I wonder if there's a really, REALLY good reason why that can't be figured out today.
Posted by Matt from Denver]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:47:03 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by Goldy]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:45:28 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by Goldy]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:43:04 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by digitalwitch]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:25:54 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
Small businesses in WA are already overburdened with tax collection and reporting with the fucked up idea of destination based taxes within the state, which require us to use faulty and ever-changing databases to guess and determine which municipality's rate we must use to determine sales tax, to report excise tax and to pay the damn taxes.

Opening the door to another pile of tax reporting obligations by saying that it will only be for the big businesses is bullshit. In the end, the government will lay the tax burden squarely on the shoulders of small and medium businesses while big business simply leverage their army of lawyers, accountants and lobbyists to avoid paying the taxes.

Deciding what's best for small business should be left to actual practitioners in the present day, not those who pontificate from vague, aging memories of the past.
Posted by Hey, Goldy, Stop Pimping My Ass To Tax Collectors]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:19:26 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by wisepunk]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:16:15 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by Brandon J.]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:08:54 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by pussnboots]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:59:30 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
Let's let individual states make the whole country responsible for their inability to handle their own budgets by shifting the burden from the residents (who are responsible for the taxes now) because they can't or won't enforce their own laws.
Posted by Banna]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:50:18 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Step 2: promote more sales taxes.
Posted by doceb]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:35:59 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]> Posted by Bugnroolet]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:33:01 -0800 The Stranger <![CDATA[Re: Time to Start Collecting Sales Tax on Out-of-State Sales]]>
Burdensome regulations driving small businesses out of business?

We call BullShit.

Government is your friend, Goldy.

Asshole.....
Posted by NIMBY....]]> Tue, 27 Nov 2012 07:16:01 -0800 The Stranger