Yeah, but that hip internet entrepreneur "seandr" is going to spend $2 for every $1 of tax he collect, and if you ask how he came to that he'll say it's because he says so. How you gonna answer that, Mr. Numbers Man?

Out of curiosity, do people in Washington already pay tax on items bought on Amazon if the actual seller is an out-of-state vendor?

I support this legislation, but it dawned on me— as a resident of California, I can't remember the last time I didn't pay sales tax on an item I bought online. Maybe I just suck at bargain hunting.

About time all the electric-limo riding millionaires in Hunts Point and our side of the lake paid their fair share for keeping their commute under two hours.

Basically, this just means rich people who avoid paying taxes have to pay them.

If you actually think they pay taxes like you do, you don't pay 8 percent federal taxes on earnings when they're realized. Cause that's what they do - the sales tax is deductible - meaning they are MORE LIKELY to buy big ticket items, since now they'll have to pay sales tax anyway, but can deduct it.

@2 yes. To both.

If a vendor is in a non-sales tax state like Oregon and ships to a state they have "Nexus" in, then sales tax applies.

If they ship to a state they do not have Nexus within, then no sales tax is charged to the consumer.

Where this gets difficult is because there are 50 states. To expect any small business to file taxes in 50 states every year is very burdensome.

The proposed law is based on "simplifying" the sales taxes for participating states. Washington is already participating.

Did you know that every zip code in WA has it's own applicable sales tax rate? Did you know that companies that ship to Washington and have "Nexus" in the state of WA have to apply the appropriate rate for each zip code? Did you know that WA state auditors regularly visit Oregon to audit compliance?

Simplified means one tax rate for the entire state. A smaller piece of a pie is better than no slice of pie at all.

I hope it doesn't pass. It is burdensome.

With Obama supporting it, and Grover Norquist against it, and considering the word "Tax" in the bill, I'm finally for the first time in my entire life counting on Republicans in the House to be consistent and do what their masters tell them to and kill this bill.

Kelly - in the details of the bill every state will only have 1 tax rate. So 50 different tax rates which is actually far less than there are now even just for your own state. This is a win for everyone.

My state has ZERO sales tax rate(s).

As for it being a "win" - have you filed 50 state tax returns ever in your life? Try doing it annually. Or worse how much will our accountant be adding to our bill for this "service"

Do you have a system to separate applicable sales by state to even figure out what to charge to who? If you do you're hoarding it because it doesn't exist on the free market.

Kelly @4,

As a former small business owner myself, who relied on out-of-state sales for cash flow, I used to be with you on this. But the MFA addresses this problem by exempting businesses with less than $1 million a year in out-of-state sales, and by shifting the cost of compliance to the states. As a result there are a number of FREE software and web-based compliance services (the state's pay a percentage of collections to the vendors). For example, check out TaxCloud.

It took a long time in the making, but this is a thoughtful solution that addresses the burden issue.

@Kelly: Guess what? UPS requires that you calculate shipping for the weight of each package, based on the zip code to which you ship and how quickly you want it to arrive. SHOCKING!! Why, it must be an administrative nightmare that ties up small businesses for weeks, hiring dozens of bureaucratic employees who do nothing but figure out shipping costs for EVERY SINGLE PACKAGE based on weight, priority and desination. IMPOSSIBLE! Yet, somehow, people manage to calculate and pay shipping. Go figure. TurboTax sells cheap software for filing income tax returns based on thousands of pages of statutes and regulations. This is child's play compared to that. And again, if eBay doesn't have modestly priced software available to solve this so-called "problem," they deserve to be driven out of business by someone, and soon.

This is, for all intents and purposes, a new tax.

This is, for all intents and purposes, an existing tax.

People who buy things online from businesses which do not collect sales tax are required by law to pay "use tax" on the items which are shipped them at exactly the same rate as the "sales tax" which would have been owed. Many people do not pay this tax, but they are simply scofflaws.

Many businesses do pay use tax, but the state generally only brings enforcement action against big ticket items where the use tax runs into the hundreds or thousands of dollars. About the only time consumers face enforcement is on automobile purchases.

@9 When I ran my own business and filed quarterly with the state I declared and paid the use tax on out-of-state items the business purchased. So this most definitely is not a new tax. It's merely a means to better enable collection of an existing tax.

@9 no, it's just collecting a tax you were supposed to be paying.

Don't want to pay it? Don't buy stuff.

@Goldy: You mean Tax Cloud will calculate the sales tax for me for free? Big fucking deal, that's the easy part.

I sell software to a lot of tax exempt organizations. Will Tax Cloud provide a verification service?

Will it also allow me to quickly and easily submit the sales tax I've collected to 45 different states? Every quarter?

If the answer to either of these questions is no, that means I'll have to pay Avalara to process all this bullshit, which makes Tax Cloud's silly calculator utterly fucking useless.

You mention "shifting the cost of compliance to the states." Does that mean the states are going to pay my costs to add all this bullshit to my order processing system? Are they going to cover my monthly payments to Avalara, payments I make just for the privilege of paying their taxes?

@11: Help me out - I'm not seeing the connection between a use tax your business pays to its resident state, and sales tax your business collects and submits to the 45 different states your customers live in.

@1: Hi Matt from Denver. What do you do for a living? Really just curious - we spend all this time together in SLOG and yet I know so little about you.

Still married? Kids?

@13 Yes, TaxCloud will file your sales tax in all the SSUTA states (and the MFA only authorizes SSUTA states to collect sales tax), and it's already integrated into a ton of online shopping carts, with an API for integrating into others.

Seriously. Check it out.

Paying taxes in other states?

I seem to remember something about NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION.

Goldy had a business? I guess that is another part of his life that failed.

@16: Ok, well that's good news. I took a brief look at Tax Cloud and found no mention of that functionality, which is why I asked.

P.S. I know I'm being a grouch, but I really do appreciate your coverage of this. So thank you!

@ 15, I've stated what I do many times. If you haven't been paying attention, use your Google-fu and get caught up. Not that it would prove that you know anything about this issue, or that I'm unqualified to call out your specious and exaggerated oversimplifications.

It seems you're ill informed about all this tax stuff, though. That can't be, can it? You have the figures proving that you'll spend $2 for every $1 in sales tax yet?

@17 - You're not being taxed in other states. The state in which you live (I'll leave that alone), and have representation in, is collecting the tax it's owed on the goods you purchased.

@17:I`d try to explain where you went wrong there, but you`re hopeless. Hint: Taxes collected from out-of-staters are sent back. To the government that represents them.

It's not a new tax.

It's just stretching the existing one, and it's closing a tax loophole on the public (which may or may not skew slightly richer than poor).

But, lets not touch loopholes on large companies or corporations.

We will just close them on the people who can least afford it.

Thanks Goldy.

"NO TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION."

lol, ah, the removal of all doubt has just happened.

@19: Stop being coy. As I said, I'm just being friendly, and Google is no help.

So, what do you do? Still married? Kids?

@17 seriously, do you live on some imaginary fairy cloud? If you LIVE in a state without sales taxes, nothing changed. If you live in a state where you weren't paying taxes by "forgetting" - well, get used to paying, bubba.

@ 24, nope. You're the one on trial, figuratively speaking.

Rightly or wrongly, there is zero chance of this going anywhere in the House.

@26: I don't think anyone's on trial, here, Matthew, figuratively or otherwise. I threw out the 2 to 1 ratio as an example to illustrate a point - enlisting far-flung businesses as involuntary state tax collectors is a more expensive way to generate tax revenue than simply cutting out the middle men and having the state's citizens pay their taxes directly to the state as an addendum to the income tax forms they fill out for the feds. Obviously, the actual cost of every tax dollar collected under this plan would depend on the amount of revenue a given business generates.

So why not answer my question. Are you ashamed of what you do for a living? Did your wife leave you?

@ 28, if I were ashamed I would never have said it before. Duh. I just don't jump through hoops, especially when the aim of the person asking is laughably apparent. This ain't high school, buckaroo.

Anyway, you still don't seem to understand the subject at hand, but I will thank you for finally just engaging it. But let's check it further.

I threw out the 2 to 1 ratio as an example to illustrate a point - enlisting far-flung businesses as involuntary state tax collectors is a more expensive way to generate tax revenue than simply cutting out the middle men and having the state's citizens pay their taxes directly to the state as an addendum to the income tax forms they fill out for the feds.

A statement loaded with assumption and half truths. Let's see... As a retail business, collecting sales tax comes with the job. It may not be "voluntary," exactly, but businesses have done it for so long that describing it as involuntary now is disingenuous. Asking people to pay sales taxes directly to the state is as ridiculous as asking for presents from Santa Claus - sure, everyone will just do that if the states ask. Heck, might as well tell brick and mortar retailers to stop charging it.

Obviously, the actual cost of every tax dollar collected under this plan would depend on the amount of revenue a given business generates.

Obviously, but you aren't showing how you concluded that it will cost you so much. Why? Because you didn't take any time to look into this at all. You just thought about filing taxes with all those states and flipped out.

I sure hope we on Slog are the only ones who see this side of you. It sure wouldn't inspire confidence in clients, and it would be utter hell for any of your employees.

This is going to push bitcoin prices through the roof.

The minute you take away one method to avoid a tax, people will find another.

What happened to "sales taxes are regressive" and they whould be gotten rid of, and replaced with a state income tax?

Oh, that's right. Goldy can't hold his own, and so he has to parrot the state Democratic Party line to keep his job at the Stranger.

@30 bitcoin, like Gold, is just a measure of fear.

It is more impacted by speculators worried about another war in the Middle East, which, since the US is an OIL-EXPORTING NATION, we should care ZIP about.

Which would probably help, when you think about it.

@7 - Goldy

The Main Street Tax Revenue plan relies on the states to participate in the Sales Tax Simplification organization.

As a retailer we will be tasked with separating:

1. Revenue from states that participate - only this revenue will be considered in determining if we are over $1 Million for the next tax year.

2. Revenue from applicable states where we have Nexus is disqualified in determining the $1 Million

3. Revenue in which sales tax is collected is not included. (i.e. - Drop ship items from companies that have Nexus in which sales tax is collected)

4. Revenue in which no sales tax is required is not included (i.e. Sales to Re-Sellers where the sales tax is collected by the re-seller)

As you can see Goldy every small internet company is going to have to figure a way to track only the applicable sales to compute the magic arbitrary $1 million every year. Then hope the merchant service we are using will have the necessary software in place to "turn-on" the correct rate for the applicable participating states. As I said before a huge burden for a true small business.

@ #8 kk in seattle:

WTF? You compare interstate sales tax LAW to an optional service provided by UPS. UPS is a business that caters to exactly the service you describe. Of course it works * (insert the word Moron or Jackass here - whichever offends you more).

TurboTAX has NOTHING to do with sales tax for business paying to multiple states * (insert the word Moron or Jackass here - whichever offends you more).

Ebay - Small business selling on Ebay better not come close to $1 Million in revenue. You assume that all their revenue is from that single source. Many e-commerce focused business have their own web-sites. Ebay isn't in our picture * (insert the word Moron or Jackass here - whichever offends you more).

I hope I've offended you kk in seattle, because your entire post compared apples to oranges which makes you... Yup you guessed it A * (insert the word Moron or Jackass here - whichever offends you more).

@32 not hard. See previous references to tax cloud