Senator Wants to Tax Internet Shopping 705
tripleevenfall writes "A Democratic senator is preparing to introduce legislation that aims to end the golden era of tax-free Internet shopping. The proposal — expected to be made public soon after Tax Day — would rewrite the ground rules for Internet and mail order sales by eliminating the ability of Americans to shop at Web sites like Amazon.com and Overstock.com without paying state sales taxes."
Level playing field (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm on a Mexican Radio .... (Score:4, Interesting)
If I were Amazon, I'd start thinking of moving operations to Mexico or Canada. Free trade that!
Clinton v. Bush II (Score:4, Interesting)
Clinton raised taxes, leading to full employment, an economic boom that for the first time in decades raised incomes from top to bottom rather than just at the top, and a budget surplus. Bush cut taxes, leading to a fall in employment, economic stagnation aside from the real estate bubble which was aided by Bush failures of regulation, incomes falling in all brackets except the top, and record budget deficits.
Sufficient taxes to support government programs lead to a healthy economy all around. The average economic performance is way better under Democratic presidents than under Republican. The notion that we can have a health country without sufficient taxation is like the notion that you can have a healthy body without sufficient food. History proves the Republican position that taxes must always be lowered, and lowered again, just doesn't lead to the Promised Land. It's a lie invented to serve the ultra-rich, who, having most of the money, have the most to lose from taxes. Average people, and the economy as a whole, prosper when taxes are higher.
Re:Income Tax vs Sales Tax (Score:5, Interesting)
It's so infuriating to hear people like you try to make excuses for your greed and jealousy instead of just doing more with your life and earning as much money as you wish you had.
Its infuriating to hear people like you suggesting things that simply are NOT POSSIBLE.
An individual can work harder, and accrue more purchasing power relative to his peers. But it only works on an individual level.
As a "system" it falls flat on its face. What happens if EVERYONE who was poor jumped on your bandwagon and started "doing more with their lives and earning as much money as they wish they had"? I mean EVERYONE.
Simple: money is devalued and their buying power stays the same; aka price inflation.
Better still, as their collective production and value increases your own relative wealth and buying power decreases; as you are already "doing more with your life" and cannot "work even harder" by the same relative amount to maintain your relative advantage.
So your solution to the problem, if everybody got on board not only wouldn't solve the problem, but would more then likely take you down a notch in the process.
I prefer solutions that address the realtity that in any sort of capitalism the majority of the people will be at the bottom. If you move everyone out of the bottom, you just establish a new bottom, and everyone ends up in the same relative place.
So instead of vainly trying to suggest poverty is a problem that can be eliminated if only everyone worked harder its better to spend your time figuring out how to make the bottom livable, with as much opportunity for motivated individuals to escape it as possible.
Re:Surprised? (Score:4, Interesting)
Increasing income taxes to 100% would barley make a dent and would not keep up with spending. The only way to fix the problem is to fix entitlements, kill subsidies and fix the tax system.