Time to dust off the moldy Supreme Court rulings...
In the days of yore, the Supreme Court held that interstate tariffs are unconstitutional because such is the bailiwick of the Feds not the states.
The Marketplace Fairness Act will impose the sales taxes of the customer's location upon the seller regardless of their location. In effect a federal interstate tariff.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that the law must treat all equally. This is why you can live like a prince on the dole in central Montana and can't buy a Happy Meal with it in NYFC.
The MFA should get nuked just as soon as someone figures out how to get standing.
The problem is the bloody costs while that case slowly works its way up the chain, assuming they can get the Justices to grant certori.
There are already notices on places like Gunbroker, "No Sales to California". Do we want to see that start happening for places like Ebay or Amazon? There are already, "add 4% for payment using Credit Card or PayPal." Do you think a notice saying, "add 25% for sales to California," will increase sales?
It's not intended to increase sales. It's intended as a barrier to entry to new businesses and to prevent businesses smaller than a particular size from getting large enough to be competitive with the established players. Players who are large enough that they have a staff that deals with figuring out sales taxes. Large enough that the staff who's going to be figuring this out have just acquired a new duty rather than hiring someone new to do it. In other words, it's not going to cost Amazon anything consequential to comply with the MFA, but it would have a large impact on, say, an auto salvage yard.
Call your congress critter. Tell them that this is most definitely unfair and even worse will have a deleterious effect on an already weak economy. Tell them that if they are having trouble with finding enough money to pay for programs then perhaps they can try something new, like reducing spending. Ask them how they know that won't work, because they damn sure have never tried it.
In the days of yore, the Supreme Court held that interstate tariffs are unconstitutional because such is the bailiwick of the Feds not the states.
The Marketplace Fairness Act will impose the sales taxes of the customer's location upon the seller regardless of their location. In effect a federal interstate tariff.
The Supreme Court has also ruled that the law must treat all equally. This is why you can live like a prince on the dole in central Montana and can't buy a Happy Meal with it in NYFC.
The MFA should get nuked just as soon as someone figures out how to get standing.
The problem is the bloody costs while that case slowly works its way up the chain, assuming they can get the Justices to grant certori.
There are already notices on places like Gunbroker, "No Sales to California". Do we want to see that start happening for places like Ebay or Amazon? There are already, "add 4% for payment using Credit Card or PayPal." Do you think a notice saying, "add 25% for sales to California," will increase sales?
It's not intended to increase sales. It's intended as a barrier to entry to new businesses and to prevent businesses smaller than a particular size from getting large enough to be competitive with the established players. Players who are large enough that they have a staff that deals with figuring out sales taxes. Large enough that the staff who's going to be figuring this out have just acquired a new duty rather than hiring someone new to do it. In other words, it's not going to cost Amazon anything consequential to comply with the MFA, but it would have a large impact on, say, an auto salvage yard.
Call your congress critter. Tell them that this is most definitely unfair and even worse will have a deleterious effect on an already weak economy. Tell them that if they are having trouble with finding enough money to pay for programs then perhaps they can try something new, like reducing spending. Ask them how they know that won't work, because they damn sure have never tried it.