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Lost Online Sales Taxes Not As Big As Thought
from the and-we-should-trust-any-of-these-numbers-why? dept
A billion here, a billion there... it's not real money, so who cares? State governments have been going bonkers for years about all that "lost revenue" from those damn geeks buying products online and not paying the necessary sales tax. There are all sorts of laws and schemes afoot to try to collect more of those taxes from asking you to be honest to making merchants calculate and collect the taxes for you. While many smaller e-commerce firms are scared what that might cost, the state governments keep trotting out huge sales tax loss numbers. Well, now, it turns out that the numbers they've been trotting out have been wrong. No surprise there. Any time you try to figure out "losses" from an expense that isn't really there, people are simply making up numbers. However, the researchers who conducted the original studies are now saying that (oops) those original numbers were off by quite a bit. They still claim there are losses, but they're much, much less than what they originally reported last time they were asked to make up some numbers.
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Consumer Protection
However, this could harm consumers too. What if people buy "tax-free" cars online, and they turn out not to meet inspection standards of the state? The consumer is liable to get arrested or severely penalized. Same goes for unsafe products sold online.
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Lies, Lies, Lies
This sounds like the RIAA and their over inflated "losses".
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Re: Consumer Protection
> The consumer is liable to get arrested or < br>> severely penalized
Yeah, I always have trouble explaining to prospective employers my arrest record for failing my state's car inspection. The reason was that the car I bought was from another state, and the inspection standards for the different states are SO different. Little did I know that being street legal in 'bama would mean jail time in California. Lesson learned. At least I didn't pay taxes on it.
Next time I'll pay cash to the used car dealer in central Los Angeles. That way I will have it inspected in-state, and still avoid paying taxes, like all those millions of illegals here who buy and sell things without paying sales tax, dwarfing on-line sales.
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Re: Consumer Protection
>Little did I know that being street legal in 'bama would mean jail time in California.< br>
Oh yeah, if you're caught driving a car that isn't street-legal, and you're caught more than once, you can get in some deep doo-doo. And with an illegally purchased car, you would be in the dilemma of being unable to register it.
>That way I will have it inspected in-state, and still avoid paying taxes, like all those millions of illegals here who buy and sell things without paying sales tax, dwarfing on-line sales.
Lots of them end up in prison too.
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illigals
not enough
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Re: Consumer Protection
However, this could harm consumers too. What if people buy "tax-free" cars online, and they turn out not to meet inspection standards of the state? The consumer is liable to get arrested or severely penalized.
Errr, where do you come up with your 'theories'?
Please show where the sale of the care *HAS* to later 'pass state inspection'?
Please show a case where the seller of a car stated it would pass inspection that later failed inspection fell into a catagory of "buyer beware".
Why not just back up ONE of your claims with actual facts.
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