Here Comes The State Taxman For Those Out-Of-State Purchases

from the there-goes-that-idea dept

You know all those “tax free” out-of-state purchases you made online? Well, a lot more states are now coming back and saying it’s time to pay up the taxes you owe on such purchases. They’re adding a specific line item where you’re supposed to enter how much you owe on those sorts of purchases. Of course, most people (a) have absolutely no clue how much they spent on such purposes and (b) will have no problem leaving the line completely blank. Because of that, some politicians are already trying to get the line pulled from the tax form, saying that: “We’re going to make tax evaders out of law-abiding citizens.”


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Comments on “Here Comes The State Taxman For Those Out-Of-State Purchases”

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7 Comments
aNonMooseCowherd says:

invitation to government abuse

This sounds like an invitation to abuse by tax authorities to claim that everyone buys at least some things online, so anyone who doesn’t list any onlines sales is a tax cheat. In other words, the burden will be on the taxpayers to prove that they did not make online purchases, rather than on the government to provie that they did and neglected to pay the tax.

Anonymous Coward says:

No Subject Given

my fav quote ” The National Governors Association estimates state and local governments will lose at least $35 billion this year from Internet sales.”

funny stuff.. i’d like to re-write it.

“The National Governors Associateion estimates people save at least $35 Billion in taxes by using the Internet. Officials say they are tired of the little man getting away with these outrageous tax dodging practices, and urges everyone to leave that to big corporations only.”

justme says:

If you don't know, us ethe handy chart.

Maine takes it one better. Not only do they have the “Use-Tax” line. If you don’t know they assume you must have and point you to a handy dandy chart to figure out a “default” amount you should pay based on your income.

Sure you can pencil in $0.0, but they blitzed the airwaves with the “If you cheat, we will catch you.” Most people will just pay the default amount and count themselves lucky…

AMetamorphosis says:

Re: Unsure about taxes

I have no idea how much I spent last year on online purchases.

If I don’t know, how in hades is our incompetent government going to know ?

I tend to think this is a lame attempt to scare people into paying an additional tax without any merit behind it.

Can someone enlighten me about this? : I was under the impression that in order to increase on line sales there was some kind of moratorium on paying taxes for online sales.

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