Shopsmith Forums

skou wrote:Quoted from Dennis, above. "BTW, are any of you familiar with the decomposition of the word "politics"? It is derived from the combination of two root words: POLY, meaning "many", and TICKS, meaning blood-sucking parasites!"

On a few political groups I hang out at, I'm prone to asking this question, which I wish I could ask to my late uncle, Jake Flake.

How do you tell when a politician is lying?

If no one gets this, I'll post the answer later.

steve

'His' lips are moving!:D

heathicus wrote:Another problem with this bill is that now, if you sell online, you become subject to being audited by every state that collects sales tax. If you have a business in Arizona selling widgets online, you can be audited by the state of New York. Every state tax collection agency now has audit power over every business doing business online.

Sales tax audits are infrequent, easy and cheap. They cross reference income tax records with sales tax records and more importantly sales tax exemptions so unless your paperwork doesn't add up you don't get contacted. By law you tax all sales unless you mark the transaction for an exemption. Examples are business to business sales (to avoid double taxation) or out of state online sales.

You're also always open to several types of audits and inquiries from any state you make a sale in that are a lot bigger pains in the neck.

frank81 wrote:I still disagree with everyone's assertion that this is a huge administration cost.

Everything you mentioned is already done in every state for brick and mortar sales. Here is Missouri's for illustration: http://dor.mo.gov/pdf/localsales.pdf

You see its simply a table with a few columns. That's all any of this is. You stick that in a database, bounce the address on the sale against the table, that's your tax rate. My adress is in city limits, so I pay 4.225% state plus 3.833% city. If I moved a half mile south I would only pay 4.225% state plus 1.833% county.

As far as providing one place to remit the tax in a state, most states were already doing that. My sales tax goes to Jeff City, then they mail a check back to the city and county for their cuts each month. It would be a huge waste of funds if anywhere is running a redundant sales tax division in every city and county government.

I would argue if any states were not already doing those three bullet points, they would be operating terribly inefficient already. Getting in line with this law would be zero cost for most states, and reduce costs for those that need to change.

Frank
I agree with your assertion that much of the work is done by the states as in your example of your state. However if you are selling across the country you must first determine the exact muncipality that you are doing business in, then check the correct tax rate schedule for that muncipality and collect and report and remit the correct tax.

If every state supplies a tax table for every taxing district in their state you will still have 50+ tax tables that must be checked and maintained, the potential of 50+ sales tax reports sent in monthly and 50+ checks to be written and remitted. If the state have separate muncipalities tax tables which must be used the number you may have to cross referrence, keep current and remit to could be a very high number. If you are a small business this can be a real impact to you.

My wife has a small business and we only do business within about 50 mile radius. Just collecting the right tax for the right muncipality and doing the sales tax reports monthly for her is bother. In our area zip codes jump taxing districts so you have to physically track down the address to tax amount.

In our state even if you don't collect any tax you must complete a report and send it in each reporting period. In our state reporting periods are based on sales volume and can be monthly, semi yearly or yearly. If you miss the deadline even if no money is collected or due you still incur a fine.

Doing business country wide would require a full time employee to manage it all.