Internet tax lobbyist: Why are we letting this pesky Constitution thing get in the way?

[sailingaway]

The folks over at Americans for Tax Reform flagged this revealing comment from a Wall Street Journal story today about the growing momentum in Congress to pass an Internet sales tax bill:


The legislation would effectively replace a 1992 Supreme Court decision, made in the early days of the commercial Internet, that held that a state couldn’t force a retailer to collect sales tax unless the retailer had a physical presence in the state, such as a store or a warehouse.

“The industry is evolving very rapidly, and the law today is a 20th-century interpretation of an 18th-century document that is holding back the entire retail industry as it adapts to 21st-century consumer preferences and demand,” said David French, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Retail Federation, a retail-industry trade group lobbying for the legislation.

So they admit it is unconstitutional, in which case it CAN'T be passed as an enforceable law. Unless the Constitution is amended, as it contains the means to do.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/internet-tax-lobbyist-why-are-we-letting-this-pesky-constitution-thing-get-in-the-way/article/2528237?custom_click=rss

[ZENemy]

Im sorry the what-stitution? :D

[Acala]

I would be willing to make a compromise - if a state eliminates all income tax and property tax, it can make its residents pay sales tax on interstate sales. Deal?

[aGameOfThrones]

I would be willing to make a compromise - if a state eliminates all income tax and property tax, it can make its residents pay sales tax on interstate sales. Deal?

The STATE: What's a compromise?

[Acala]

The STATE: What's a compromise?

For them a compromise is just the next step towards taking everything.

[sailingaway]

Ron's statement today on the internet tax mandate:

http://www.campaignforliberty.org/national-blog/ron-paul-statement-on-internet-tax-mandate/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

[paulbot24]

“The industry is evolving very rapidly, and the law today is a 20th-century interpretation of an 18th-century document that is holding back the entire retail industry as it adapts to 21st-century consumer preferences and demand,”

This coming from people that currently take their morality orders and insight about today's world from a collection of books handed down from the Bronze Age. Not ripping on Christianity or derailing this thread into a religious debate. It is just interesting commentary to hear these people rip on old documents as an outdated piece of paper and nearing some invisible expiration date of relevance, yet never question the "Book of Really Old Pieces of Paper" in their house about relevance, based on its age. It is just an interesting observation.

[angelatc]

“The industry is evolving very rapidly, and the law today is a 20th-century interpretation of an 18th-century document that is holding back the entire retail industry as it adapts to 21st-century consumer preferences and demand,” said David French, senior vice president for government affairs at the National Retail Federation, a retail-industry trade group lobbying for the legislation.

This guy must have been a Pelosi intern. Pray tell, how is a lack of taxation holding back the entire retail industry?

[asurfaholic]

This guy must have been a Pelosi intern. Pray tell, how is a lack of taxation holding back the entire retail industry?

Exactly... Why would any reasonable business want MORE taxes...

Someone must really want to hurt amazon and the likes...

[Weston White]

…Or perhaps it might just very well be that the 18th-century way of conducting business hath finally given way to the 21st-century way of conducting business (at least in large part)?

Regardless of how rapidly an industry evolves, the founding maxims that have been so wisely infused within our U.S. Constitution remain unflinching—i.e., water flows no more uphill today than it did 236-years ago.

Our foundational documents are designed to protect our most basic and core rights, which include protections from our own republican system of government’s unnecessary and overburdening taxation (so to chain it down from coming to realize its natural propensity in achieving self-serving immoralities—over the mind’s of men/women). Simply stated, being doubly taxed upon a singular purchase, while the one goes to the state of physical presence and the other to the state of physical purchase—with the former holding the grant of representation (as by the businesses own state and local governments) and the latter being devoid of such grant—is wholly improper. Simply, the several states are collectively a Union benefiting all Americans just the same, accordingly to its own agreed upon degrees of sovereignty. There is to be no intrastate division of our several states, simply for whenever doing so, is to serve its own selfish motivations over the social contract of our United States of America.

If individual states are realizing losses in the procuring of its expected generation of revenue, largely because its brick-and-mortars are unable to maintain competition with Internet retailers (viz., its competitors in the course of business), the clear answer is for the legislature of each state to either upon its own volition lower its (state and local) sales taxes, or to otherwise provide more motivations or incentives for such Internet presences to move in and operate from within its own state, for example.

Simply stated the rights of the people—of American citizens—shall remain timelessly unalienable; which is to mean immutable; which is to mean indissoluble; which is to mean incommutable; which is to mean unchangeable, permanent, inalterable, fixed—and which is to ultimately mean, first and foremost, that our government is and shall remain wholly amenable to WE THE PEOPLE.

Perhaps, stating the above even more simply, shopping via the Internet is nothing more than a modernized equivalent of me traveling by horse and carriage into another state to replenish my local stores or homestead; the state, upon my return could not tax such activity then (except, perhaps through direct taxation), due to its blatant inappropriateness, neither can it now, and for the aforementioned very logical reasoning.

Effectively, we now have the several states working in collusion with the federal government to: (1) largely restrict, control, or to otherwise outright remove advancements in technology from the open hands of its populace, (2) levy repetitive and perpetual taxation from all such forms of technology, and (3) implement all such advancements in technology against its own people (including the people of the world) in order to achieve whatever nefarious ends or wanton agendas.

[Lucille]

Sounds like "the Second Amendment only applies to muskets" argument to me.

http://www.atr.org/top-internet-tax-lobbyist-dismisses-constitution-a7574


The Commerce Clause in the U.S. Constitution affirms that states cannot tax across their borders. Physical presence within a state’s boundaries is required for a state to be able to tax a business, a consumer, or a sale. The Constitution is clear: a person or business must be physically present within a state’s borders in order to be taxed. By suggesting the Constitution is outdated, Internet tax pushers align themselves with the rhetoric of far-left judicial activists.

Americans for Tax Reform has pointed out five reasons the Marketplace Fairness Act is bad for taxpayers:

Expands State Tax Authority: State governments will be able to tax across their borders despite clear legal and judicial precedent arguing otherwise.

Slippery Slope to More State Tax Grabs: Opens the door for further government intervention in the Internet and for states to reach across their borders for other taxes.

Tax Complexity: Small businesses would be forced to accommodate over 9,000 highly variable state and local tax codes and be required to settle disputes with out-of-state revenue boards in out-of-state courts.

Discourages Tax Competition: Rather than competing to lower taxes and attract businesses, states will compete to raise taxes on residents of other states.

Threatens Privacy: Business and state revenue boards with a track record of losing private information will have more chances to do so.

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Read more: http://atr.org/top-internet-tax-lobbyist-dismisses-constitution-a7574#ixzz2Rnq8Z400
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[Weston White]

Thoughtful points, though they left out one of the most obvious, taxation without representation; or more pointedly extrajudicial taxation. Along with the creation of another pseudo direct-to-indirect mode of taxation--to effectively bypass constitutional constraints, while providing one more causeway for the federal government to interject itself into the realm of the Internet.

[cocrehamster]

Exactly... Why would any reasonable business want MORE taxes...

Someone must really want to hurt amazon and the likes...

No, Amazon wants it. They can afford to comply but it will hurt smaller businesses.

[seapilot]

"The power to tax is the power to destroy" Daniel Webster

In this case they(big retail) want to use the internet tax to destroy the growing competition (small business).