Sneaky new internet tax pushing through fast

mjpfan,

It is incumbent on the feds to figure out a sane way to implement this. The state i live in requires one to claim anything bought sales tax free. I think I am probably the only one in the entire state who actually does this, therefore, the honor system appears to not be working. Hence this move.

Folks, I don't like paying taxes. But the laws are what they are. The fact that it is easy to cheat on this makes no difference. If people like me refuse to follow the existing laws, our society will collapse faster than it will from anything else.

Charles1dad, I could not agree more with everything you said above. I paid more in federal income tax alone last year than my entire gross salary for 1985, which was sufficiently large to permit me to support a family of 5. My idea of me paying "my fair share" would involve cutting my tax bill in half. My point is that it doesn't work when people decide for themselves which laws they will obey. Taken to its extreme, that leads to anarchy. On a smaller scale, it leads to government replacing existing systems with ones that are worse, but enforceable, as in the current instance.

What is happening is that the notion of a social contract, which has been recognized as utterly essential since the age of enlightenment, has become almost completely lost. Democracy, as we currently practice it, becomes a tyranny of the average, with politicians pandering to selfish people for selfish purposes. The current situation is not a pretty picture.

Charles1dad, Agreed. The problem is not too little taxation, it is too much utterly wrong headed government spending. But you know, these things run in cycles, and this problem with waste and entitlements can be addressed. What is not easily fixable is the real root of the problem, which is the breakdown of the social contract. I don't know how our society can recover that understanding. What happened to JFK's famous words, Ask not----?

Guys, people on both sides of this issue are making valid points and there is a common thread that runs through all of it. I'm telling you, it's the failure of common ascent to social contract. There is no difference between Leona Hemsley and the millions of people in the US whose career objective is to become a 300 pound parasite. Simply stated, there is a price that ALL of us must pay for the benefits associated with living together as a society. Until and unless JFK's encouragement to think beyond ourselves becomes the predominant attitude, we will suffer from bloated government, unsustainable entitlements, and class warfare.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how to fix the internet sales problem. You simply collect tax based on the state of the seller, not the buyer. This means the small sellers don't file taxes in 50 states, they collect and file taxes in the state in which they are located. If I live in one state and drive to another, I don't ask the merchants in the state I am visiting to send sales tax back to my home state.