4 ms·

If you're going to have sales taxes (or consumption taxes in general) at all, it makes no sense for them not to apply to online purchases. That situation was on

If you're going to have sales taxes (or consumption taxes in general) at all, it makes no sense for them not to apply to online purchases. That situation was only in place for a brief time because of a weird interpretation of Constitutional law which would never have been made had internet commerce existed at the scale it does now. This isn't "the terrifying creeping overreach of government", this is "sales taxes working how they're obviously supposed to."

lotsofpulp 3y ago
It would be preferable if the government held the buyer responsible for paying sales taxes. Moving everything to electronic payments should make this possible. Then it would be even possible to implement marginal sales taxes, so that you are progressively taxing consumption. Which would make it impossible to avoid taxes by being so wealthy that you can take a loan out to fund your lifestyle and hence not have to pay income taxes.
- Analemma_ 3y ago
  Any tax needs to balance how nice and efficient it is on paper with how practical it is to collect in the real world.. Replacing both income and capital gains taxes with a single wealth tax would be theoretically most efficient and incentive-aligned, but wealth taxes are extremely difficult to administer in real life, so we don't do them and instead have income and capital gains taxes as an imperfect but easy-to-collect proxy. It's the same thing with "buyer-reported sales taxes": nice in theory, impossible in practice (note that this isn't a hypothetical: as others have mentioned in the thread, before sales taxes were extended to internet purchases you were supposed to report internet purchases as use taxes, which approximately nobody did).
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Right, but with electronic payments, total purchase amounts can be reported to the government, just like income is reported now. And you do not have to worry about figuring out valuations of a million different kinds of wealth or who owns what. A much simpler formula for taxation, you spend up to $x, tax rate is y%, and so on and so forth.
  - ender341341 3y ago
    > you were supposed to report internet purchases as use taxes, which approximately nobody did There was an article on here a few days ago about someone trying to do so and no one at the state tax office could figure out what was actually needed for them to do so.
    - frumper 3y ago
      There is a place to do that on your state income taxes at the end of the year. I'm not sure how no one at the state tax office would not know that, they have an easy to understand website. Alternatively, you can report it directly to them. https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm#Overview https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm#Overview
      - ender341341 3y ago
        Not all states have income tax
        frumper 3y ago
        Sorry, it was an article about California, figured that was what we were talking about
        ender341341 3y ago
        fair enough, as a Washingtonian I sometimes forget that others have to deal with state income tax, definitely makes sense it'd just be part of yearly tax paperwork you already have to do. From a quick google I think a lot of the additional confusion is the mix of Use/Sales tax when they mostly (as a customer) have the same meaning but for a tax authority have different meaning, searching for "Washington how to declare sales tax" turns up a bunch of random stuff about regulations for retailers showing sales tax correctly, if you search for "Washington how to declare use tax" actually brings up the correct documents from the state, I can def see some bureaucrat not connecting that that's what was actually meant.

lotsofpulp 3y ago

It would be preferable if the government held the buyer responsible for paying sales taxes. Moving everything to electronic payments should make this possible. Then it would be even possible to implement marginal sales taxes, so that you are progressively taxing consumption. Which would make it impossible to avoid taxes by being so wealthy that you can take a loan out to fund your lifestyle and hence not have to pay income taxes.

Analemma_ 3y ago
Any tax needs to balance how nice and efficient it is on paper with how practical it is to collect in the real world.. Replacing both income and capital gains taxes with a single wealth tax would be theoretically most efficient and incentive-aligned, but wealth taxes are extremely difficult to administer in real life, so we don't do them and instead have income and capital gains taxes as an imperfect but easy-to-collect proxy. It's the same thing with "buyer-reported sales taxes": nice in theory, impossible in practice (note that this isn't a hypothetical: as others have mentioned in the thread, before sales taxes were extended to internet purchases you were supposed to report internet purchases as use taxes, which approximately nobody did).
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Right, but with electronic payments, total purchase amounts can be reported to the government, just like income is reported now. And you do not have to worry about figuring out valuations of a million different kinds of wealth or who owns what. A much simpler formula for taxation, you spend up to $x, tax rate is y%, and so on and so forth.
- ender341341 3y ago
  > you were supposed to report internet purchases as use taxes, which approximately nobody did There was an article on here a few days ago about someone trying to do so and no one at the state tax office could figure out what was actually needed for them to do so.
  - frumper 3y ago
    There is a place to do that on your state income taxes at the end of the year. I'm not sure how no one at the state tax office would not know that, they have an easy to understand website. Alternatively, you can report it directly to them. https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm#Overview https://www.cdtfa.ca.gov/taxes-and-fees/use-tax.htm#Overview
    - ender341341 3y ago
      Not all states have income tax
      - frumper 3y ago
        Sorry, it was an article about California, figured that was what we were talking about
        ender341341 3y ago
        fair enough, as a Washingtonian I sometimes forget that others have to deal with state income tax, definitely makes sense it'd just be part of yearly tax paperwork you already have to do. From a quick google I think a lot of the additional confusion is the mix of Use/Sales tax when they mostly (as a customer) have the same meaning but for a tax authority have different meaning, searching for "Washington how to declare sales tax" turns up a bunch of random stuff about regulations for retailers showing sales tax correctly, if you search for "Washington how to declare use tax" actually brings up the correct documents from the state, I can def see some bureaucrat not connecting that that's what was actually meant.