Tax Collectors Eye Buying Names Of Web Shoppers

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Which state plans on buying the names of people that shopped online so they can collect sales taxes? If you guessed California, you would be right!

The staff of the California State Board of Equalization has proposed paying private contractors for the skinny on state residents who have made purchases exceeding $5,000 on the Internet without paying the state and local sales tax they owe.
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gov just need to require cc/ banks to file everything for us for no abuse.
 
This is why I hate the government. Doing everything they can to get their hands on our money.
 
Gym Rat said:
This is why I hate the government. Doing everything they can to get their hands on our money.
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If you hear the tax people in California talk, it's their money and they are entitled to it, and we are law breakers, criminals, bad people, etc, etc, for not freely giving it all to them. Sales tax is near 10% in most counties here, but you'll only hear the Franchise Tax Board talk about how the problem is that Californians are trying to avoid it by shopping online. No one is willing to acknowledge that the real problem is that 10% is too darn high.
 
these crooks never want to reduce their spending or salaries, so they ended up squeezing more out of us.
 
Mackowitz said:
If you hear the tax people in California talk, it's their money and they are entitled to it, and we are law breakers, criminals, bad people, etc, etc, for not freely giving it all to them. Sales tax is near 10% in most counties here, but you'll only hear the Franchise Tax Board talk about how the problem is that Californians are trying to avoid it by shopping online. No one is willing to acknowledge that the real problem is that 10% is too darn high.
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except that nobody is going to suddenly stop shopping online if you drop it to 5% a whopping 50% rate cut........so that argument really leads nowhere fast
 
Margaret Thatcher had it right when she said:

They [socialists] always run out of other people's money. It's quite a characteristic of them.
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Which often is paraphrased to:

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money.
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bloodhawke83 said:
oh shit, i'm fucked. :eek:
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Don't worry, so is every citizen. They're not going to throw the entire state in jail. The problem is so widespread that they really can't do anything about it - even if they bill everyone people would owe so much and it would be so widespread that I wouldn't rule out local inflation.
 
Mackowitz said:
If you hear the tax people in California talk, it's their money and they are entitled to it, and we are law breakers, criminals, bad people, etc, etc, for not freely giving it all to them. Sales tax is near 10% in most counties here, but you'll only hear the Franchise Tax Board talk about how the problem is that Californians are trying to avoid it by shopping online. No one is willing to acknowledge that the real problem is that 10% is too darn high.
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^^^^ This
 
As much as I hate this, the sales taxes are the law. Just like speeding limits - yes it sucks when you get caught, but it is what it is. Participate in the system if you want to get it changed.
 
This can't be a good idea for retailers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I know if Florida were to implement something of this nature I would avoid shopping with retailers I knew were giving me up...
 
I wonder why....

A corporation manages to put a bunch of its holdings off shore (other financial jargon goes here) to avoid taxes and boo hiss, evil corporation.

A person manages to avoid sales tax by shopping online, knows they're doing it, and are required by state law to pay sales tax on out of state purchases, and all of a sudden the person is a martyr who's having his/her money stolen from them.

I'm sorry, regardless of the truth involved, but the whole "they should learn how to spend" argument is so old it's disintegrating. Blame the government for doing what governments do, blame the government for trying to collect taxes that legally it has the right to, blame the liberals, blame the socialists, blame everyone except the person who's trying to sidestep the taxes because they can save an extra 10 bucks.

Now with all that said, I really would like to see some numbers on this, if the amount of money they spend trying to get said information really would translate to that much additional tax revenue. Or if they'd end up spending more than they get.
 
Why can't that state just fall off the U.S. already? We'd be so much better off without it.
 
Dan_D said:
Why can't that state just fall off the U.S. already? We'd be so much better off without it.
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Because the rest of the country makes money off it? That said I would like to be an island nation, then sell all of our goods to the mainland for an extreme premium.


also from the article

The proposal states that “vendors have approached BOE staff to offer the sale of data on purchase transactions between out-of-state retailers and California consumers,”
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How about woe to the greedy companies wanting to sell this data, in fact the ones that actually pushed this whole thing in the first place. If this was a noble cause by the companies, why don't they just give that information to the state? Whoops, bad California it's all your fault for considering it!!
 
The only way to fix sales tax is to abolish and ban all state, county, city sales taxes and create a new 5% Federal sales tax that applies to all sales regardless of state and is rolled into the item cost up front.
 
Dan_D said:
Why can't that state just fall off the U.S. already? We'd be so much better off without it.
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You mean California would be so much better off without the red states leeching $28 billion a year off of us?

I agree!
 
they need to go to fair tax. ditch all current taxes, irs, sales, etc. charge 23% for all consumer purchases. Companies no longer need to hide their money offshore. It takes care if the illegals issue since they need to buy consumer goods. Gets rid of all the double and triple dipping the govt does. Gets rid of all the social engineering by taxation. What you make is what you get paid. All taxpayers also would get prebate checks to cover the taxes on the basic costs of living. So the poor would pay 0%. Our current tax system sucks.
 
They claim some outrageous $$$ taxes lost, but as soon as you force everyone to purchase at prices 5-10% higher locally + 8.25% more taxes, the volume of sales will drop drastically. Then after they've spent tons of $$$ on enforcement and overhead, they'll wonder why they've barely collected any additional taxes, and then increase it another 1% anyways in 2012/2013.
 
Ah, the siren herp derp song of the armchair economist. I see we already have the "reduce spending!" and "flat tax!" requirements met. Prediction: thread spawns a "but we have never had a FREE market!" rant within two pages.
 
jackler said:
This can't be a good idea for retailers. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot. I know if Florida were to implement something of this nature I would avoid shopping with retailers I knew were giving me up...
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Plus it's going to be pretty obvious which retailers sold your data when you get a bill saying - 'Hey you spent $XXX at XXX retailer and now owe us XXX in use tax.'
 
One more reason why I don't want to live in california anymore.
 
sfsuphysics said:
I wonder why....

A corporation manages to put a bunch of its holdings off shore (other financial jargon goes here) to avoid taxes and boo hiss, evil corporation.

A person manages to avoid sales tax by shopping online, knows they're doing it, and are required by state law to pay sales tax on out of state purchases, and all of a sudden the person is a martyr who's having his/her money stolen from them.
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I think people would be much more willing to pay if they were treated the same as corporations. If you could call a state and say - 'hey, I'll move there if you are willing to pay me, sure you lose out at first, but by me being in your state you come out ahead eventually, right?' and NOT get laughed at as an individual. Heck, you don't even need that $100 million tax break they get for 100 jobs created, you could make do with just 1 million for the 1 job you create.

Or how about not getting taxed on your federal taxs for any money spent? That's how companies work. If they bring in 100 million, but spend 90 million on things they want during the year, they only pay taxes on 10 million. You want to treat corporations and people the same, FINE, then a person should only have to pay taxes on what they didn't spend during the year. Sounds ridiculous right? Well that's because corporations and people are different - tax law treats them different, and society's expectations are different. THAT is why people react differently to hearing corporations hide things in other countries than they do when they hear people buy things online.
 
Ualdayan said:
I think people would be much more willing to pay if they were treated the same as corporations. If you could call a state and say - 'hey, I'll move there if you are willing to pay me, sure you lose out at first, but by me being in your state you come out ahead eventually, right?' and NOT get laughed at as an individual. Heck, you don't even need that $100 million tax break they get for 100 jobs created, you could make do with just 1 million for the 1 job you create.

Or how about not getting taxed on your federal taxs for any money spent? That's how companies work. If they bring in 100 million, but spend 90 million on things they want during the year, they only pay taxes on 10 million. You want to treat corporations and people the same, FINE, then a person should only have to pay taxes on what they didn't spend during the year. Sounds ridiculous right? Well that's because corporations and people are different - tax law treats them different, and society's expectations are different. THAT is why people react differently to hearing corporations hide things in other countries than they do when they hear people buy things online.
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I couldn't have said it better myself.
 
Geno750 said:
If by red states you mean Mexico and all of its illegal's living in Cali, I agree!
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No, I mean all the states who vote overwhelmingly Republican and claim to be for fiscal conservatism and against welfare; meanwhile they stay afloat from funds from blue states. Only Texas breaks this trend.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html

The funniest is Alaska - their ex-governor, who quits halfway through her term, is rabidly anti-socialism. This from the state that cuts checks to its citizens for a few grand each year from the oil companies, and is 3rd on the list on getting more money from the Fed than they pay in. :rolleyes:
 
Fershlugg said:
Thanks Captain Obvious. Way to contribute.
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I agree. I like your contribution where you said.. uh.. that you said.. um..

Wait, you didn't contribute either?

As for the topic, what are they going to do? Mail court summons to everyone in the damn state?
 
TwistedAegis said:
No, I mean all the states who vote overwhelmingly Republican and claim to be for fiscal conservatism and against welfare; meanwhile they stay afloat from funds from blue states. Only Texas breaks this trend.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html

The funniest is Alaska - their ex-governor, who quits halfway through her term, is rabidly anti-socialism. This from the state that cuts checks to its citizens for a few grand each year from the oil companies, and is 3rd on the list on getting more money from the Fed than they pay in. :rolleyes:
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Red states that are in the deep south have way higher poverty rates than the wealthy northeast.

Hey, there was no 9/11 before women were allowed to vote. Women voting caused 9/11. See I can say one thing caused another too!
 
computerpro3 said:
Don't worry, so is every citizen. They're not going to throw the entire state in jail. The problem is so widespread that they really can't do anything about it - even if they bill everyone people would owe so much and it would be so widespread that I wouldn't rule out local inflation.
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They won't throw you in jail, they will hit you with fines, penalties, and high interest rates until you own 2-3x as much, then they will take your tax refund and garnish you wages.


blindviper said:
But the taxes that dont get collected from illegal workers?
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They are in a protected group out here, so as long as they don't buy stuff on line they don't have to worry.


The Democrats out here California (they hold ever statewide elected office) are desperate. They've spent us into a hole, maxed out the credit cards, and driven too many tax paying businesses and people out of the state. There's no money left.
Unless they can find some new magical source of money, they are going to have to start throwing some of thier supporters under the bus. Brown has already sugested major cuts in services to the poor and disabled if he doen;t get his tax increased/extention approved. Guess the poor don't donate as much money as the unions, so they are out of luck.
 
TwistedAegis said:
No, I mean all the states who vote overwhelmingly Republican and claim to be for fiscal conservatism and against welfare; meanwhile they stay afloat from funds from blue states. Only Texas breaks this trend.

http://www.taxfoundation.org/taxdata/show/266.html

The funniest is Alaska - their ex-governor, who quits halfway through her term, is rabidly anti-socialism. This from the state that cuts checks to its citizens for a few grand each year from the oil companies, and is 3rd on the list on getting more money from the Fed than they pay in. :rolleyes:
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Looking at whole states is very misleading. I live in a very wealthy area of California (south orange county), that is also a very red area (overwhelmingly Republican).

With the exception of the Bay area (Silicon valley) The wealthy areas in California tend to be more Republican, while the poor areas tend be more Democrat.
 
nutzo said:
Looking at whole states is very misleading. I live in a very wealthy area of California (south orange county), that is also a very red area (overwhelmingly Republican).

With the exception of the Bay area (Silicon valley) The wealthy areas in California tend to be more Republican, while the poor areas tend be more Democrat.
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You mean like the extremely poor Los Angeles and Bay Area, and the swanky San Joaquin Valley? :rolleyes:
 
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