Make Internet Sales Fair Act [On the President's Desk]

[Marokai Backbeat]

I know alot of people may initially read this and think "Oh, Christ, what a needless tax" but consider:

The internet is not a fledgling market in the way it was 10 years ago anymore. More and more, people are purchasing from the internet to do a larger and larger percentage of their shopping. The problem is, the internet is still a bit of untouched territory when it comes to taxes. Some might consider this a good thing, but it places an extreme burden on small and local businesses.

One has little to no incentive to purchase locally when all the products you could buy out of state are virtually untaxed. Some larger internet businesses are able to offer their products at very low prices to eat up the competition, with virtually no taxes on them. Some internet businesses even offer low to no shipping costs depending on where you buy from.

This is great for internet businesses that already have very low operating costs, but not so great for smaller businesses who have to pay for space and, in all likelihood, more employees, all the while trying to compete against a market that has no sales tax on it.

As a customer, what would you do?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Why not just make the buyer pay the sales tax from the state of the seller? Actually, for precedence on this matter, if I were to buy something from a mail-order catalog based in another state, what sales tax (if any) would I pay? Internet sales tax should sync with standard interstate sales laws.

I would have no problem with that.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Why not just make the buyer pay the sales tax from the state of the seller? Actually, for precedence on this matter, if I were to buy something from a mail-order catalog based in another state, what sales tax (if any) would I pay? Internet sales tax should sync with standard interstate sales laws.

The problem with that is that sellers will concentrate in states without sales tax. It would be better for the buyer to pay the sales tax of the buyer's state.

That is actually a far superior solution. Good thinking.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If anyone would formally propose such an amendment, since others have not decided to amend this as of yet..

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Also, i'd like to note, that Atlasia is not in some sort of depressionary spiral. We've taken serious, robust measures at improving the economy directly and indirectly and we continue to do so. Atlasia's economic fortunes are not nearly as bad as those in the 'real world' so I hardly think that bringing internet sales in line with regional sales taxes would cause some sort of economic catastrophe.

We also made a massive income tax bracket restructuring just months ago. This did not cause disaster.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I oppose this for a variety of reasons which have already been stated.

You oppose this because you hate taxes. Let's just be honest.

No drastic consequences have come about from our efforts in restructuring income tax brackets. I have a hard time believing simply bringing internet sales in line with regional sales tax rates (of which I don't even think there is any in your region) will cause something terrible to happen. You're defending a situation wherein local and small businesses are disadvantaged against big internet businesses on grounds that are not realistic.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The second clause is watered down unnecessarily. That still burdens small and local businesses with a built-in disadvantage. I don't even understand why the change was necessary, as I figure all the votes were here to pass it anyway. Why water things down when you most definitely don't have to?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Well unfortunately I have absolutely no ability to stop what you're doing so have at it.

[Marokai Backbeat]

It'd be a step forward regardless, just more of a babystep than I'd hoped.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm still not convinced but I change my vote to

AYE