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posted by chromas on Tuesday April 02 2019, @01:50AM   Printer-friendly
from the death,-taxes,-and-'this-causes-cancer-in-the-state-of-California' dept.

New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo, who is currently unhampered by the constraints of two party rule, has announced details of the state's new budget plan.

Some highlights include:

  • Drivers into busy sections of Manhattan will pay a 'congestion charge'
  • Single use plastic bags banned across the state
  • Closure of up to three state prisons
  • Eliminating cash bail for misdemeanor and nonviolent felony arrests
  • A permanent 2% cap on local property taxes
  • Increase in Public Education funding by 1bn
  • A new 'Mansion Tax' on homes over $25 million
  • A new internet sales tax on market providers

The Internet Sales Tax will affect companies that are marketplace providers no matter where they are located that have more than 100 sales and over $300k in total sales in the past year to New Yorkers.

The tax will

require third-party retail sites – like Amazon, eBay and Etsy – to collect and remit sales taxes when a buyer in New York purchases something from a retailer on their site. The measure would make marketplace providers collect New York state sales tax at its normal rate of 4 percent plus local sales tax, which varies based on location – such as 4.5 percent for New York City, or 4 percent for some upstate counties.

Similar measures have been blocked in previous years by groups such as tax-averse Republicans, The New York Conference of Mayors and Municipal Officials (NYCOM) and the New York Association of Towns.

Constraints on internet taxation were clarified in a recent supreme court ruling which determined "that states may collect taxes on internet sales even when the purchases are made from out-of-state retailers" making new taxes like this inevitable.

While New Yorkers will pay additional tax on purchases, adding state and multitudes of different local sales taxes on purchases is going increase costs on these sites, which will be passed on to sellers and inevitably purchasers as well.

Currently 19 states do not collect internet sales taxes, and 5 (Alaska, Delaware, Montana, New Hampshire, and Oregon) do not collect sales tax at all.

State Internet Sales Tax guide here.


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 02 2019, @12:12PM (8 children)

    This all strikes me as highly questionable since you and your business are located entirely outside of my town, county, and state's legitimate jurisdiction.

    Yeah, that's been bothering me as well. An Internet business in say, Delaware, can thumb its nose at the EU with impunity more or less but has to put up with NY and CA's every moronic law? What the shit?

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 2) by sjames on Tuesday April 02 2019, @07:07PM (5 children)

    by sjames (2882) on Tuesday April 02 2019, @07:07PM (#823744) Journal

    Once upon a time, the various state and local tax laws placed the onus on the buyer resident in the jurisdiction to report internet and mail order purchases and pay the tax in cases where the seller had no presence in the jurisdiction. That was fair enough, but the rate of reporting was near zero.

    Of course, it is reasonable enough to require companies with an actual physical presence in the jurisdiction to abide by the laws of that jurisdiction. But these laws being applied outside of their jurisdiction really needs to go.

    At most, it might be reasonable for the Federal government to pass a law with a SINGLE sales tax with a SINGLE set of rules and a SINGLE place to send the money and the states can fight it out among themselves from there.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday April 02 2019, @11:16PM (1 child)

      s/and the states.*/and the states can cry in the corner while congress spends their money./

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:33AM

        by sjames (2882) on Wednesday April 03 2019, @12:33AM (#823872) Journal

        That would be between the states and the feds. At least it wouldn't be a violation of jurisdiction affecting businesses across the country.

    • (Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Wednesday April 03 2019, @03:03PM (2 children)

      by Muad'Dave (1413) on Wednesday April 03 2019, @03:03PM (#824103)

      Once upon a time, the various state and local tax laws placed the onus on the buyer resident in the jurisdiction to report internet and mail order purchases and pay the tax in cases where the seller had no presence in the jurisdiction. That was fair enough, but the rate of reporting was near zero.

      That is still the case in Virginia - they call it the "Consumer's Use Tax" [virginia.gov].

      I don't mind paying it, but I'm not a fan of doing it this way from a constitutional POV. They're asking me to store records and provide them with the evidence they need to fine me if they think I've cheated, with no verifiable data of their own.

      Also, the VA tax form (at least in H&R Block Tax Cut) is worded such that they want to know the sum of ALL food- and non-food purchases you've made, NOT just those that did not have Va sales tax charged at the time of sale.

      Although it's a burden on the seller, I'd rather all sellers collect and remit the sales tax and be done with the self-incriminating 'Use Tax'.

      • (Score: 2) by sjames on Wednesday April 03 2019, @06:09PM (1 child)

        by sjames (2882) on Wednesday April 03 2019, @06:09PM (#824179) Journal

        I can see the preference, but why should the state of Virginia have any ability to demand all of that from a potentially small company in California that has a tough enough time knowing and following all of the local laws where it actually is?

        If I have to obey Virginia law when I don't even live in Virginia, I'll be demanding my absentee ballot come election time.

        • (Score: 2) by Muad'Dave on Thursday April 04 2019, @11:08AM

          by Muad'Dave (1413) on Thursday April 04 2019, @11:08AM (#824420)

          I agree with you. Perhaps the right answer would be to only allow the seller's state to collect it's own sales tax on all sales regardless of where they're shipped. That would encourage competition among the states for businesses seeking lower costs of doing business.

          Or maybe the states could get together and all charge a uniform 'external shipping' tax that they could reconcile once a year based on destination.

          Or maybe drop the idea of squeezing every bit of blood from us turnips altogether. Nah, that'd never happen.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:15AM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday April 13 2019, @05:15AM (#828880)

    JSON/XML based standardized taxation tables, starting at the national level, and providing links to every state/province, county, city, and special taxation zone, with lists of all area codes or geographic boundary coordinates (in GPS or another useful format) to help all business software have a standardized method of determining and updating taxes across national and international borders.

    Really, unless governments are willing to do this, they are just trying to indirectly stop online sales, which won't work, and will simply inconvenience their constituents even as more business shifts away from local businesses who provide no value over the remotely purchased goods, since they are just buying and marking up those goods anyway, instead of finding a way for local goods and services to trump the cheap and shoddily made foreign goods, or improve local goods to the same cost or quality as foreign goods.

    • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:00AM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday April 13 2019, @11:00AM (#828931) Homepage Journal

      That's actually a really good idea, if you leave out the XML part. It would need to allow for tax-free period rules and allow for excluding categories of products as well but it'd be an honest to Thor legitimate use of the commerce clause to mandate localities/states contribute their data to it and keep their entries updated if they want to charge sales tax on remote purchases.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.