For the last three years, the US ecommerce community has operated largely tax-free. The moratorium, which stems from a Supreme Court decision banning states from collecting taxes against corporations without a physical presence within the state, has allowed the Internet commerce market to grow and mature far more quickly than any tax burden would allow.
Congress knows it, Wall Street knows it, the American people know it.
There are also a couple of other things that everyone knows about shopping on the Internet. Shipping costs are still outrageous. Order forms still crash. Some companies charge taxes to appease attorneys general. Some companies charge taxes illegally with the intent to pocket the extra change.
State and local governments believe they have a right to tax anyone and anything. Look at your cellular phone bill for confirmation of this accusation. They are already nickel and dimeing the American taxpayer to death and now they want to add Internet services to their list of King George III unrepresentative taxes.
Nobody free of special interest wants Internet taxes. They are complete nonsense. For millions of people, it would be tantamount to getting charged for driving every month. The Internet is a very integral part of people’s lives for staying the Hell out of God-forsaken shopping malls.
Any tax on the Internet is a punishment for being a minority. In a department store where salesman have idiotic preconceived ideas about who is a customer worth helping, who has money or who won’t “waste their time” asking questions about particular products, the Internet eliminates all of those issues. An Internet shopper can be a who they are without the racist, panphobic nature of retail help.
The arguments against Internet taxes are plentiful. The only arguments for Internet tax revolves around the concept of state and local governments “losing money” because of Internet.
States, like nations are completely obsolete and should be abolished. Unfortunately, we have to deal with the concept of nations and states. In terms of the US Constitution, however, there is no mention of local governments and, as such, local governments should be removed from a debate that is decidedly national. As a matter of justice, local governments should be removed from existence altogether.
So we’re left with deciding the right of the state to tax companies registered in other states. They don’t have that right. They have never have that right. They should never be granted that right. For Congress to allow the Internet taxation moratorium to lapse is a decision of complete short-sightedness.
An Internet purchase already exceeds 9 percentage points or more over buying the same product in a physical location. If Congress is willing to give tacit approval for Internet taxation, they should do everyone a favor by helping to alleviate shipping costs. Without something to mitigate the rapid rise in the cost of net shopping, Congress will kill a vulnerable industry.
No taxation without representation. Let your Congressman know about it.
