I just heard that there is a bill in the senate that will force all online retailers to pay sales tax, regardless if they operate in that state. This is wrong for a few reasons:
- Online retailers are at a disadvantage to traditional stores because of shipping fees. Local stores usually do not have to worry about these added fees during a purchase.
- Online retailers sell items tend to be cheaper than local stores. Part of of the reasons might be that in order to compensate for the time it takes to receive your purchase, the buyer has to be enticed to save a few bucks in the process. Otherwise, you might as well go to the store, right?
- Local stores play the game of increasing prices on personal items that consumers NEED to have. For example, shaving blades. You either don’t shave for 3 days, or you bite the bullet and buy it in the store even though it costs more.
- Local stores, such as Best Buy, mark-up prices for HDMI cables to $50+ dollars so uninformed consumers overpay for something that can be bought online for $5 dollars. You expect me to feel sorry for local chains when they behave like this? Then they offer extended warranties on TVs that are meaningless? I don’t think so.
- And finally, the online sales tax “loophole” as some people have described it, is the ONLY loophole that us common folk can use. Members of Congress and other big corporations use many tax loopholes so they end up paying less taxes or no taxes than people making $50,000. These will never be closed because it benefits them. I smell hypocracy.
Before you start taxing all online retailers, you might want to look at forcing ALL companies that operate in the United States to pay corporate taxes. Or should the 99% continue to be screwed over?