Looks like another money grab scheme.

Orwellian naming as usual.

Marketplace Fairness is not forcing me to buy from localized monopoly chains by penalizing me for taking advantage of "fair market" capitalism to force companies to compete, and reward the better one. Of course, NAFTA is okay and even subsidized and corporations won't be "hit", this is just another means to attach costs to making choices to prevent choices from being made. Using prices, wages and taxes the poor can be ensured to be poor forever.

This started with the laws aimed at buying out of state/country cigarettes/alcohol. As some regions began using "punishment taxes" to regulate the impact of "bad habits" on the poor only, the poor responded by going to other places, using competition in the free market. Does this value only apply to corporations now? If these taxes were designed to have equal impact, the "punishment tax", or as Indiana calls it, the "Sin Tax" would scale with income to ensure that rich people are "just as restricted" from smoking/drinking as poor people.

To keep people down, laws were made and proposed ever since to penalize everything, including choice. If my locality only has monopoly chains I don't want to buy from and way overpriced crappy mom-and-pop stores who are just as bad, yet 2 miles to my east in Ohio, I can instead buy from a different seller, why shouldn't I? Punishing me for that reduces the choices I can make.

If my city decides to impose taxes against a product, and I can avoid the tax the next town over, then I should be allowed to make a choice and not be punished for it. If my town makes a law against R-Rated Video Games, the government shouldn't be able to stop Steam from selling me a game with adult content, and they shouldn't be allowed to punish me for using steam rather than going to EB Games, the only place in town (which I won't shop at).

One precedent this could lead to is city/county taxes being added to the penalties, so that if you go to the next town over to eat at a restaurant, get some gas and watch a movie, you have to pay city and county taxes. No surprise that all of these laws target citizen commerce and not corporate commerce, regulate humans but not the market.

I wish I were a corporation, because I would have more rights than I do as a human.

However I will wait to put gas in the car, until I am going to another town where I can get it cheaper then in my town. Sometimes local businesses charge more for things, well often they do.

What if:

a. The price is cheaper online, and you're on a fixed income (or not).

b. The object isn't on sale except through (say) Newegg, and you like the price... but then tax is added and it becomes less of a deal?

If you buy online prices should be lower, ideally. Brick and mortar (local) prices are generally higher (inventory, rent, etc.). Then, local taxes are added to the goods on the net... why? The business is say in L.A. (California), the goods are from whatever factory in whichever state.

Whose tax gets applied? The tax where YOU are. That goes against all common sense, and will cause the states where the businesses are to charge as well... then you get a vicious cycle.

The solution lies in providing services which have proved themselves, shrinking non-productive jobs (like government), and lowering taxes to stimulate the economy... which will provide monies via job creation.

I also don't like hasty legislation. It rarely works as imagined.

We don't pay legislators by the amount of legislation they produce, so why not take the time to do it right?

Make sense?

Dave, I'm not exactly sure why a state is entitled to tax a whole lot of what it taxes... other than to rake in money.

This expansion of even current policy without adequate discussion goes beyond what I'm tolerant of. An argument could be made for a Federal tax as well, seeing it's interstate (in some cases) commerce (for the sake of discussion).

Since the internet is "stateless" in essence, should any tax be levied at all? What's to prevent An unrelated state to ask for a cut... after all, it's tied to the internet too (all just for the sake of discussion).

Theoretically, there's no end to it... and it will cause an inflationary competition for tax monies. I'll guarantee one thing: It'll give the politicians more monies to buy voter blocks with those monies.

VAT? That means a Value Added Tax, yes?

And just what value is being added? Not being sarcastic nor critical of you, Dave.

I'm asking the question because I can't see what of "value" is being added.

By definition, A VAT or GST (goods and services tax) is "a tax on the estimated market value added to a product or material at each stage of its manufacture or distribution, ultimately passed on to the consumer."

So, if it's software, where's the "each stage"... alphas, betas etc.? Who defines the "stages". I bet it's the guys who are telling you how much you owe. 

Just another way to rake in money to inflate government, depress commerce and the economy and take money from you and me. Oh, they'll give you a long list of "programs" and "services" that are being supported. How about cutting off the pork, fat and waste and leaving the money with the wage earner to put away for his/her kids, retirement, investments, etc.

Bet that'd help the economy a lot more... especially if they had a "Suze Orman" course in schools each year, so kids could learn financial responsibility...

Look at the source for this post.  Right-wing news outlet preaching fear.  This is a bill designed to empower states to enforce existing tax laws regarding sales tax.  Dave has highlighted some of this already but this is simply forcing all companies to play by the same rules regarding "use" taxes.  Online businesses do have an advantage over brick and mortar shops (both small local business and the mega corps).  There's nothing inherently wrong with that but there is also nothing wrong with making it possible for a state to enforce its existing tax statutes.  

People pay taxes everyday.  That money makes society function.  That's the agreement our forefathers made with the government they created.  

You really ought to look at that one sentence at a time... The fact that people pay endless taxes everyday doesn't justify the taxes. "That money makes society function." Not really... what makes society function is commerce, and a mutually agreed upon medium of exchange. Your tax money pays for a lot of other things... especially debt from money borrowed for not great reasons.

As for the agreements made by our forefathers, government has exceeded them decades ago... without asking for our agreement.

But not "Right-wing publication preaching sense." Being Conservative or Right-wing isn't a curse, you know.

Interesting read. I found this really good:

"The National Conference of State Legislatures reckons that the court’s prohibition cost states $23 billion in lost taxes last year."

As if they were entitled to that... lol. The court said there had to be a physical nexus unless the Congress legislated different. That's what this is all about... and why it's a rush job... a grab for money to fund programs which don't work continue to operate.

I like Doc's wrong interpretation of the bill, that would actually be the sensible way to do things.

Sales taxes are collected based on the point of sale for a reason.  Your point of sale isn't the chair your ass is sitting on, it's the warehousing complex that ships you your goods.  The only thing that sees your locality is the truck it's delivered on.  Said truck is paying the same fuel taxes everyone else is to maintain the roadways it's using.  The place of business is not.  It uses the local power grid and waterways, pumps it's sewage into the local sewers, and partakes of the local emergency services when a problem arises.  It's employees that are also using said services also partake of them locally.  The costs on society are all at the location of the business, it's theft for another state to be stealing the gains from their economic activity.  It's also unconstitutional, but they've been wiping their asses with that particular document long enough that it's probably not even occurred to them that this bill violates one of the primary requirements of congress.

The idea that that would make everyone tax more is quite the farce.  What would happen is Amazon would immediately vacate it's high tax state and go somewhere sane.  Amazon can relocate just fine, millions of people can't.

Enforcing the sales tax on you even when you're shopping somewhere else is just the nature of politicians.  They're scum sucking little ass wipes that will do anything to blow more of your money buying power.  Buying somewhere else is a check on your locality's ability to screw you.  They're just upset because it's getting easy enough that they'll have to stop reaming people eventually.  They like how easy it is to get away with absurdly high sales taxes.  People piss and moan about how much the Feds are hosing them for, but the local governments are often screwing them out of just as much in sales taxes they'll bleeding vote for.

From this article, 1st paragraph (thanks for the link by the way):

http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2013/04/e-commerce

"if enacted, would allow states to collect taxes on sales by internet retailers based in other states."

I understand this to mean that Amazon etc would collect sales tax from the customers based on the states in which the customers are located and remit to those states accordingly.  It would not matter where Amazon is.

I agree with UTPriest that the issue is not whether or not states are "allowed" or "entitled" to collect sales tax on orders shipped in.  The issue is whether or not states are allowed to require out of state retailers to collect and remit sales taxes for and to those states (and audit accordingly).  Since this particular issue has already been addressed by the Supreme Court I would have to say that The Supreme Court's findings should stand until revisited and reversed.  In that regard I'm in agreement with the Doc - I long ago grew tired of legislatures ignoring and sidestepping the Supreme Court based upon the desires of the day, regardless of which side of the fence is doing it.  The Supreme Court is there for a reason and it's an integral part of the process.

So there's my take on it, and it's worth almost as much as the cyber-bytes it occupies.

And after that nice little speech I now absorb this from the 2nd paragraph of the same link:

"In 1992 the Supreme Court ruled that states could not force out-of-state retailers to collect tax on sales to residents unless Congress, which oversees interstate commerce, said so."

That's exactly what they're trying to do, isn't it.  I warned you that my little speech was worth almost as much as the cyber-bytes occupied.

If anybody actually wants to read it, here you go:

http://www.marketplacefairness.org/bill-text/

Another liberal run at money.  All that will do is force the company to another country.

Indeed, Uvah. That would be logical... if he were physically there. He isn't, however. Therefore this really needs discussion, and it shouldn't start with the premise

"There has to be a tax". It could start with the premise, "Taxes will depress commerce and the economy. Therefore, how can we AVOID taxes." That, however seems to have escaped notice, and it's no surprise since it would mean getting efficient, stopping pork and reforming election law and funding of politicians.

The system has a bias which is in the end, self defeating.