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The rise of internet dealing has over the past decade and a half given the trade in antiquities a totally new dynamic and form. Over on Tim Haines' closed-access Yahoo "AncientArtifacts" discussion list members are being urged to sign a petition to reject a US law, called the Main Street Fairness Act, which would mean that online traders will be penalised for not paying sales taxes like bricks and mortar small businesses and thus by avoiding these surcharges undercutting their prices:On July 1, a bill was introduced in the United States House of Representatives that would impose complex sales tax collecting requirements on internet retailers and entrepreneurs, including our eBay sellers. If passed, HR 5660, the so-called, "Main Street Fairness Act," would require small online retailers to comply with varying and regularly changing sales tax rules and rates for thousands of tax jurisdictions, and to collect and remit sales taxes from each customer. This new sales tax scheme would be extremely burdensome and costly to small online retailers like you who have set up shop on the internet. A similar bill is expected to be introduced in the Senate as well. [...] Please join our effort to stop the passage of this anti-small business bill. In three minutes or less, you can sign this petition urging your lawmakers to protect small, online retailers [...] Together we can make a difference!So the no-questions-asked dealers in dugup antiquities already want to avoid being subject to laws concerning legal imports, now they want to avoid paying the same taxes as other sellers just because they do it over the Internet.
Note the use of emotive phrases like: "complex sales tax collecting requirements", "varying and regularly changing sales tax rules and rates for thousands of tax jurisdictions", "extremely burdensome and costly to small online retailers", like they are no doubt to high street stores already which do comply, which is presumably why they want laws to prevent the internet cowboys undercutting them. If law abiding shop keepers are paying the taxes, why should other traders ignore these laws? That is simply unfair competition.
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4 comments:
they always seem to think they can keep finding new tricks up their sleaves... depressing.
It is quite obvious that these people think the laws which apply to others for some reason simply do not apply to them.
Nice post.
We agree with your position, and the proposed legislation.
Bricks-and-mortar businesses are required to collect Sales tax. They compete directly with online sellers in many cases (indeed, many of them are selling online in conjunction with their foot-traffic sales). Sales tax introduces a price disparity that hurts local businesses. State and local sales taxes are voted on by local voters (or indirectly by the politicians that local voters put into office). Their intent is to collect money based on purchases, and use those funds to pay for local services such as police, fire, parks etc. Now that more business occurs online, those intended revenues have rapidly dwindled.
In our opinion the Main Street Fairness Act is simply modernizing existing legislation to catch up with the reality that so much business is now being conducted online.
As you point out in your posting, the argument is often made that collecting taxes for so many localities would be a huge burden for online sellers. This argument presents a bit of a paradox, as typically the ones making this argument are the same people who are already taking advantage of significant technologies to manage sales, auctions, inventories, real-time-shipping, and even geographically targeted marketing efforts. Could managing local sales tax be so much more challenging? The answer, of course, is no.
Our company, FedTax.net, offers a service named TaxCloud which is completely free to online retailers, and manages all local sales tax calculation, reporting, and remittance. TaxCloud has also been certified to comply with the Streamlined Sales Tax Agreement, which means that these states have verified that TaxCloud accurately calculates the tax due for any transaction in the US. TaxCloud also offers merchants advantages in terms of tax amnesty and tax indemnification from States that participate in the Streamlined Sales Tax initiative.
Thank you.
R. David L. Campbell
Chief Executive
The Federal Tax Authority (FedTax.net)
Well, the thought about their use of the technology also struck me.
The truth is as far as dealers in antiquities are concerned, "managing" any kind of information (such as where the items they sell came from) seems a bit too much of an effort.
I'd also like to point out that while they hide away their deliberations in closed-access discussion lists where people like yourselves cannot see them, then we all miss out on the ability to hear other points of view - but I guess that is what these guys are after.
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