Quote:
Originally Posted by tubemonkey
That's a different ball of wax and my position on taxing is that online purchases should be taxed. The rate should be the same as retail stores within the postal code of the delivery address. That way, no one has a tax advantage.
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Generally, such purchases ARE taxed, even under the current system.
The issue is not whether to tax them or not, but whether the seller--based in some other jurisdiction--can be forced to collect the taxes for the governments involved (local, state, national, whatever), pay them to the appropriate bodies, and report everything in some specific format.
In the meantime, governments do not seem to be doing much to collect those taxes from the purchasers.
If tubemonkey's solution was applied, I predict a new businesses and business models springing up: special delivery addresses in low-tax locations, lower product prices but higher shipping fees, prepaid untaxed memberships (think Amazon Prime) that unlock "free" goods, etc.
It used to be you could control the population and charge merchants for access to a market. As our transportation and information technologies advance, taxes look more and more like arbitrary confiscation instead.