New Zealand adds 15% GST to (some) ebooks from today

[AnemicOak]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

As such, I'd suggest 12,000 is a vast underestimate of the number of different tax rates.

I'm just stating what the software makers say. Of course while all of those places can impose a sales tax a large number don't. The 9-12K number is for places that currently do.

[HarryT]

The US could always do what virtually every other country in the world does: have a single, national, rate of sales tax, which everybody pays on all transactions. It really does make things an awful lot simpler and would massively reduce the huge use tax fraud (because it would eliminate use tax).

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The US could always do what virtually every other country in the world does: have a single, national, rate of sales tax, which everybody pays on all transactions. It really does make things an awful lot simpler and would massively reduce the huge use tax fraud (because it would eliminate use tax).

Yeah.
That would fly.
Like a lead balloon.

The US has a compartmentalized tax system by design: money is raised where money is spent. It is a big country with big dfferences in cost of living so a uniform rate would either over-tax the low cost of living areas, under-tax and subsidize the expensive urban areas, or provide even more money for politicians to buy votes or waste or both. Total non-starter.

Nope.
Neither party wants it.
The left because sales taxes and VATs are regressive, weghing heavier upon the people with the lower incomes than the higher income folks. The right because they oppose taxes on principle and don't want to pour more money into bureaucratic money pits.

Edit: the US is a very big country with a free economy. This means that cost of living varies by 2-3x from the lowest to the highest regions. San Francisco cost of living is almost triple that of Nashville, Manhattan double that of Austin.

Here's one listing:

http://www.infoplease.com/business/e...us-cities.html

Plenty of others online.
The US doesn't do what other smaller, more homogeneous countries do because those "solutions" wouldn't work. It is bigger bigger and has a looser society that doesn't necessarily see the state as the best solution to problems. Rather it is recognized that often it is the mechanisms of state that are the problem.

Not alone in that.
But our "Brussels" is DC and seld-imposed.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by Solicitous

Not sure how they will enforce it. Be interesting to see how it goes.

The majors will comply. That's what happened when Japan changed its tax laws last year.
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...e-ebook-sales/
http://the-digital-reader.com/2015/0...nsumption-tax/

[theducks]

Originally Posted by Fiat_Lux

The usual case is that neither tax lines, nor physical addresses have been accurately translated into geographical co-ordinates.


Amber

To make matters worse, the average customer does not even know What Tax District they reside in (or the current rate, which is not much help as the tax must be marked by District when remitted to the DOR)


NB theducks did email order sales for 10 years. Some of the most complex (city level) schedules had no available centralized supporting documents (CSV or PDF files).

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yeah.
That would fly.
Like a lead balloon.

The US has a compartmentalized tax system by design: money is raised where money is spent. It is a big country with big dfferences in cost of living so a uniform rate would either over-tax the low cost of living areas, under-tax and subsidize the expensive urban areas, or provide even more money for politicians to buy votes or waste or both. Total non-starter.

Do you believe that the current system works well? The massive non-payment of use tax would seem to indicate that it doesn't; we even have people here claiming to be unaware that it even exists!

[kacir]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Yeah.
That would fly.
Like a lead balloon.

[Nate the great]

Originally Posted by kacir

Now we just need 98 more of them.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Do you believe that the current system works well? The massive non-payment of use tax would seem to indicate that it doesn't; we even have people here claiming to be unaware that it even exists!

Of course it works well.
Especially for taxpayers. Those that believe in tax-and-spend regimes get to put their own money where there mouths are and the rest...
Well, Non-payment of use tax is a valid form of civil disobedience.
And safe.

The assumption that government is rightfully entitled to all the citizen's money they choose to claim is not universally supported on this side of the pond. Never has been. You have heard about the Boston Tea Party and the Whiskey rebellion, right? Proposition 13? Rumrunners and moonshiners? Long history of stiffing Uncle Sam whenever possible. Use tax is simply the easiest and lowest risk way to do it today.

And use tax is far from the only tax that citizens choose to "not know about". Just ask New Yorkers about cigarrete smugglers. Or the effectiveness of sin taxes, which typically shift buyers to the nearest tax-free county. It's pretty common form of rebellion in a rebellious society.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

Of course it works well.
Especially for taxpayers. Those that believe in tax-and-spend regimes get to put their own money where there mouths are and the rest...
Well, Non-payment of use tax is a valid form of civil disobedience.
And safe.

The assumption that government is rightfully entitled to all the citizen's money they choose to claim is not universally supported on this side of the pond. Never has been. You have heard about the Indian Tea Party and the Whiskey rebellion, right? Rumrunners and moonshiners? Long history of stiffing Uncle Sam whenever possible. Use tax is simply the easiest and lowest risk way to do it.

And use tax is far from the only tax that citizens choose to "not know about". Just ask New Yorkers about cigarrete smugglers. Or the effectiveness of sin taxes, which typically shift buyers to the nearest tax-free county. It's pretty common form of rebellion in a rebellious society.

In the days before the net, I'd hold off buying big ticket items until I visited friends in Portland. That way, I avoided paying sales tax. Washington has a sales tax and Oregon doesn't.

[theducks]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

In the days before the net, I'd hold off buying big ticket items until I visited friends in Portland. That way, I avoided paying sales tax. Washington has a sales tax and Oregon doesn't.

I can see it now:
A Monkey hitchn' with a Viking (range) on its back.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by sherman

I believe what brought the current situation to a head was Netflix entering the NZ market (hence the reason for labeling it the 'Netflix Tax'). Basically, Netflix markets to NZers, charges us in NZD, and has a content catalogue specific to NZ. Yet when they arrived, they outright stated in public that as an international company they no obligation to charge GST, so they didn't.

Needless to say, the local alternative, Lightbox (itself very new to market) cried "Hang on a minute...!!", and as they say, the rest is history.

And for those crying "They should absorb the cost rather than complain!", 15% is not an insignificant amount to absorb, especially for what I imagine could be a fairly low margin business to begin with (if you aren't a big multinational anyway).

Just for clarity for others (as I expect you are probably aware of this), Netflix will increase its charges to NZ subscribers by around 15% from end of October.

And, of course, Lightbox is free to many, perhaps most, subscribers so no GST involved at all there (however, quite a small selection of material).

Adding more:

NZ subscription charges for content can, of course be bypassed by using a VPN for a US Netflix subscription, say, which has become illegal if done for the purposes of allowing the "evasion" (evasion in "" because it is not in fact evasion as foreign suppliers are not subject to NZ tax legislation) but a common view is that, based on past behaviour, the Revenue should be expected to have bigger fish to fry than hunting down Mums and Dads using VPN which may be depriving the Revenue of a couple of dollars a month.

In the end it has been that (until relatively recently, I have not checked for a while) a NZ Netflix subscription was cheaper than a US one, so most VPN subscriber's interest was in the far greater selection of material from a US subscription and not for cost reasons; it may turn out, in the unlikely event it is tested (and it is something I have not looked into), that a US VPN subscription taken by a NZ resident for the purpose of access to greater content may be immune from any charge under tax legislation??

[John F]

Originally Posted by HarryT

The US could always do what virtually every other country in the world does: have a single, national, rate of sales tax, which everybody pays on all transactions. It really does make things an awful lot simpler and would massively reduce the huge use tax fraud (because it would eliminate use tax).

Don't most coutries have more than a single rate. I googled germany and the UK, and they each had 3 rates?

[Phogg]

Originally Posted by Nate the great

Now we just need 98 more of them.

Everyone is Captain Kirk.

Would 99 lead balloons be enough to fill a lead zepplin?

[Dopedangel]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The law dates to the 90's and was intended to foster widespread commercial internet use by treating internet commerce like mail order: no tax without a physical presence. This, combined with the commerce clause of the constitution and past Supreme Court precedents render most of the so-called "Amazon" laws unconstitutional: states simply do not have the power to tax out-of-state companies selling to their residents or force them to be tax collectors for the state.

Whether the state is "losing" hypothetical revenues is irrelevant.
It's not as if they *own* the residents and can charge for access to their pocketbooks, though many politicians in and out of Congress act as if they do and portray not-raising-taxes as "cutting taxes". Americans aren't that close to serfdom.
Yet.

It is just not about loosing sales tax revenue. If local stores become uncompetitive the businesses shut down area jobs go away with no jobs people move away and the city or town dies.

Sent from my SM-G925I using Tapatalk